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The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

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Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#291

Post by Grimburger »

alephnerd wrote: post #227
Grimburger wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems a somewhat dramatised account? The Malayan emergency response had the solid backing of the west and was essentially just a continuation of the cold war across the region at the time, it's definitely a lot deeper than just zoning laws and is rooted in a decades long civil war with communist insurgents. There's absolutely no reason we in the Anglosphere couldn't emulate the HDB system and bringing up cold wa…

I'm responding to OP's comment on eminent domain. Eminent Domain in the US is a de facto nonstarter based on past recent litigation. The HDB programs in both SG and HK were able to succeed thanks to strong eminent domain laws by governments not immediately beholden to public sentiment. It was the right call, but one that can't be done in the US circa 2023. Also, Coldstone was after the Malayan Emergency and after SG…

It was just after the insurgency ended but there was definitely a massive pushback on anything even slightly communist/socialist running through both countries that still exists to this day. Singapore was a very new country at the time and despite the split with Malaysia the two were pretty much in lockstep and highly integrated on issues like the emergency/civil war.

Both countries were basically expecting it to break out again for decades after.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#292

Post by turdprincess »

jongjong wrote: post #16

Part of the problem is government regulation. In some places, it's almost impossible to build new houses due to regulations. Some portion of the population wants to see house prices continue to increase and they will vote for politicians who will implement policies which will support that agenda. Of course this happens at the expense of another, also large portion of the population who do not own a house and have to…

Curious - which individuals benefit from housing values rising? It seems like if you own a home, and it gets more expensive, you have more money on paper, but how do you benefit from that? If you sell your house and buy another, you wont make more money - your profit theoretically wouldn't change. Same with selling and renting if rents are going up as well.

Is it primarily then people who invest in real estate outside of their primary home?

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#293

Post by anthonypasq »

IKantRead wrote: post #258
zemvpferreira wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bizarre idea contrary to how many housing affordability crisis were actually solved in the past. Would SF's housing prices go down if you were to build 10,000 new units? You're right, probably not that much. Would SF's housing prices go down if you were to build 1M new units? No doubt. Shenzhen grew from 100,000 people in the 1980s to 13M now with no housing affordability crisis...by building. The whole pea…

> Shenzhen grew from 100,000 people in the 1980s to 13M now with no housing affordability crisis...by building. I wouldn't use China as an example of solving the housing problem by simply building. There's currently a large oversupply problem [0] and, not entirely unlike the US (but more extreme), excess supply of housing has lead to people simply owning more than one property as an investment strategy. 0. https://ww…

yeah thats because the building was centrally planned, which is always a worse choice than just allowing the market to work itself out. It doesnt detract from the mind numbingly obvious statement that increasing supply decreases prices.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#294

Post by esarbe »

robertlagrant wrote: post #266
esarbe wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What make you assume that this is the case or that the data I linked to would answer that question?

> What make you assume that this is the case or that the data I linked to would answer that question? I assumed you posted the link and said "look at the data" as it had some data with some bearing on what I was saying.

Ah, I think I got your question now; you mean to ask; "What makes you think that all that wealth is not rightly earned by the rich people. They are producing value, that's why they are rich."

At least that my interpretation, let me know if I got that wrong.

Sure, let's have a look at

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwar...

We can assume that industrious, ingenious people with the will to to greatness come from all parts of society equally. If productivity and ingenuity were the driver of wealth, we would conclude that throughout all economic layers of society, we have a constant percentage of people that are getting richer, i.e. that they get to earn more value than their parents.

If we look at the date we see that this was roughly the case for the 1940ies cohort. With each next cohort, people from lower-income households not only have a lower chance of moving up the socioeconomic ladder, but also a reduced share of total wealth.

At the same time you see agglutination of wealth in the upper levels of society.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-08/top-1-ear...

Go figure.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#295

Post by fnimick »

rootusrootus wrote: post #270
fnimick wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building regulations yes, zoning regulations no. There's a community near me that has enormous housing shortages and yet they maintain a 1 acre minimum lot per single family house only to "preserve character". Does that sound like a safety issue to you?

That sounds very unique, to the point of implausibility. Any community with a 1 acre minimum lot by definition doesn't have anything like an enormous housing shortage. That's rural density.

You're right, the solution has been fixed as of this April (which I didn't realize until I went looking - thank you!) But up until then, Lexington had a huge housing shortage and skyrocketing prices, with strictly enforced zoning which basically banned all new housing construction. Teachers in the local schools were looking at a housing situation where prices started at around 30x their annual salaries.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/04/13/business/with-high-co...

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#296

Post by enragedcacti »

nemo44x wrote: post #151
jmyeet wrote: post #139

I don't wish homelessness upon anyone but you have to recognize that it was the baby boomers that created this situation. We, as a society, are desensitized to state violence. The state withholding basic necessities so a few can profit is state violence. In the wealthiest country on Earth there is absolutely no justification for anyone not having shelter and adequate food and water. The homeowners who vote in these w…

Adequate food and water and shelter is available to everyone. We spend billions on it every year. People choose not to access it either due to mental illness, drug/alcohol addiction, or some other antisocial or personal reason. And although there’s help for those issues I’d agree more could be done, especially for the vast numbers of mentally ill that walk amongst us. We do have a safety net though. You are advocatin…

> Adequate food and water and shelter is available to everyone.

How do you square this with things like the huge reductions in childhood food insufficiency we saw with the expanded child tax credit? Presumably if all these food insecure parents were rejecting the wealth of free food for their children because they couldn't use it to buy drugs wouldn't they just use the CTC to buy drugs?

https://www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/publication/2021/expa...

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#298

Post by mcv »

volkl48 wrote: post #220
voidwtf wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the beginning of 2020, yes. Even the delayed statistics appear to support my anecdotal evidence. However, thanks to Publix sending receipts to my email account I can provide a more concrete example. Kellogg’s Fruit Loops “Family Size” 01/16/2020 21oz $4.79 ~$0.23/oz Today 18.4oz $8.59 ~$0.47/oz So yea, over a 100% increase…

I will point out that this example of inflation seems to be mostly just price gouging by the big brands. I've seen a similar price increase in the branded cereals, so I am not disagreeing with you in that sense. -------- However, the store brand cereals, which are cheaper, haven't really gone up at all. At this point the branded product is more than double the unit cost of the store/no-name brand version in my local…

> I will point out that this example of inflation seems to be mostly just price gouging by the big brands.

I think price gouging is a major part of all inflation we're seeing. Nothing "just" about it; it's the central problem. Corporate profits are at an all-time high, while prices rise and lots of people struggle to get by.

The only reason it's happening is because corporations think they can get away with it. There's not enough players on the market for someone to be willing to compete on price; it's all one giant cartel.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#299

Post by volkl48 »

Ensorceled wrote: post #50
jongjong wrote: post #16

Part of the problem is government regulation. In some places, it's almost impossible to build new houses due to regulations. Some portion of the population wants to see house prices continue to increase and they will vote for politicians who will implement policies which will support that agenda. Of course this happens at the expense of another, also large portion of the population who do not own a house and have to…

This is the standard conservative "big government" and "young people today don't want to work" rant. > The problem is government regulation. In some places, it's almost impossible to build new houses due to regulations. Regulation yes, but it's not the lack of building; we're building like crazy all over North America. Many new homes are "lost" and become second or third homes for the wealthy or airbnb rentals. Regul…

> we're building like crazy all over North America.

No, we really haven't been. It doesn't seem to be well appreciated just how deeply housing construction collapsed at the end of the 2000's and has only recently returned to something approximating the long-term averages. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST

However, there's a still a whole lot of deficit from the decade of underproduction to make up for in that sense.

As you sort of get at - housing production "where the jobs are" has been far shakier. Many of the metro areas that did the best with job creation in the previous decade were among the worst with housing creation. SV, Boston, NYC, etc.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#300

Post by Ensorceled »

username_my1 wrote: post #269
Ensorceled wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't say it's working :-/ Canada has two major problems with immigration right now: 1) the rapid increase in numbers is a shock that the immigration systems (including immigrant community resources) can't handle, that shock is exacerbating the housing crisis (and health care crisis and ...) 2) the family reunification program defeats one of the major purposes of immigration, increase the ratio of working age citize…

No way immigration doesn't help, I see this in germany help so many startups enter the market and build successful businesses that drive the economy. The problem is that it's not a solution, the solution is to constantly push against inequility and increase social mobility while investing in productive industries (less housing speculations more manufacturing). those are tough bills to swallow and they will lead any e…

> No way immigration doesn't help

Traditionally, it has been helping. It's not been helping for a couple of years now.

> strong shifts to an economy like this come with a lot of short term pain. and no one is willing to setdown and deal with 10 years of poor economy so that the future of the country is better.

This is the problem in a nutshell, we need to make changes and we can't stomach it politically.

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