The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by mlinhares » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 2:21 PM UTC

wocka wrote: post #232

mlinhares wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only building new homes is unnecessarily complicated and expensive, single family homes are an incredible waste of space and money, had the US and it's big cities invested in apartment buildings with better amenities or forced developers to build shared neighborhood amenities Americans in general wouldn't be so incredibly against it. It's insane to me that my hometown of 1M people in Brazil has more tall apartmen…

> It's insane to me that my hometown of 1M people in Brazil has more tall apartment buildings than Philadelphia, with incredibly better amenities. Would you mind sharing what the amenities are that you are referring to--both the in-building and neighborhood amenities? In the US I've seen gyms, swimming pools, shared hosting spaces, and some child-friendly spaces, to name a few.

Pools, BBQs, gyms, playgrounds, multi sports courts, party rooms, stores and restaurants.

In PHL unless you’re paying big money in a new or refurbished building in center city (and there aren’t that many) you’re out of luck.

Doesn’t help that schools also suck and are heavily segregated, which ended up forcing us to move to the suburbs into a single family home to raise our kids as we knew we wouldn’t have enough money to send them to private schools and didn’t want them on the public system there.

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

#312

Post by unethical_ban » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 2:21 PM UTC

ryukafalz wrote: post #242

escapedmoose wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among my friends seeking to buy houses, the greater problem is the ability of large companies to buy up whatever is on the market, which they then immediately turn into a rental. It’s nearly impossible to compete with a company who will pay $50k over asking price, in cash, for the house you’re trying to get. Comparatively, immigrants don’t have the purchasing power to compete, so saying they’re the problem is a weird…

> But other than zoning it seems it would help more if the government would step in to disallow large leasing companies buying up giant swathes of the housing stock just to flip into rentals. There was a timely video about this yesterday from Oh the Urbanity: https://youtu.be/BRqZBuu_Ers?si=NlavrFpm8sNTUcYp Summary is that Rotterdam did just this, and the effect was that the price to purchase a house did not measurab…

If more people actually owned, that's a positive.

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

#313

Post by kelipso » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 2:21 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #268

mcv wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of the problem is government regulation. And not just too much regulation, but the wrong kind of regulation, and a lack of regulation in areas that need it. Someone in the article was forced out of her home because her landlord suddenly raised her rent by $500. That shouldn't be legal. Corporations buying up homes in order to drive up prices shouldn't be allowed. Lots of things are allowed that shouldn't be. A…

> her landlord suddenly raised her rent by $500. That shouldn't be legal. GP: "Government regulation is preventing the construction of more housing" You: "So true. For example, we need more regulation that make housing a legally encumbered asset with uniquely constrained and inflexible financial properties" What is your thought process here? Do you think this kind of thing will encourage the provision of more houses?…

A lot of the problems would fix themselves if it was a lot harder for people to own a second home. Would make housing cheaper for one.

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

#314

Post by trident5000 » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #305

trident5000 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shouldnt be allowed for people to raise rent on the property they own? Thats an absurd idea. People have been complaining about not having the home they want in the location they want since the beginning of mankind.

The parent comment is complaining about the specific amount, $500, and indeed, raising the rent by a large amount (defined percentagewise) is illegal in many jurisdictions. So it seems difficult to come the idea that it is somehow absurd.

Price controls dont work. This is economics 101 and tested many times in the past and as of recent. All you're doing with artificially constraining price and other regulations is reducing supply in the long run. The issue bubbles and then eventually bursts.

However, the issue in congested areas is a matter of physics and people unwilling to relocate. Its not from renters simply fulfilling the pricing demand. I mean what exactly is the long term play in areas like this? Just keep stacking people on top of each other into infinity? Its obviously not realistic.

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

#315

Post by expertentipp » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

nness wrote: post #284

expertentipp wrote: post #3

It's "I got mine and don't care" until what you've got melts in your hand like an ice cube and then nobody cares.

I've noticed this with my parents — for decades they reacted negatively to any changes the regulations around Australia's housing market, since that was and remains the principal personal wealth creation mechanism in Australia... Until they reached retirement age. Then the painful realisation that, without plentiful housing, rental prices would consume most of their government pension. Now they're one expense away fr…

The sold also the last property from their flipping endeavours or investment portfolio? ouch.

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

#316

Post by voidwtf » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

ChatGTP wrote: post #142

voidwtf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can’t be a real, thought out, response. I’m living in Florida. I will agree with you that rent-seeking and increasingly abusive landlords are a huge problem here. However, the largest drivers of pricing out retirees in my anecdotal observations is uncontrolled healthcare, insurance, and food costs. The electric companies have also increased their rates and been allowed to add insane flat infrastructure recovery…

Isn't this the entire point of capitalism and the privatization of critical services and infrastructure ? All companies exist to make money, that is absolutely all there is to it. So they're making more money by jacking up prices as far as they can to make...more money. In the US, this will continue until it can't anymore...it will happen things like food, electricity, healthcare, education, infrastructure. The only…

I think all economic and political systems have pros and cons. They all are subject to corruption and greed as well. The problem isn’t capitalism alone, but corruption and greed as well. We’ve reached the point where those at the top are blaming everything but their own greed for the problems the rest of the world is dealing with. Scurvy is going to make a comeback and the rich are going to blame it on laziness and a lack of hard work. History repeats itself.

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

#317

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

ohdannyboy wrote: post #278

BytesAndGears wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s totally relevant because someone in their 20s might be able to live with their parents, or has multiple roommates etc. The amount of money that they need is much less than that of someone more established. It is a really interesting contrast though, that in Amsterdam where I now live (and many other parts of Europe), this divide doesn’t exist as strongly. We have a perfectly happy and healthy ~40 year old woman…

This used to be the case in the United States. As recently as the 70s blue collar laborers owned homes, had families and their wife stayed at home with the kids. The idea that you need two mid to high level incomes to afford a house is very new.

[deleted]

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

#318

Post by ToucanLoucan » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

spir wrote: post #234

escapedmoose wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among my friends seeking to buy houses, the greater problem is the ability of large companies to buy up whatever is on the market, which they then immediately turn into a rental. It’s nearly impossible to compete with a company who will pay $50k over asking price, in cash, for the house you’re trying to get. Comparatively, immigrants don’t have the purchasing power to compete, so saying they’re the problem is a weird…

You only perceive corporate landlords as the greater problem because we're not living in the counterfactual reality where there are millions of new apartments that are inexpensive, tiny, safe, quiet, modern, clean, dignified, and well-located. In pretty much every major city in North America, it is illegal or there is too much red tape to build the affordable housing people actually want. Why is it that living in a t…

You say this like every developer would be rushing out to build low-income housing if only they could.

Developers build expensive luxury units because they can rent them for $2k a month by scalping tenants from nearby buildings who are currently paying $2.1k per month, because the buildings really don't cost that much more to build, the higher forecasted income from said renting makes it easier to sell to banks and get financed, and because every local politician is happy to have a new set of expensive units to tell the public about, especially if it's near a new commercial development they can hype up for bonus points. Because at the end of the day: people aren't housed because people need housing, people are housed because it is profitable to do so. And housing the middle class is always going to be more profitable than housing the poor. Which paradoxically means, as long as the motive is profit, it is incentivized more to cater to a smaller group of buyers with more money than a larger one with less. And, the ability for investment groups to write off losses means they are incentivized, in turn, to keep housing that the poor can't afford empty instead of lowering the rents, because too many renters at a lower rent would make them less money than simply holding onto the appreciating asset and writing off the lost rental income.

This is not to say that government policy couldn't do a ton to fix this, but it's basically all policies that go against financial motivations in a system where money and power are incredibly well correlated with one another, so it's practically a non-starter. Low income housing benefits people who are low-income and will attract them as a result, and no city in the entire fuckin world has a financial incentive to cater to poor people, because they're, you know, poor. If they did we would have a ton more options for things like reliable and well priced public transit, not more bloody freeways.

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

#319

Post by klodolph » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #268

mcv wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of the problem is government regulation. And not just too much regulation, but the wrong kind of regulation, and a lack of regulation in areas that need it. Someone in the article was forced out of her home because her landlord suddenly raised her rent by $500. That shouldn't be legal. Corporations buying up homes in order to drive up prices shouldn't be allowed. Lots of things are allowed that shouldn't be. A…

> her landlord suddenly raised her rent by $500. That shouldn't be legal. GP: "Government regulation is preventing the construction of more housing" You: "So true. For example, we need more regulation that make housing a legally encumbered asset with uniquely constrained and inflexible financial properties" What is your thought process here? Do you think this kind of thing will encourage the provision of more houses?…

The logic here is that there are two different competing concerns—the use of housing as an investment (money in, money out) and the use of housing as a place to live. There’s a lot of legislation that shifts the balance one way or the other. Things like property tax caps and zoning regulations shift the balance towards house-as-investment, and things like rent increase caps shift it the other way.

If you don’t buy in to libertarian laissez-faire economics, which most people don’t, then this makes sense. (“Makes sense” is a much lower bar than “has the effect that we want it to have.”)

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

#320

Post by unethical_ban » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

mlinhares wrote: post #218

escapedmoose wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among my friends seeking to buy houses, the greater problem is the ability of large companies to buy up whatever is on the market, which they then immediately turn into a rental. It’s nearly impossible to compete with a company who will pay $50k over asking price, in cash, for the house you’re trying to get. Comparatively, immigrants don’t have the purchasing power to compete, so saying they’re the problem is a weird…

Not only building new homes is unnecessarily complicated and expensive, single family homes are an incredible waste of space and money, had the US and it's big cities invested in apartment buildings with better amenities or forced developers to build shared neighborhood amenities Americans in general wouldn't be so incredibly against it. It's insane to me that my hometown of 1M people in Brazil has more tall apartmen…

The only problem with apartments in the US is the lack of equity.