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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

#501

Post by dublinben »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #261
spir wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe? Or how about they are in no-way comparable.Unless you are talking mass subsidization there is an absolute floor for providing housing, not to mention finite capacity for both tent cities and affordable apartments.

The absolute floor is pretty low, and the market will provide these solutions if they're not regulated out of existence.

My first "apartment" was a 100 square foot bedroom rented in a 4 bed / 2 bath unit with 3 other residents. At the time I moved in, it was only $350/month plus utilities, in a market where the median rent for a studio was $1750/month. That room would have been affordable for a single person working full-time at minimum wage. Was it code compliant? Hell no! Was it better than living on the street or in a car? Unquestionably.

If you raise the floor to require every adult to have their own kitchen and bathroom, then you've consigned this segment of the market to homelessness. Someone who can pay $350/month certainly would need a massive subsidy to afford a $1750 studio, or you can just get out of the way and allow them to rent a room for $350.

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

#502

Post by tinco »

cogman10 wrote: post #478
spir wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What government policy would allow for a 2k apartment building and not a $500 apartment building? I just don't buy this argument. The reason there's not a $500 apartments being built is because by expanding the residence out just a tiny bit you can charge $2000 for the same space that 2 $500 apartments would occupy. I'm seeing this play out where I live that has practically no zoning laws or regulations (LOTS of buil…

Not the US, but here real estate developers are complaining that modern stringent building code requirements (i.e. gas free, highly insulated) combined with high labor costs make it so that it is infeasible to build lower income housing.

I think the bigger problem is that land value is insanely high in The Netherlands right now, but there's probably a truth in the middle as well. Land costs might be lower in the US, but maybe not closer to metropolitan centers?

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

#503

Post by AdamN »

jpadkins wrote: post #385
klodolph wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s hard to compare West Virginia to Portland, and conclude that the differences are a result of policy decisions.

can you expand upon that? What else other than policy decisions would have a major impact? demographics?

One's a major regional metropolis built on top of trade and the other is a rural area built on top of coal mining. You would need to add 2 more locations to make it closer to a social science examination, perhaps New Orleans and the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.

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

#504

Post by scld »

escapedmoose wrote: post #192
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…

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…

The ability for them to do this is only granted to them by the restrictiveness of the regulatory state.

You've prescribed a byzantine series of rules in order to free up supply when the quickest step is to just free up supply, which will make "buying up whatever is on the market" a gigantic waste of money because it will not be possible to corner said market.

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

#505

Post by bombcar »

buttercraft wrote: post #468
colonelpopcorn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure the under class is by design. Anyone who's ever used the phrase "real job" believes in the necessary existence of an under class.

Maybe, but someone once told me that I don't have a "real job" because I sit at a desk all day. And their perception didn't change when I told them I have a standing desk.

Every job that I feel is "beneath me" is a fake job.

Of course the job I do is by definition a "real job", as is any job I'd like to do.

Any job that is icky and I don't want to do is also a real job, of course. Even if paid less than fake ones.

(heh above is pretty accurate for most people, though they won't admit it).

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

#506

Post by dagw »

snowpid wrote: post #85
shrimpx wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which Europe? Plenty of destitution, poverty, far-right inclinations, ultra-nationalism and anti-migrant racism in Europe. (Often against migrants from other countries in Europe.)

ar-right inclinations, ultra-nationalism is far more spreaded in US than just say Germany.

I'm just not sure that is true. Have you been seeing what is happening in German politics recently? And Germany is a fairly moderate country all things considered. There are plenty of European countries where 'alt'-right ultranationalism is very prevalent

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

#507

Post by bombcar »

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.

And this still exists in the USA - it's just much MUCH less common in the high-cost areas, for obvious reasons.

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

#508

Post by ecshafer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #371
zb1plus wrote: post #134

In places like the bay area with a housing crisis and limited space to expand, the state should seize office buildings (remote work is the future and would help alleviate the shortage while new housing is developed) by eminent domain and set up a scheme like Singapore's HDB system [1] to develop affordable housing. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_and_Development_Board

> places like the bay area with a housing crisis and limited space to expand This is the most Californian response to the problem I’ve seen. Limited space? Even San Francisco has 190 acres of vacant land [1]. You want to emulate Singapore? Consider its relative lack of single-story structures. The Bay Area’s housing crisis is a political choice made by its voters. [1] https://escholarship.org/content/qt5gc6w0vd/qt5gc…

Yeah. There is this weird meme that there is no space to build in the bay. But at the density I’d say Hong Kong (which is an extreme) you could probably have 100 million people in there. Tokyo you could have 50 million. There’s only limited space when you assume the only thing you can build is suburban office parks, single story strip malls, and single family homes.

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

#509

Post by hedora »

incahoots wrote: post #365

Ah yes, apathy my old friend. We can recognize the various problems that got us here, but when it comes to resolving them, well that’s simply a bridge too far. Take note: we absolutely have the resources to defeat homelessness and hunger, it’s just not a profitable model.

I think building a post-scarcity society would be incredibly profitable, so then the question is why we're not just doing that. This is from last week's outro of a fantasy fiction podcast I enjoy. It says it better than I ever could:

Musings on art being the seat of the soul feel particularly timely in this, the year of our generative-AI pyramid schemes. I doubt I am alone among this audience in feeling like the only time I transcend my brief, mortal self is when I create something that did not exist before–that, ironically, I only feel connected to eternity when I create something ephemeral, be it a story to be read, loved then forgotten, or a photograph to snatch at time’s relentless march, or even a moment of roleplay among friends. The one thing that dims that flame is the contemporary capitalist urge to monetise–to derive economic value from every moment of our lives and every movement of our souls, to view everything through the lens of content. It’s perhaps strange to state this from the outro of a pro-paying market, I guess–I never was any good at knowing when not to run my mouth–but then I think there is a difference between that pressure to proffer everything up to the free market, versus us paying writers and narrators so they can afford to devote the time to their art, in a world where there is, haha, relentless pressure to earn money, a pressure primarily created through artificial scarcity and the coercive threats of starvation and homelessness.

-Matt Dovey

https://podcastle.org/2023/09/19/podcastle-805-the-somnambul...

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

#510

Post by NathanKP »

cogman10 wrote: post #478
spir wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What government policy would allow for a 2k apartment building and not a $500 apartment building? I just don't buy this argument. The reason there's not a $500 apartments being built is because by expanding the residence out just a tiny bit you can charge $2000 for the same space that 2 $500 apartments would occupy. I'm seeing this play out where I live that has practically no zoning laws or regulations (LOTS of buil…

I have an external garage building that I'd love to turn into a small ADU, but it's not allowed in my area.

Additionally, if you look at historical cheap rentals of the past, you see things like tenement buildings, which were arguably horrible, but provided a cheap alternate to homelessness.

You can also see examples of what low rent places look like today in Asian countries, such as Hong Kong tiny apartments. Many of those types of residences are not allowed by local government policies.

An actual $500 a month rental is going to be really tiny, might have a shared bathroom and kitchen with other units. And these are all things that are often disallowed by government policies.

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