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

#521

Post by jklinger410 » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 3:39 PM UTC

c_crank wrote: post #477

jklinger410 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely did. And once you realize that, you will have reached a new level of emotional and intellectual maturity.

Who forced these students to take the loans, exactly? Do you have a list of names?

Their parents and an entire propaganda machine coming from the school system, local, and federal governments.

Children were told "you can be anything you want to be" and also "in order to get a good job you have to go to college" which, in effect, forced children who otherwise didn't need to go to college, to go to college.

In the same way a child cannot consent to sex, a child cannot fight social pressure coming from every institution they have access to. Your insistence on the word force is manipulative, pointless, and in bad faith.

It's like birthing an animal in captivity and setting up a snare trap outside the only exit to their cage and then claiming you are hunting when they step on it. Truly disgusting.

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

#522

Post by bombcar » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #416

bombcar wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if it becomes unprofitable (for some value of profit) to rent, they will stop renting, unless you force them at gunpoint to continue renting even when it loses money.

Offer to sell it to the tenant then. That should be more common.

The tenant almost by definition can't afford (if they could afford to own where they rent, they'd likely own).

(Sadly, when you see "rent to own" on houses, they're almost always a scam preying on poor people. The trick is to get them to pay MORE than fair market rent for an "option" to buy that you know they'll never be able to execute on, or if they can, said execution is in your favor. If you care for more details, https://johntreed.com/products/sisgle is worth the price, as it details exactly WHEN an investor can make money buying these "lease options" and how they're usually unprofitable and almost scammy.)

It does naturally occur in some cases - long term tenant who is comfortable renting is offered the house "off market" when the landlord decides he's done and wants to retire from the hassle of property management and sometimes is even willing to take back a mortgage (a great way to convert a rental income stream to a financial interest scheme and remove the property maintenance factor).

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

#523

Post by postalrat » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

rmk wrote: post #515

Ah, so all the boomers who want to use their houses as nest eggs and have driven up prices making housing unaffordable for future generations have also wrecked the prospects of those less fortunate in their own generation. What's more unconscionable is the fact that young people are not forming families, not that some boomers are facing the consequences of their actions. It would be nice if all boomers faced the musi…

Anyone who buys a house wants to use it as a nest egg. Its not just a baby boomer thing.

You want cheap housing? Figure out a way to build houses for cheap. That's how it was done in the past.

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

#524

Post by yakubin » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

jlangenauer wrote: post #466

Ajedi32 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting point. So the housing problem is (at least partially) a crime problem? Because I don't think there's anything that makes low income housing _inherently_ unpleasant to live next to; it's more a question of how the people who live there tend to conduct themselves, and to what extent that behavior is tolerated by the local authorities. I don't often see people complaining about living next to affo…

It's not even a "crime problem". It's much more often people expecting their class prejudices to be embodied in the built environment, so that working class/poor/immigrant folks - which has nothing to do with crime, I hasten to add - are not defiling their beautiful suburb.

I’ve never been to the US, so I don’t have a good idea of what it is like there, but over here I lived for a couple years in a poorer district of Warsaw, where I would never be able to get good sleep, because there would either be a neighbour screaming out of nowhere in the middle of the night, or a party going on with music on full blast a floor up the whole night. Every night. Police wouldn’t do anything about the noise. It was also commonly accepted to smoke in the stairwell, leaving the cigarette dust on the floor in little dunes. A couple times I found a big pile of crap (once it was literally cow crap size) left in the middle of the first pavement tile at the exit of the building. I moved to a more expensive district. One of the best decisions I made in my life for my mental health. So it’s not a crime problem, but it is a real problem of public order, tidiness, peacefulness etc.

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

#525

Post by automatic6131 » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

bradley13 wrote: post #216

"There are a lot of services here if you're sober so I suspect they swooped in and found her." That's what is important. If someone has just had a run of lousy luck,there must be services to help them get back on their feet. The mentally ill, the junkies? You need services that give them a way out, but you cannot force them to use those services. If they won't accept help, then all that's left is "tough love": Force…

>The mentally ill, the junkies? You need services that give them a way out

For sure. But if you have limited resources, and sane, sober people will get a job and support themselves, feed themselves & keep their room clean and undestroyed, vs someone with "complex needs" who will do none of those things, when you have limited resources to work with, what will you choose? Help one ill person who will (potentially) harm others, (likely) harm the resources you give them, or five people who don't need the extra help?

It's heartless, but resources (for these services) ARE limited. Would you, could you, make a different one?

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

#526

Post by c_crank » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

wibbily wrote: post #518

c_crank wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parents knew what they were getting into, still. They were making a decision knowing the consequences.

So, if the parents are at fault, how is it appropriate to let the children shoulder the consequences?

If one could make a case for it, I wouldn't mind in these specific scenarios of parents coercing their children to sign contracts that the financial burdens be transferred to their parents (parents who often tend to help pay such bills anyway). But is that what people generally propose as a solution?

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

#527

Post by d357r0y3r » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 3:41 PM UTC

momirlan wrote: post #91

this is the generation that had it best: jobs for life, good benefits, cheap houses, etc. they also destroyed the planet with their "American dream" style consumption. what's coming for the new generations if these are suffering ?

So, boomers bad, millenials good. I don't know. Maybe the situation is a little more nuanced, and not every boomer was able to get rich.

My boomer parents couldn't dream of making the money I've made in tech. They can't even retire yet.

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

#528

Post by jethro_tell » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 3:41 PM UTC

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…

If zoning regulations mean you're only going to be able to service 1/4 of the annual new construction demand, then the smart money is on serving the high end of the market. If things get zoned in a way that you can serve the whole market and not just the top end, you can bet that people will figure out how to build those units too. The market has been artificially constrained so that developers are making the choice between the segment of the market they want to serve, not serving the whole market. If they had the access to serve the whole market, we'd see someone who can get creative and do it cheaper, or more efficiently to compete on price instead of luxury.

This is generally caused by strict land use and single family zoning. In a situation where you can build a duplex/triplex/4plex on every single family lot, you can run an excess of housing in the areas that people actually want or need to live in which allows people to compete on other market factors like price.

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

#529

Post by Ajedi32 » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 3:42 PM UTC

jlangenauer wrote: post #466

Ajedi32 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting point. So the housing problem is (at least partially) a crime problem? Because I don't think there's anything that makes low income housing _inherently_ unpleasant to live next to; it's more a question of how the people who live there tend to conduct themselves, and to what extent that behavior is tolerated by the local authorities. I don't often see people complaining about living next to affo…

It's not even a "crime problem". It's much more often people expecting their class prejudices to be embodied in the built environment, so that working class/poor/immigrant folks - which has nothing to do with crime, I hasten to add - are not defiling their beautiful suburb.

It's possible some of it is simple prejudice. But personally I'd bet the bigger factor is that people don't want drug deals and gunfights happening right outside their house. (How much of that fear is rational vs prejudice, I'm not sure, but I'd bet it's a lot more than "none at all".)

I don't have anything concrete to substantiate this assertion though (no more than you gave anyway), so I guess we'll just agree to disagree on this point...

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

#530

Post by jnwatson » Mon, Sep 25, 2023, 3:42 PM UTC

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…

Setbacks, parking requirements, and permits are some of the imposed fixed costs that a developer would have to pay to make a 0 square foot apartment. Then you have natural fixed costs of design, engineering, acquisition.

Still, it mostly comes down to a developer's understanding of the market. We're so housing starved that there's demand at all size levels. Why would they choose the less profitable path?