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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

#891

Post by mcntsh »

kuschku wrote: post #839
mcntsh wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, the housing market in Europe is struggling as well, but it's not even close to the situation in the US because so much affordable housing in mixed-use middle density buildings is available. Housing affordability in Europe is, in most places, way worse than in the US. Not sure where Americans get this idea that it's better there.

I'm not an american, I actually live in Germany. And as long as you rent instead of buying hohsing affordability is okay in most cities, and in those where it isn't the transit network is good enough that you can easily commute without an expensive car.

Yeah I also live in Germany and housing affordability is much much worse than in the USA. The ratio of the median income to the median housing cost is significantly worse: https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings_by_count...

Renting in the US also is very cheap outside of cities. You can rent in New Jersey and take the train into NYC, or rent in Vallejo and take the train into San Francisco. Over all the income/rent or mortgage ratio, in my experience having rented and purchased in both countries, is much more favorable in the US. Quality of life is a different story.

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

#892

Post by monknomo »

mlinhares wrote: post #741
unethical_ban wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not owning the apartment seems to be a very US thing, I owned two apartments in Brazil and had a small construction business that built small apartment buildings and it was almost all sold to owners.

eh, they are called condos or co-ops when they are owned by the occupant in the states. I think they're the same thing, though interested if there is some distinction I'm missing

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

#893

Post by closeparen »

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…

Why are the needs of prospective renters less legitimate than those of prospective owner-occupiers?

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

#894

Post by rthomas6 »

th3byrdm4n wrote: post #677

Create a progressive tax on multiple homes. Increase tax on corporate owners. There

Even better: a very high tax on the assessed unimproved land value of all privately owned land. This removes the ability to speculate on real estate entirely, which, if you think about it, maybe shouldn't be allowed in the first place, since it is the only good that has a truly fixed supply. This would cause real estate prices to plummet, then remain relatively stable. Obviously you couldn't just do it starting from nothing, but in the long run it would solve housing scarcity, as well as drastically reducing rent seeking behavior, without draconian measures or ending the free market.

This idea is called Georgism, and it's not new. It was also supported by several economists, including Milton Friedman.

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

#895

Post by jjav »

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…

> 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

It is true that there's way too much (and way too costly) red tape to build housing. At the same time, it's also true that even if you skip all that, building is expensive due to materials & labor in any urban or suburban area. Look at building costs in your area by sqft, just for labor & materials. Building cheap units (for a local wage-adjusted level of cheap) is very difficult without some form of external assistance (e.g. like low-income units subsidized by other units).

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

#896

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

bombcar wrote: post #461
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affordable housing is defined by the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as housing that does not require a household to spend more than 30 percent of its gross monthly income on housing costs. For rental housing, these costs include monthly rent and utility payments; for owner-occupied housing, these costs include mortgage payments and additional expenses associated with homeownership. A household…

That's explicitly the problem with the definition. You can "solve" the equation by reducing housing costs, but it is also possible that the "problem" isn't housing costs per se but wage depression, and that the "real" solution is to fix the gross monthly income.

> the gross monthly income

"The" gross monthly income, as if there is one blob of income that we could turn a knob and increase, by say, 10%? Are we doing this across the board, from migrant farmworkers to the Fortune 500 C-levels? Does this dovetail with UBI so that people who earned $0 + entitlements, lose their entitlements and begin receiving cash instead?

If rental housing is the #1 monthly expense for the working class, or say, the socio-economic class who needs Affordable Housing, and you "fix" their income (which I think you mean raise it, rather than the financial term of art) if you raise their income by a given amount, and housing costs stay constant, then more people get housed?

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

#897

Post by rendang »

giantrobot wrote: post #879
rendang wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have some special right to keep living in the same neighborhood just because you were there first

You don't have some special right to upend someone else's life because you were somewhere second. You'd be singing quite a different tune if someone decided to kick you out of your house simply because they have more money and decided they wanted your plot.

An apartment you rent is not "your" house. If you get used to eating some species of shellfish, and the market price for it suddenly triples, society is not obliged to subsidize you continuing to eating it for the rest of your life.

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

#898

Post by jjav »

ushtaritk421 wrote: post #760
Draiken wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that what lobbying is all about? You effectively have companies paying politicians to keep these zoning laws that keep the rents as high as possible. Profit above all else. Arguments that boil down to "government policy" can basically be translated to "big companies policies". Whether it's through illegal or legal bribing (lobbying), it's what we see after decades of influence.

It’s big companies but it’s also (mostly?) the nice retired insurance agents and school teachers who like their quiet neighborhood and the fact that the house they bought 30 years ago can be sold for 4x its inflation-adjusted purchase price when they’re ready.

> It’s big companies but it’s also (mostly?) the nice retired insurance agents and school teachers

Those retired agents and teachers have exactly zero influence on local and state politicians.

Those big companies who host fund raising dinners at the CEOs mansions and contribute millions? Yes, a lot of influence. To the point where we've seen plenty legislative bills which turn out to be just cut & paste from what some corporate sponsor wrote.

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

#899

Post by bombcar »

gottorf wrote: post #754
dkarl wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don't go around memorizing statistics of how likely someone who is exhibiting one kind of antisocial behavior (being obviously high, defecating in public, etc.) would be to engage in another kind of antisocial behavior (committing physical violence upon another person) So you're saying people don't do a rational analysis of the risks... but calling it "irrational" is strange? Lots of human behavior is irrati…

> So you're saying people don't do a rational analysis of the risks... but calling it "irrational" is strange? GP's wording implied that rational people take public transit because they've done the risk-benefit analysis, and irrational people don't. I'm not sure if there's actual evidence behind such a risk-benefit analysis. > people would benefit from correcting, through education and changing social assumptions. If…

People also (rightly or not) feel they can influence the outcome when driving much more than they can on transit (note this doesn't really apply to planes because planes are mass transit that so obviously beat driving after a certain distance).

And they might be right, something like 30% of traffic fatalities involve alcohol, so you can avoid driving after drinking and avoid times when others are drink driving, and improve your odds.

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

#900

Post by escapedmoose »

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…

I can’t speak for all of the US, but locally the most common way that affordable housing is built is because we have local government mandates which require it of large companies who build in my area. It seems to work very well; ours is the fastest-growing region in my state, and homelessness has been low.
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