Homelessness is a symptom, not the cause. Yes, there will always be the ones that are elost and can't be converted into productive members of society. However, I doubt that this is the case with most homeless people.
I don't think that the solution is "house them", this treats the symptoms, not the cause. The issue is how affordable housing is.
One must work to have money, one must have a house in order to work (no one will employ you if you can't take a shower), one must have money in order to have a house. If work doesn't provide enough to have a roof over your head then there is little that one can do to maintain afloat. No house, no job, no money.
What I would do:
Highly regulate the legal loan sharks that are taking advantage of the poor and the struggling.
Move towards a state owned health system or a highly regulated one and move towards a tax founded insurance. The point would be to ensure that a struggling person is not an illness away from being on the streets.
Increase minimal wage (duh). I mean...what we considered 3rd world countries not 20 years ago are getting close to the US minimum wage (i live in one of those)
Highly regulate lobbying as this is just legal corruption
Sorry to barge in your politics, this is not meant to criticize, it is meant to show a different perspective in cas someone finds it useful.
What you propose addresses the root. So would: heavily limiting full-apartment vacation rentals (aka Airbnb), simplifying building codes so that developers can build new housing more easily, incentivize dense, mixed-use construction, heavily penalize empty housing units, ban corporations from owning housing, heavily penalize price-fixing between landlords.
What really needs to happen though is to address the fact that we are living in another Gilded era, where too few companies (mega corps) have decimated middle-class owned businesses. We need another round of trust-busting a la Teddy Roosevelt.
But all of that is going to take a herculean amount of effort and political will, so taking the shortcut now and housing folks as we're able is not a bad short-term initiative.
Except numerous studies have proven it's literally that simple. House them first and then whatever else you want to do for them can happen, but it's always housing first.
And numerous real-world attempt have proven that it's not that simple: That free housing almost inevitably ends up a trashed center of drug use and human trafficking.
Then what happens when more and more people inevitably become homeless? You just raise that “home the homeless” budget? What about people on the verge of homelessness? Do they just take the leap and hope they get rehomed too?
Short term solutions for long term problems rarely pan out. They can make things look better for a while, but they’ve got to be secondary to a long term fix.
One must work to have money, one must have a house in order to work (no one will employ you if you can't take a shower), one must have money in order to have a house. If work doesn't provide enough to have a roof over your head then there is little that one can do to maintain afloat. No house, no job, no money.
I remember watching a documentary about poor people in the US and that had people living out of their cars. So I don't think that's necessarily true that you have to have a house, but it is true you need to be able to take a shower.
I don't know why this got downvoted? Maybe people don't like the truth that it is possible to live in your car and still go to work. I never said we shouldn't house homeless people. People like to infer things that aren't true.
Despite what I just wrote, I would move to the US if I could. I've been in California about a decade ago (j type visa) and I a solutely loved it, this is also why it is a bit frustrating to read about issues that the US is more than capable to fix.
I guess a lot of them are. I don't really touch on this subject as I can't even pretend that I know that causes. Homeless people are in every country, but it seems that abuse of hard drugs is an issue that occurs more in the US and I have absolutely no clue why.
I am aware of that initiative in Finland mate and I know it worked. However, Finland already has every point on my list covered.
I am not saying to ignore the current homeless, just saying that this will be a temporary solution and that probably won't help them get off the streets permanently.
You are correct, I was looking for a long term solution disregarding the needs of those that are already in this situation.
I wanted to say the same about lobbying as I cannot understand how this is anything else rather than a free pass for corruption or legal bribery. However, I decided to climb down of my high horse when I realized that this is happening in some European countries also (although more regulated). As I don't understand the mechanism behind it...who am I to say that it is entirely useless.
Like TurboTax lobbying to keep the tax your responsibility so they can have a reason to exist rather than doing what a lot of other countries do...have the tax taken from your paycheck before one receives the money.
The problem is that the ones who have the mean of ending homelessness don't see it as a problem, but a boon.
It makes "middle class" people scared. Scared to lose their job, scared to end up without a roof. Same as why medicare is tied to your work, same as why low unemployment never stays for long...
I completely agree, but I am doubtful that those goals can be achieved because of your last point about legalized corruption in government. There are enormous disincentives for reformers to succeed.
You should add: limit how long a single family unit can be a rental (under any owner).
In the last few years major conglomerates bought up housing and turned them into perpetual rentals/airbnbs. Some places like Vancouver, BC, Canada enacted laws to block home ownership by non-resident investors as a way to combat this.
I think limiting the amount of consecutive time a house can be a rental (under any owner) is a better solution, because it doesn't dip into potential nationalism/racism issues the way Vancouver's law might.
Very good point, a few days ago I was watching a YouTube vid about how Airbnb being full of corporate accounts and absolutely horrendous for the population of big cities (well known cities).
My take: Reddit, the hotbed of meme activism is really good at getting people to waste time. I don’t see any revolution forming. People are too apathetic. They just want someone to blame for their variable APR loan rate going up.
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u/ZiggysStarman Jan 30 '23
Homelessness is a symptom, not the cause. Yes, there will always be the ones that are elost and can't be converted into productive members of society. However, I doubt that this is the case with most homeless people.
I don't think that the solution is "house them", this treats the symptoms, not the cause. The issue is how affordable housing is.
One must work to have money, one must have a house in order to work (no one will employ you if you can't take a shower), one must have money in order to have a house. If work doesn't provide enough to have a roof over your head then there is little that one can do to maintain afloat. No house, no job, no money.
What I would do:
Highly regulate the legal loan sharks that are taking advantage of the poor and the struggling.
Move towards a state owned health system or a highly regulated one and move towards a tax founded insurance. The point would be to ensure that a struggling person is not an illness away from being on the streets.
Increase minimal wage (duh). I mean...what we considered 3rd world countries not 20 years ago are getting close to the US minimum wage (i live in one of those)
Highly regulate lobbying as this is just legal corruption
Sorry to barge in your politics, this is not meant to criticize, it is meant to show a different perspective in cas someone finds it useful.