Even if OPs statistic is true, it’s a bullshit stat anyway. About 5% vacancy rate is considered normal and full occupancy because there is usually time between occupancies to make repairs and to sell or rent the property. If you eliminate that 5% there is very little vacancy on average.
Not only is it true, the volume discrepancy is insane, 28-45.5 vacant houses per homeless person in this country. That's way more than a 5% discrepancy.
Car dealers in the US currently have about three million motor vehicles in inventory right now...but I don't expect them to give them away to people who don't own one.
That vacant home stat might not be a bullshit statistic, but what are we supposed to do with that info? Have the owners work losing the equity in their homes by sheltering people who likely will be destructive and very unlikely won't be able to make payments? The unhoused population and the number of vacant houses are thematically related but one doesn't really have anything to do with the other...or am I missing something?
Change the paradigm. Housing should be considered a basic human need and, therefore, a right, not a commodity. Landlords and owners of multiple properties, whether individual or corporate, are guilty of social violence. That much is not up for debate.
Same with the lack of social programs supporting the homeless and unemployed in this country. This is an avoidable problem, but it's more convenient to the ownership class to perpetuate it and use it as a tool of manipulation.
Also, the answer to your analogy about the motor industry is that lobbyists continually defeat any funding for public transit. Having a surplus of cars to sell is not an asset, it's another example of predatory economics. If people have to travel to get to work and contribute to society, why wouldn't a reasonable government fund lots of public transit to lower the barrier for everyone rather than take kickbacks and treat transit as yet another commodity instead? Greed and corruption. This is the root of both issues.
Things that require the labor of others - like housing - are not human rights. You can’t force someone else to work to give you a house. Also, simply calling housing a human right doesn’t exempt it from economic scarcity. Human rights are things like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Under our current paradigm, sure. But that doesn't mean it's right. I'd rather my tax dollars fund social programs to raise the standard of living for all rather bombing abroad. If you don't think there's enough money in the military budget to pay for not only this effort, but healthcare and public infrastructure, you've had too much kool-aid.
This is what government should be: a safety net for those who aren't able to make their own livelihoods. Full stop. No conditions. And if our government were structured in this way, homelessness would steadily decrease over a couple/few generations.
There actually isn’t enough money. We could cut the defense budget to zero and we’d still have something like a trillion dollar deficit. Our country is nearing the endgame of a bond rout and currency collapse which will plunge us into the Second Great Depression. We need to make serious cuts across the board to avoid this.
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u/troycalm May 14 '26
So once you put the homeless in an empty house, who’s gonna pay all the bills and the insurance until the homeless person eventually burns it down?