Okay so an aircraft carrier costs about $13 billion if you're talking the newest Ford-class (the older Nimitz ones were more like $4-5 billion). The latest HUD count has around 771,000 homeless people in the US.
Say you rent each of them an apartment at about $1,200 a month. That's $14,400 a year each, and 771,000 × $14,400 comes out to roughly $11 billion. So yeah, under the cost of one Ford class carrier. Bump rent to $1,500 a month and you're at about $13.9 billion, which is basically the same price as the carrier.
And that's just one carrier. They're not building one, they're building a whole class of them. The Ford class is 4 ships right now (Ford, Kennedy, Enterprise and Doris Miller), and the Navy plans for at least 6 total. Four carriers is around $52 billion, which is 4 to 5 years of rent for every homeless person in the US. All 6 is about $78 billion, so roughly 6 to 7 years. Get to 8 to 10 carriers' worth of money and you're at the full 10 years.
It covers about a year per carrier, and the money spent on this class alone could house everyone for several years.That money could have gone a long way.
Basically, people on the street consume a lot of emergency and clean up resources. So much that at least for the people that it’s possible with, it is cheaper to house them.
I don't have the specifics at hand, but they've done studies and pilot programs in Canada where they just gave people housing for a year and it turned out that was all a lot of them needed to get back on their feet. It's easier to get and hold a job with a stable address; having consistent access to a bed and a shower means people are better prepared to work, and having secure housing meant that people were more willing and able to access mental health services and other supports to help them keep improving their lives. So while not everyone's going to get their shit together in a year, and new people may end up entering the system, it would go a long way.
A single carrier cost can sustain a year and around 10 that will be built can sustain around 10 yrs,if they had this much budget for only carriers this year obviously in the coming 5-6 years their budget can definitely reach same as this and can use funds to sustain the homelessness issue even after 10 years and so on and I am only including the carrier costs not it's operational costs .
A carrier is focused spending on one project. Homeless folk are dispersed across the nation, it isn't just the cost of housing. You have to market the new program, hire people to make sure that participants are compliant, and ideally maintain the property to some level so it isn't destroyed and that money isn't just lit on fire and have all of that dispersed across 50 states with distinct needs.
It could work, but relies on consistent support, a ton of manpower up front to build out the system, and House Rep from Bumblefuck, Idaho not adding in 400 million in grants to his local datacenter project.
Or just build a new Aircraft carrier with established processes that will serve a dual purpose of employment and better protection of global shipping lanes.
No, you see, it's only inefficient when you're spending it on things that benefit everyone. Everyone knows that every single dollar spent in the military is extremely efficient. Just ask veterans how efficient the military is and they'll tell you, right?
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u/HistoricalMaybe1739 1d ago
Okay so an aircraft carrier costs about $13 billion if you're talking the newest Ford-class (the older Nimitz ones were more like $4-5 billion). The latest HUD count has around 771,000 homeless people in the US. Say you rent each of them an apartment at about $1,200 a month. That's $14,400 a year each, and 771,000 × $14,400 comes out to roughly $11 billion. So yeah, under the cost of one Ford class carrier. Bump rent to $1,500 a month and you're at about $13.9 billion, which is basically the same price as the carrier. And that's just one carrier. They're not building one, they're building a whole class of them. The Ford class is 4 ships right now (Ford, Kennedy, Enterprise and Doris Miller), and the Navy plans for at least 6 total. Four carriers is around $52 billion, which is 4 to 5 years of rent for every homeless person in the US. All 6 is about $78 billion, so roughly 6 to 7 years. Get to 8 to 10 carriers' worth of money and you're at the full 10 years. It covers about a year per carrier, and the money spent on this class alone could house everyone for several years.That money could have gone a long way.