POVERTY IS A FEATURE NOT A BUG

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Why not? Why not let people have nice things?
- I mean it's kind of a scarcity thing. Resources aren't infinite. I have no problem with letting people have nice things and would certainly want minimums to be pretty decent, but when you're getting people off the street or something then efficiency means lives saved.
  
  I agree!
  Did you know that in the USA more buildings are vacant than there are homeless people? So the amount of housing that needs to be built is exactly zero. It' s not an amount of resources problem, it's an allocation of resources problem.
  
  It is still a resource problem. There's a reason NIMBYs exist. Homeless populations have substance, legal and mental issues. The property is pretty much a write off the moment you hand it over.
  
  This is probably where we'll disagree: I believe that all people living in a humane way is more important than investors' real estate portfolio valuation.
  
  I wasn't even talking about investors or the homeowners you'd plan to confiscate from. I was talking about turning neighborhoods into slums overnight. Pest infestation and drug use.
  
  Again, there are more vacant homes than homeless. It's not taking away people's homes. Homes where people actually live in, I mean. Most real estate investments, the owner hasn't visited once in years.
  And you'd be surprised at how much people improve once they have stable housing. Finland has had a "housing first, no conditions" programme for a while now with very impressive results.
  Obviously people will initially be afraid of "bad people" coming to their neighbourhood. I understand this. But I believe their feelings of discomfort are less important than the immense suffering of the homeless.
  Would you seriously place property valuations as more important than humanity and human dignity?
  
  copium

370 comments