US homelessness up 12% to highest reported level as rents soar and coronavirus pandemic aid lapses
US homelessness up 12% to highest reported level as rents soar and coronavirus pandemic aid lapses
Reminder that the both the Mormon & Catholic "Churches" could feed, house & clothe every single homeless person in the USA indefinitely & it would only cost them a fraction of their net worth.
They had rather sit on their wealth like the Dragon though, regardless of the punishments for that described in their "Bible".
That's how you know they don't really believe in their own bullshit.
Libertarians are always certain religious charities will foot all of the bills though.
Like if humans were perfect and weren’t greedy assholes.
Pretty sure it’s not that simple. They have projects all over the planet, and administrators that need their cut. Also need church renovations so that people feel their church is fancier than their own homes.
Hey I'm all about shoving this down religious zealots throats but can you site some proof so I can do just that lol 😜
There's an often cited figure that it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness. As best as I can find, that figure is taken from an interview in 2012 with Mark Johnson who was with the dept of housing and urban development at the time, he wasn't directly quoted in the interview, it wasn't an official statement from the department, and by his own admission it was a rough estimate, I'm also not clear if that's a global figure or specifically for the US, though I suspect it's for just the US.
The wealth of churches can be a bit hard to quantify, between cash, investments, real estate, artwork, etc. across multiple countries and various legal entities, but either organization is worth, at the low end, easily 10s of billions of dollars, and possibly hundreds (I tend to see estimates for the Mormons somewhere between $100-200 billion) and in the case of the Catholic Church, they are almost definitely sitting on some properties and artifacts that could only be valued as "priceless," if the Pope, hypothetically, decided to sell off the entirety of Vatican City, how would the value even be determined for that?
So if we assume that 20 billion estimate is good, either church could handle it pretty easily.
That figure is over a decade old at this point though and so likely outdated (if it ever was accurate at all, which is questionable at best,) I'm seeing other sources saying that the true price to end homelessness would be at least $300 billion at the low end.
Which, again, may possibly be within either or both church's ability to pay for out of pocket depending on how they use their assets, but even if it's not, they could certainly put a very good dent in the problem.
You could also quibble about what it means to end homelessness and the appropriate ways to go about doing so.
So in short, they could maybe do it, but at the very least they could certainly afford to do a lot more than they are.
Reminder that the secular institution with the Democrats leading it can also fix homelessness with even less of a fraction of their net worth.
Atheism to the rescue again.
Oh. Wait.
Probably, especially these days, but the #GOP has to actually be come a minority party before that can happen.
proof again that the government could severely curtail homelessness if they wanted to-- they just don't.
We can invent billions of dollars to give away during the pandemic, and billions more to give Israel to continue its genocide against Palestinians, but solving student debt or homelessness or universal health care? We don't have enough money for that!
Because interest payments make profit, and reducing people’s ability to not live paycheck to paycheck increases the workers dependency on the system.
universal health care? We don’t have enough money for that!
Universal healthcare would, ironically, save the government, businesses, and consumers money all at the same time.
No Democrats or Republicans actually get voted out for voting for shitty things, so where's the motivation?
What's the point of thinking of our government as "the government"? Or changing "We could solve this." to "They could solve this."?
Considering the military budget is now up to 1.2 trillion a year and we pay for other country's wars, the government clearly exists to make warmongers wealthier.
Because the government has on multiple occasions during my lifetime refused to consider measures with over 90% popular support.
Because they do not serve us as it is written in the Constitution. They serve the wealthy, they bend and scrape and lick their boots, never hold them accountable to the law, and never. Ever. Act against their best interest in any scenario. And the wealthy benefit from the social safety net having a big hole above a pit trap their workers are afraid to fall into.
44% of single family homes were purchased by private equity in 2023. Some analysts expect institutional investors to control 40% of the SFH rental market by 2030.
And when are the American people going to demand an end to this shit? They represented less than 3% of sfh ownership in 2012. How long until everyone must rent? How long until people are forced to sell due to taxes driving them out of ownership due to inflated pricing from these ghouls?
While I'm not 100% about it, Prop 13 in California has some good effects.
People shouldn't be tax hiked out of their living quarters. I think most states should have something similar and limit it to only the property you reside in so that property taxes are predictable instead of the incalculable beast they are today in most areas.
It's okay guys. The government is (checks notes) giving money to your land lords with no strings attached.
I'll be at the bar if anyone wants to join me.
Wait people were getting aid? I thought we all got a couple thousand dollars and thoughts and prayers... That shit dried up in one month.
My best guess is the ending of eviction moratoriums related to covid.
Don’t forget, Biden never wanted to give Covid relief checks either, it was only the threat of Trump promising to do so that caused him to actually do it (in order to win in places like Georgia if I recall correctly). Then he shortchanged everyone on the actual amount he promised (I don’t care if when you read the fine print he was technically correct, that was not how the promise was pitched to voters).
Trump is far worse, but let’s not forget how pathetic the Democratic Party is at actually helping desperate people.
Something needs to be done. Housing is a nightmare.
I don't think that's what is happening at all. We don't need to imagine some vast and ridiculously improbable media conspiracy to explain this seeming disconnect. What I imagine is really happening is that the tools that economists and by extension the media use to gauge the health of the economy are no longer (if they ever were) calibrated to accurately reflect the lived experience of many/most Americans.
This is by far the simplest explanation.
The idea that this is somehow a conspiracy is simply an example of poor media literacy. It doesn't work like that at all.
But unemployment is at the lowest ever! We added 200.000 jobs. There was only a soft recession. Line goes up, and just in time for something important. What a coincidence. The economy is so great and we're back in the bull market!
Few seem to care…including those who will one day be there themselves.
Few seem to care…including those who will one day be there themselves.
What are those of us who care supposed to be doing?
Amidst deciding which bills get paid each paycheck, trying to find nutritional variety out of food banks (canned fish intake should ideally be less than 10 cans a month per person, for example, and even rinsing canned vegetables/beans isn't doing wonders for sodium intake compared to fresh), trying to decide which medical and dental issues we can afford to address and which just get to be endured, and watching debt go to collections because food, insurance, automobile fuel, home energy, rent, and everything related to cars has gone up, what are we supposed to be doing?
In what way can we unite as a people and fix this?
I could not comment as I do not know you, but many people choose nice things like bigger cars, new phone, alcohol and such over quality food. Some however are in a place that they are trapped and have no choice and for those people I have no advice other than to really make some noise and vote accordingly if you are in a country you can.
Worker and renters unions are a good place to start. Talk to your neighbors and coworkers. Join the IWW if you'd like some help
Rents soar as government continues heavy suppression of new housing construction.
I keep seeing this argument. I see a metric funckton of new construction and they are ALL 400k+ which is a lot for our smaller/mid city. Existing inventory is averaging the same.
Yes some construction happens. It’s still profitable in some cases, especially when the target market is the richest segments of society.
But there could be so much more. They could build two houses on each of those plots of land, and maybe each house is only $250k but you’ve managed to get $500k of real estate out of the same plot of land which (as any good capitalist will tell you) is better than $400k of real estate.
But you can’t do that. Density restrictions. Zoning laws that are way too narrowly defined, ie bloated, and have long since surpassed the “Don’t boil horse carcasses next to a daycare” sort of scenario by which zoning laws are explained in our history books.
Instead of just protecting public health zoning’s now also protecting people’s views, protecting people’s lawns, protecting people’s resale value on their homes.
Like, oh your view of Mt Shasta got blocked by an apartment building? Gee that sucks but it also doesn’t suck that five hundred new apartments are on the market now, weakening the monopoly some local cartel has on pricing and slowing the rise of rent prices.
We have a sort of overton window in terms of how much construction is “a little” and how much is “a fuckton”. Living our lives in this kind of supply crackdown has calibrated our sense of how much construction is a fuckton.
Just imagine that construction you’re seeing … but twice as tall. Perfectly conceivable, even financially favorable to the people who would make it happen, but literally not allowed.
They just to apply themselves, get out there and hustle, bring value, and make others rich! /s
They can start by making me rich. I offer myself as tribute.
Problems also in the UK
But don't forget it's all Biden's fault. Especially in the UK.
Both countries run by right wing partis. Coincidence?
okay, but the GDP...
But Biden fixed the economy it's better than everrr!
The economy has little impact on price gouging and you better believe rent is being gouged to fuck.
They all collude too, example: https://m.slashdot.org/story/406219
Your post has “Biden did that” in relation to gas prices energy
It’s probably more a tongue in cheek response to the “everything is fine” attitude they seem to have
Nah it's a counter to statements like this: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/28/us/politics/biden-speech-economy-chicago.html
He didn’t do that, and he hasn’t corrected or even addressed it until campaign year.
I would be on the same page as you except Biden tried to take a victory lap on the economy. We're in the backlash of that right now. You can tell because they're scrambling to look like they're lowering prices on anything they can.
Homelessness is a very complex issue encompassing things like mental health and climate change. The president has no direct control over rent prices, they may be able to influence them to a degree, but that’s all. This is an integral part of late-stage capitalism. People in need are being left behind because America is filled with greed. One of the many things to help alleviate this would be the construction of subsidized dense housing in areas with high levels of amenities.
Lol presonal accountability? Over a quarter are children. And the rest, a majority have mental and physical disabilities. Studies show around 40% to 60% have jobs. Very few are homeless by choice.
ah I should I put /s or something, it was a lyric from Capital G, NIN song.
