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So I see 553,742 people homeless at last estimate (2017, unfortunately). 11M would 20x this amount, an amount that seems catastrophic and unmanageable. Moreove

So I see 553,742 people homeless at last estimate (2017, unfortunately). 11M would 20x this amount, an amount that seems catastrophic and unmanageable. Moreover, this seems like a situation where an emergency event is treated like an ordinary, non-emergency situation. And the reason for this is apparently that America's system of governance is so polarized and dysfunctional that no entity either can or will put forward a broad plan to escape the situation. https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-report-legacy/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless...

smt88 6y ago
While I agree that this number is a catastrophe no matter how you look at it, it's unlikely 100% of those people would become homeless. Some would find (more expensive) shorter-term rentals, others would move in with relatives, and a small percentage would find a landlord willing to sign a new lease with them.
- mnky9800n 6y ago
  If 95% of people find a place that still doubles the homeless population.
  - jsilence 6y ago
    Also the process of moving in itself is ressource and cash intensive. Not to talk about the pressure and stress it entails mentally.
    - mnky9800n 6y ago
      It is quite a lot of effort. I have moved through 4 countries since 2015.
- karatinversion 6y ago
  The number of renter-occupied residential units in the US is estimated at 44 million - this would be one quarter of rental stock being empty. I suspect _many_ would find new, cheaper rentals from cash-strapped landlords.
  - toxicFork 6y ago
    And thus the hermit crab shell exchange begins https://youtu.be/f1dnocPQXDQ https://youtu.be/f1dnocPQXDQ
  - bilbo0s 6y ago
    I suspect _many_ would find new, cheaper rentals from cash-strapped landlords. Just Devil's Advocate, but wouldn't that still be just shuffling the chairs on the Titanic?
  - a2tech 6y ago
    You would think so--but I don't think the rental market is that elastic anymore. I'm in a college town, so take this with a grain of salt, your milage may vary, etc, but around here with the looming possibility of all the schools being online only in the fall, loads of houses are sitting unrented. In a naive model you would expect to see these houses rent fall in a bid to capture any sort of rent. However what we're seeing in many places here is the opposite--the rent is RISING. The owners behind these properties have non-elastic costs. They've purchased these properties as investments using borrowed money. The bank doesn't stop collecting their payments just because the house is empty. So they have a stable of properties and falling numbers of renters so they RAISE the rent to try and extract any value from the few renters they can capture to try and cover their debts. It was happening with commercial properties before the COVID pandemic. I started noticing this because I was looking for warehouse space for personal woodworking projects and office space for my business (neither with any sort of urgency, so lots of browsing over time). I noticed that the stock increased every month, but the prices never budged. Then in the local business newspaper they started listing square footage of unrented business properties. Month after month it has increased with no visible signs of rent adjustment. I suspect the only thing that will eventually cause rents to decrease property speculators defaulting on their loans, which will lead to bank foreclosures and sales. The banks will then hold on to the properties and keep listing them because they can afford to hold the properties and attempt to wait to receive a 'market rate' sale price. Once the banks can no longer afford to just sit on the properties and sell them for whatever they can get for them, then you'll start to see a cycle of falling rents. Until then I think you're going to see stagnant or even increasing rents.
- Someone 6y ago
  How would people who can’t pay their rent pay for “(more expensive) shorter-term rentals”? If that means grouping with other households, wouldn’t the better choice be to do that in one of the less expensive existing rentals?
gonzo41 6y ago
Or, there's going to be 11M people who start squating and paying what they can. I'd be interested to see where the cops in America fall on this. It'll destroy cities and towns.
- ideals 6y ago
  With DHS rolling into a city near you™ it looks like they aren't going to wait and see how local pd react
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    DHS has a limited capacity to do this, given present staffing, funding, responsibilities, and capabilities. While DHS boasts an impressive headcount of 240,000 employees, the bulk are unlikely to be paramilitary goons of the sort seen in Portland and Seattle, where several dozen troops have had minimal effectiveness in projecting force more than a few metres from the federal courthouse. Additional requisitions from a deeply divided Congress are unlikely. Where just a single city's police force numbers over 55 thousands (NYPD), the prospect that a few hundreds, or even thousands, of reassigned TSA screeners and border patrol might play landlord-support squad in 100s of cities throughout the US to an ever-growing public resistance is parlors thin.
    - zaarn 6y ago
      You don't need to evict all people via DHS. Only enough that the rest has enough fear put in them to do it themselves.
    - jhayward 6y ago
      DHS is already training up vigilante militia[1]. Don't underestimate what this administration is willing to do. "attendees will participate in scenario-based training and exercises conducted in a safe and positive environment, including, but not limited to defensive tactics, firearms familiarization, and targeted arrests." [1] https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/07/10/889726473/i-c-e-citizens-trainings-may-be-a-vigilante-academy-chicago-alderman-warns https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/07/10/889726473/i-c-e-cit...
CaptArmchair 6y ago
> So I see 553,742 people homeless at last estimate (2017, unfortunately). 11M would 20x this amount, an amount that seems catastrophic and unmanageable. Not people. Households. 11 million households. Different metric. So, if you want to convert to people, you have to break that down into an equation where the ratio of households reflects their diversity: single, children, extended families, shared accommodation, collectives,... Plug 11 million into that equation and the output will be a magnitude of several orders of that. The U.S Census data shows an average household in the U.S. having 2.63 persons between 2014-2018. So, a ballpark guestimate would be 28.93 million individuals. However, this could still be way off: if evictions happen in highly populous areas, or coincides with areas where the demographics show large households, you'll get a much larger number. For instance, California has, on average 3.1 persons, whereas North Dakota only 2.1. To put all of that into perspective: There are currently 37 million Canadians. So, basically, the problem probably entails a group as large as the entire Canadian population.
- hanche 6y ago
  A “ballpark guestimate” with four significant digits? (Not to detract from your main point in any way.)
  - craftinator 6y ago
    You're always welcome to do your own napkin math and share it!
    - hanche 6y ago
      In this case, 29 million seems reasonable. One factor was given as 11 million, after all, not 11.00 million. And don’t take my comment too seriously. It’s a minor nit, but one that frequently bugs me.
      - CaptArmchair 6y ago
        Oh! More then happy to answer. :-) So, I was just shooting a dart at a target. Translate the target to a Cartesian plan and you can express the position of the dart as a tuple (x,y) with two real numbers. However, you don't know the exact position of the bulls eye you're aiming at. At best, you're aiming for a bounded area representing an approximation. So, you're basically guestimating the distance between the position of the dart, and any other point within that area which might probably be what you're shooting for. Maybe I'm close, maybe I'm less close. I could have rounded upwards to 29 million, but unless you know exactly what you're aiming for, it's not possible to establish how rounding impacts accuracy. We do know that rounding within an interval of 1 million likely won't skew the answer too much, so both numbers are acceptable.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> America's system of governance is so polarized and dysfunctional that no entity either can or will put forward a broad plan to escape the situation There is a federal eviction moratorium in effect on federally-subsidized and federally-backed housing [1]. Many states and cities have more-comprehensive moratoria in place [2]. I'll also note that CARES Act was almost 3x the size of the EU's recent package (over 7x if one ignores its loans) and 4 months earlier. The Republican's follow-up bill, half the size of the Democrats', is still larger than the EU's single package. American government has plenty of faults. But inability to act in a crisis is not one of them. [1] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/coronavirus/mortgage-and-housing-assistance/renter-protections/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/coronavirus/mortgage-and-hou... [2] https://ny.curbed.com/2020/3/26/21192343/coronavirus-new-york-eviction-moratorium-covid-19 https://ny.curbed.com/2020/3/26/21192343/coronavirus-new-yor...
- pythonslayer 6y ago
  These bills did almost nothing for working Americans, though. They were overwhelmingly just payouts to corporations and some to small business owners.
- jaybeeayyy 6y ago
  Here in the southern US we've already started up the process of evicting people. Richmond, VA (which always finds itself in the top 10 cities in the US with the highest eviction rates) is in full swing. I know it's easy for a lot of us to forget about people outside NYC and LA but there are not many renter protections down here in general, let alone during an economic crisis/pandemic.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I'll also note that CARES Act was almost 3x the size of the EU's recent package The EU isn't a national government, their package is a lot more generous than any comparable US-centered supernational regional org. As far as national governments go, the German package passed in April was about US$10,000 per capita, about 1/5 of GDP. CARES was about US$5,000 per capita, about 1/12 of GDP. Germany passed additional packages, for a total aid passed through through June of over $17,000 per capita, over 1/3 of GDP.
lioeters 6y ago
From their source, the HUD Exchange, I found a more recent report. > On a single night in 2019, roughly 568,000 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States. > Nearly two-thirds (63%) were staying in sheltered locations—emergency shelters or transitional housing programs—and more than one-third (37%) were in unsheltered locations such as on the street, in abandoned buildings, or in other places not suitable for human habitation. The 2019 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress - Part 1: Point-in-Time Estimates of Homelessness in the U.S. - https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/5948/2019-ahar-part-1-pit-estimates-of-homelessness-in-the-us/ https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/5948/2019-ahar-part-1-... --- Personally, having lived among the homeless in the U.S. (for a period of a few long years in my youth), half a million seem like a low estimate. There are systemic, structural, and political/cultural reasons for the plight of the homeless, and much of their unnecessary suffering (their treatment by police, lack of healthcare, to count a couple aspects in addition to lack of affordable housing).

smt88 6y ago

While I agree that this number is a catastrophe no matter how you look at it, it's unlikely 100% of those people would become homeless. Some would find (more expensive) shorter-term rentals, others would move in with relatives, and a small percentage would find a landlord willing to sign a new lease with them.

mnky9800n 6y ago
If 95% of people find a place that still doubles the homeless population.
- jsilence 6y ago
  Also the process of moving in itself is ressource and cash intensive. Not to talk about the pressure and stress it entails mentally.
  - mnky9800n 6y ago
    It is quite a lot of effort. I have moved through 4 countries since 2015.
karatinversion 6y ago
The number of renter-occupied residential units in the US is estimated at 44 million - this would be one quarter of rental stock being empty. I suspect _many_ would find new, cheaper rentals from cash-strapped landlords.
- toxicFork 6y ago
  And thus the hermit crab shell exchange begins https://youtu.be/f1dnocPQXDQ https://youtu.be/f1dnocPQXDQ
- bilbo0s 6y ago
  I suspect _many_ would find new, cheaper rentals from cash-strapped landlords. Just Devil's Advocate, but wouldn't that still be just shuffling the chairs on the Titanic?
- a2tech 6y ago
  You would think so--but I don't think the rental market is that elastic anymore. I'm in a college town, so take this with a grain of salt, your milage may vary, etc, but around here with the looming possibility of all the schools being online only in the fall, loads of houses are sitting unrented. In a naive model you would expect to see these houses rent fall in a bid to capture any sort of rent. However what we're seeing in many places here is the opposite--the rent is RISING. The owners behind these properties have non-elastic costs. They've purchased these properties as investments using borrowed money. The bank doesn't stop collecting their payments just because the house is empty. So they have a stable of properties and falling numbers of renters so they RAISE the rent to try and extract any value from the few renters they can capture to try and cover their debts. It was happening with commercial properties before the COVID pandemic. I started noticing this because I was looking for warehouse space for personal woodworking projects and office space for my business (neither with any sort of urgency, so lots of browsing over time). I noticed that the stock increased every month, but the prices never budged. Then in the local business newspaper they started listing square footage of unrented business properties. Month after month it has increased with no visible signs of rent adjustment. I suspect the only thing that will eventually cause rents to decrease property speculators defaulting on their loans, which will lead to bank foreclosures and sales. The banks will then hold on to the properties and keep listing them because they can afford to hold the properties and attempt to wait to receive a 'market rate' sale price. Once the banks can no longer afford to just sit on the properties and sell them for whatever they can get for them, then you'll start to see a cycle of falling rents. Until then I think you're going to see stagnant or even increasing rents.
Someone 6y ago
How would people who can’t pay their rent pay for “(more expensive) shorter-term rentals”? If that means grouping with other households, wouldn’t the better choice be to do that in one of the less expensive existing rentals?

gonzo41 6y ago

Or, there's going to be 11M people who start squating and paying what they can. I'd be interested to see where the cops in America fall on this. It'll destroy cities and towns.

ideals 6y ago
With DHS rolling into a city near you™ it looks like they aren't going to wait and see how local pd react
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  DHS has a limited capacity to do this, given present staffing, funding, responsibilities, and capabilities. While DHS boasts an impressive headcount of 240,000 employees, the bulk are unlikely to be paramilitary goons of the sort seen in Portland and Seattle, where several dozen troops have had minimal effectiveness in projecting force more than a few metres from the federal courthouse. Additional requisitions from a deeply divided Congress are unlikely. Where just a single city's police force numbers over 55 thousands (NYPD), the prospect that a few hundreds, or even thousands, of reassigned TSA screeners and border patrol might play landlord-support squad in 100s of cities throughout the US to an ever-growing public resistance is parlors thin.
  - zaarn 6y ago
    You don't need to evict all people via DHS. Only enough that the rest has enough fear put in them to do it themselves.
  - jhayward 6y ago
    DHS is already training up vigilante militia[1]. Don't underestimate what this administration is willing to do. "attendees will participate in scenario-based training and exercises conducted in a safe and positive environment, including, but not limited to defensive tactics, firearms familiarization, and targeted arrests." [1] https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/07/10/889726473/i-c-e-citizens-trainings-may-be-a-vigilante-academy-chicago-alderman-warns https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/07/10/889726473/i-c-e-cit...

CaptArmchair 6y ago

> So I see 553,742 people homeless at last estimate (2017, unfortunately). 11M would 20x this amount, an amount that seems catastrophic and unmanageable. Not people. Households. 11 million households. Different metric. So, if you want to convert to people, you have to break that down into an equation where the ratio of households reflects their diversity: single, children, extended families, shared accommodation, collectives,... Plug 11 million into that equation and the output will be a magnitude of several orders of that. The U.S Census data shows an average household in the U.S. having 2.63 persons between 2014-2018. So, a ballpark guestimate would be 28.93 million individuals. However, this could still be way off: if evictions happen in highly populous areas, or coincides with areas where the demographics show large households, you'll get a much larger number. For instance, California has, on average 3.1 persons, whereas North Dakota only 2.1. To put all of that into perspective: There are currently 37 million Canadians. So, basically, the problem probably entails a group as large as the entire Canadian population.

hanche 6y ago
A “ballpark guestimate” with four significant digits? (Not to detract from your main point in any way.)
- craftinator 6y ago
  You're always welcome to do your own napkin math and share it!
  - hanche 6y ago
    In this case, 29 million seems reasonable. One factor was given as 11 million, after all, not 11.00 million. And don’t take my comment too seriously. It’s a minor nit, but one that frequently bugs me.
    - CaptArmchair 6y ago
      Oh! More then happy to answer. :-) So, I was just shooting a dart at a target. Translate the target to a Cartesian plan and you can express the position of the dart as a tuple (x,y) with two real numbers. However, you don't know the exact position of the bulls eye you're aiming at. At best, you're aiming for a bounded area representing an approximation. So, you're basically guestimating the distance between the position of the dart, and any other point within that area which might probably be what you're shooting for. Maybe I'm close, maybe I'm less close. I could have rounded upwards to 29 million, but unless you know exactly what you're aiming for, it's not possible to establish how rounding impacts accuracy. We do know that rounding within an interval of 1 million likely won't skew the answer too much, so both numbers are acceptable.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> America's system of governance is so polarized and dysfunctional that no entity either can or will put forward a broad plan to escape the situation There is a federal eviction moratorium in effect on federally-subsidized and federally-backed housing [1]. Many states and cities have more-comprehensive moratoria in place [2]. I'll also note that CARES Act was almost 3x the size of the EU's recent package (over 7x if one ignores its loans) and 4 months earlier. The Republican's follow-up bill, half the size of the Democrats', is still larger than the EU's single package. American government has plenty of faults. But inability to act in a crisis is not one of them. [1] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/coronavirus/mortgage-and-housing-assistance/renter-protections/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/coronavirus/mortgage-and-hou... [2] https://ny.curbed.com/2020/3/26/21192343/coronavirus-new-york-eviction-moratorium-covid-19 https://ny.curbed.com/2020/3/26/21192343/coronavirus-new-yor...

pythonslayer 6y ago
These bills did almost nothing for working Americans, though. They were overwhelmingly just payouts to corporations and some to small business owners.
jaybeeayyy 6y ago
Here in the southern US we've already started up the process of evicting people. Richmond, VA (which always finds itself in the top 10 cities in the US with the highest eviction rates) is in full swing. I know it's easy for a lot of us to forget about people outside NYC and LA but there are not many renter protections down here in general, let alone during an economic crisis/pandemic.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> I'll also note that CARES Act was almost 3x the size of the EU's recent package The EU isn't a national government, their package is a lot more generous than any comparable US-centered supernational regional org. As far as national governments go, the German package passed in April was about US$10,000 per capita, about 1/5 of GDP. CARES was about US$5,000 per capita, about 1/12 of GDP. Germany passed additional packages, for a total aid passed through through June of over $17,000 per capita, over 1/3 of GDP.

lioeters 6y ago

From their source, the HUD Exchange, I found a more recent report. > On a single night in 2019, roughly 568,000 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States. > Nearly two-thirds (63%) were staying in sheltered locations—emergency shelters or transitional housing programs—and more than one-third (37%) were in unsheltered locations such as on the street, in abandoned buildings, or in other places not suitable for human habitation. The 2019 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress - Part 1: Point-in-Time Estimates of Homelessness in the U.S. - https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/5948/2019-ahar-part-1-pit-estimates-of-homelessness-in-the-us/ https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/5948/2019-ahar-part-1-... --- Personally, having lived among the homeless in the U.S. (for a period of a few long years in my youth), half a million seem like a low estimate. There are systemic, structural, and political/cultural reasons for the plight of the homeless, and much of their unnecessary suffering (their treatment by police, lack of healthcare, to count a couple aspects in addition to lack of affordable housing).