If you spend some time in South America you quickly find that most everyone can afford some type of housing, it's just a matter of how shitty it is going to end

If you spend some time in South America you quickly find that most everyone can afford some type of housing, it's just a matter of how shitty it is going to end up. The vast majority of the US has set some building codes that basically say "be rich enough to build to this code or be homeless." One can debate the merits of whether the streets are safer than a sub-code house. If you go somewhere like Asuncion, Paraguay you'll find people living in a shack who would end up homeless in the US. IMO notably missing in zoning and building codes is they tend to consider the harmful effects of substandard zoning / code. But they seldom consider the harmful effects of the tradeoffs made to get it up to code/zone, including less money for healthcare, education, healthy foods, investing in your children, etc. Often it boils down to "fuck you, got mine, I won't risk some elevated risk of spread of fire to help keep you from freezing to death."