12 ms·

Spike in Homelessness in US Cities Isn’t Slowing Down

62 points by harambae 3y ago

pixl97 3y ago
I mean, housing prices aren't going down significantly either.
- klyrs 3y ago
  But we can't raise the minimum wage, because that would cause inflation! Or so I'm told.
  - bequanna 3y ago
    Federal Government spending is a large contributor to inflation. It increased sharply during the pandemic and never corrected.
    - trgn 3y ago
      People are spending the money they saved up during Covid on biggies (cars, home renovation , ...). More recently, sustained wage increases as well keep people spending (restaurants, travel, ...). Money really is washing out now. Wonder how long it will last.
  - treesrule 3y ago
    There is some evidence that increasing minimum wage increases the prices of goods for minimum wage workers so that their rising wages don't actually give them more buying power, also we can just not make it illegal to build new housing in places where there is already housing but ymmv.
    - 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
      If true then capitalism is fundamentally unjust and must be replaced.
      - kneebonian 3y ago
        Exactly we must have a workers revolution, where the buregious is overthrown and the streets run red with the blood of capitalists. Then when we have no more of those parasitic capitalists sucking out the blood of the working man we will establish a glorious dictatorship of the proletariat wherein all will care for and love one another equally, where profit will be no more and the goods and services will flow through the streets without end for every person to be able to do whatever they want. Then not long after the organs of the state will wither away as they will no longer be needed as tools of exploitation by those who own the means of production. Come comrade join me in this glorious future, for this time we will have REAL communism that will REALLY work, unlike all others that came before us.
        treesrule 3y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTKwL7eW-1Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTKwL7eW-1Q
      - treesrule 3y ago
        IDK that this is a new argument? LMK though if you want a more full response
        111111IIIIIII 3y ago
        Who said it's a new argument? My point holds regardless of how true or new the argument is.
    - nobody9999 3y ago
      >There is some evidence that increasing minimum wage increases the prices of goods for minimum wage workers so that their rising wages don't actually give them more buying power I've heard this before, but I've never actually seen that "evidence." Can you point me in the right direction?
      - treesrule 3y ago
        https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/08/the-labor-market-ran-hot-real-wages-fell.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/08/th... This isn't exactly what i've claimed but its in the ballpark (sorry at work will try later to try and find something more specific)
    - AlotOfReading 3y ago
      I don't see how it can be true that rising wages results in no net gain if vendors aren't increasing costs disproportionally to their inputs. A simple model of product cost is labor costs + "other things" like materials, retail overhead, etc, multiplied by some profit margin. If worker wages double, only the labor costs have doubled. The non-zero "other things" have not doubled (they may increase, but you can apply this argument recursively until you get to the base case), so the ultimate price cannot have increased by the same proportion. Thus, all workers should have a net gain.
      - treesrule 3y ago
        one way this can hold everyones wages have increased so other inputs can also increase
        AlotOfReading 3y ago
        Yes, I mentioned that already. The argument applies recursively, and the total increase is always less than the wage increase as long as there is some cost somewhere in the supply chain that is not responsive to wage increase. This could be land, or raw materials cost, or fixed tariffs, or fuel costs, compute, infrastructure, doesn't matter. The whole thing is a linear function, so doubling is the max increase that can occur, and any costs that don't respond must lower the ultimate increase.
        treesrule 3y ago
        All of those things as far as I can tell can rise with wage increases as they will get more use? Except for Fixed Tariffs
  - sonicshadow 3y ago
    Is inflation a myth to you? The lowest-paid people have seen the highest wage increases in the past several years, do you think the grocery store and Starbucks didn't adjust accordingly to raise prices?
    - klyrs 3y ago
      > The lowest-paid people have seen the highest wage increases in the past several years, Do you have a source for this? Because CEOs, the people with enough money to own several properties for luxury and investment, have been consistently beating inflation while housing costs skyrocket. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/18/ceos-made-a-median-20-million-last-year254-times-more-than-the-average-worker.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/18/ceos-made-a-median-20-millio...
      - sonicshadow 3y ago
        https://archive.ph/GhaL2 https://archive.ph/GhaL2 https://archive.ph/A9OTx https://archive.ph/A9OTx
        klyrs 3y ago
        Interesting that those look at quartiles and quintiles. The top 20% isn't necessarily "rich," the bottom of that bracket is barely able to afford homes today. The homelessness spike is not driven by the poorest getting relative wage increases faster than the middle class, which is the story presented in your sources. The homelessness spike is caused by 50 years of working class incomes growing slower than housing costs.
        sonicshadow 3y ago
        idk man u made me cite my sources, why dont you contribute and provide some relevant data
        klyrs 3y ago
        What do you mean you "don't know." Your sources don't support your claim. I did provide relevant data. But here's a primary source: https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2022/inflation-experiences-for-lower-and-higher-income-households/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2022/inflation-experiences-for... Inflation hits lower income brackets harder. Wages in the lower brackets are not keeping up with inflation. The continuing spike in homelessness is a direct result of wage stagnation in the lower and middle classes. The notion that lifting people out of poverty will drive inflation is farcical and perpetuates the growing rates of homelessness and poverty. Think for yourself, "idk" isn't an excuse.
  - local_crmdgeon 3y ago
    Almost no one in the US makes minimum wage. Last I paid attention it was <2% of workers.
davidw 3y ago
Some good statistics about homelessness and what drives it. Lots of people see the unwell guy on the corner, but that's the tip of the iceberg: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-... And a pretty interesting article on efforts to get people out of homelessness in Texas: https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/06/california-houston-homeless-solutions/ https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/06/california-houston-ho...
- itake 3y ago
  Noah's article has many broad generalizations that don't hold water. For example, Missippi's has a low cost of living and quality of life (cheaper for people to house mentally ill family members) [0]. California involuntarily imports homeless people from other states, which would lead to other states having less homeless and California having more. Poor mental healthcare could mean that people that need better quality care leave for states with good quality care. I stopped reading after that. [0] - https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/mississippis-low-homelessness-rate-too-good-to-be-true-by-alex-zambito https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/mississippis-low-hom...
  - davidw 3y ago
    It's pretty hard data, not generalizations. It's odd how much people resist the notion that "fewer people can afford a good as it becomes more expensive" with housing. It's like the Twilight Zone of economics where supply and demand no longer apply.
    - tehwebguy 3y ago
      It's been 16 years and we're still getting South Park talking points on homelessness.
    - detourdog 3y ago
      It's hard data but his rhetorical device of saying homelessness is 100% related to housing is hardly interesting. How practical is it to write off 20-30% of a cause? There are houses everywhere that are below market rates. They may not be glamorous but they are homes. No doubt we have problems. The accessibility, safety, and energy efficiency gains are a positive. I found the article intellectually lazy and I must be in a real foul mood to even be commenting.
hifromLA 3y ago
As a lifelong Californian I’ve seen homelessness expand from “expected” places like skid row into suburbs in (north) Orange County. I’ve long felt that California was a harbinger for the rest of the nation and if they wanted they could choose to avoid the policy mistakes (e.g. SFH zoning, nimby-ism, prop 13, etc). I’m not convinced that they have because the truth is the current status quo materially benefits a coalition of interest groups including current homeowners and property developers. If we want to tackle this we need a national coordinated strategy. A piece meal approach at the city level is just playing whack a mole.
- anon84873628 3y ago
  It's almost like our entire political system is premised on the idea that house prices should never go down...
  - birdyrooster 3y ago
    it makes sense though as this is how the middle class sees a lot of their wealth passed through death and marriage, its houses for the middle class. its just that the middle class is shrinking and so now the same houses are owned by fewer families. for everyone else there is renting and homelessness.
    - caddemon 3y ago
      In SF/Bay Area there is definitely a separate issue besides just the shrinking middle class. SWEs that by all other metrics would be solidly middle class if not upper middle are having a hard time finding affordable homes there. The only people I know who've entertained ownership in the area are DINK, and I know many people in their late 20s and early 30s who have been consistently earning over 6 figures since the day they left college. That said, I can understand arguments for protecting existing middle class homeowners. I think a huge chunk of the problem could be resolved by having policies that treat property like any other speculative investment while having some sort of exceptions for primary family homes that are actively being lived in by the owners. I'm guessing if that were the only class protected by the SF property tax laws only a small minority of the current places would remain with locked-in rates.
Eumenes 3y ago
Neither is substance abuse
- Supermancho 3y ago
  > Neither is substance abuse Or gambling or sex or foul language. These assertions are not useful on their own.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - algoatecorn 3y ago
    Would you agree that an influx of narcotics from our southern border has a lot to do with a rise in homelessness across the US?
    - tehwebguy 3y ago
      No
      - algoatecorn 3y ago
        Since you are able to confidently say no, what factors are most influential?
        Supermancho 3y ago
        Population density + cost of living (primarily influenced by housing costs). If commodities were free, you still need housing to survive. If housing is free, you still need commodities to survive. This is outside of substance abuse issues, which is not often a cause of homelessness. How many people do we all know who are functioning/undiagnosed addicts? It's the cost of living that crushes the lowest income earners. The mentally ill have been left to fend for themselves, for decades. https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/homeless https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/homeless
mbfg 3y ago
Unfortunately i don't see it going anywhere but worse, much worse from here. While there are some who try to do something, money is so now concentrated at the top that it will keep sucking in the next set of lowest economic group that still lives in a house of some kind. It's my future, unless i die relatively quickly.
MSFT_Edging 3y ago
I recommend checking out this channel if you want to see what its like for people on the brink, or trying to claw back from homelessness. I found it today and there's a lot of privileged folks who just don't know. One of the themes on there, is intermediate free housing helps a tremendous amount when people are falling down. Another big theme is landlords evicting anyone who complains or wrongs them. https://www.youtube.com/@OfficialBigSuper https://www.youtube.com/@OfficialBigSuper
- petsormeat 3y ago
  Glad to see this channel promoted (am not associated with it). What had been an entertaining hate-watch of stupid McMansions for overpriced sale is now an empathetic, disturbing examination of how Americans can abruptly fall into poverty once they're old, chronically ill, or facing domestic abuse.
nobody9999 3y ago
And this is nothing new either. I recall a piece in the Village Voice from back in the 1980s whose title asked the question "What do homeless people want?" Which was helpfully answered in the first sentence: "Homes mostly."[0] And another piece in the San Jose Mercury News from 2000 reporting on full-time public school teachers in San Jose living in homeless shelters because they couldn't afford the rent there.[0] Homelessness is, at its heart, a housing affordability issue, not the "moral failings" of someone who can't afford to pay rent/mortgage. The solution is, of course, more housing. But that would require local rezoning and likely higher density housing. But there are powerful special interests that aren't interested in that, and are perfectly happy to see their fellow humans suffer. And more's the pity. [0] I've repeatedly searched for online copies of these pieces, but have been unsuccessful on numerous occasions. That may be due to deficiencies in my search-fu, but there's also a lot of stuff from back then that just isn't online.
- trinsic2 3y ago
  Thanks for this. I am going to use it in my area of California. There is a lot of people here that believe that people dont want to pay rent and its really about cost inflation due to house flipping and ect.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  Yes, for most homeless the issue is housing affordability, but for the homeless that people complain about, the mentally ill and violent drug addicts, housing affordability is not the problem. If the "annoying" homeless were all forcibly institutionalized no one would care about the "quite" homeless which is why discussion ignores them.
  - nobody9999 3y ago
    >Yes, for most homeless the issue is housing affordability, but for the homeless that people complain about, the mentally ill and violent drug addicts, housing affordability is not the problem. I don't know about you and can't speak for anyone else, but I complain the loudest about people who are homeless (especially families with young children) because of housing affordability. Those with mental health and/or substance abuse issues are (at least in my mind) a separate issue -- one that is related to public health and not housing. And we fail those folks even worse than those who just can't afford housing. >If the "annoying" homeless were all forcibly institutionalized no one would care about the "quite" homeless which is why discussion ignores them. Are you really making that argument? If so, why stop with incarceration? We used to sterilize[0] those folks too. They're not really human anyway, since if they were, they wouldn't be homeless or mentally ill right? Because homelessness, addiction and mental illness are moral failings that only reflect on the individual and not on the society in which they live. In fact, why don't we just euthanize them. And why stop with the homeless? Those useless unemployed folks need to go too. And don't forget about the old and infirm. They don't add anything productive, so why should we suffer them to live at all? Yes, I realize that you're not advocating for euthanizing Grandma, but what you are advocating isn't so far (as history has shown) from that. Or, as the old saw goes, "Don't wish for what you want. You might just get it." [0] https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2020/11/04/americas-forgotten-history-of-forced-sterilization/ https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2020/11/04/americas-forgotten-histo...
megaman821 3y ago
The vast majority of homelessness is caused by unaffordable housing in the area, or temporary money flow problems. This is a different population than the visible, chronic homeless. Sweeping them up into one group seems counterproductive. The mom who just lost her job and is getting evicted from her apartment just needs money or a more affordable living situation. The guy yelling a trees on the street, needs mental health treatment. When people complain about the homeless, it is mostly about the chronic homeless even though they are a much smaller population.
- treesrule 3y ago
  I don't think this is super true, I think people become the random guy yelling at trees rather than some guy who works at the Duane Reade because homelessness causes you to go insane
  - vkou 3y ago
    Yes, homelessness absolutely causes people to go insane. I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. But some people end up homeless because their mental health issues weren't treated (or weren't treated well) while they were still housed and functional. It can only take a few bad episodes to lose your job, and the next job, and then your home, and then you're screaming at the pigeons at 2pm in SOMA.
    - nobody9999 3y ago
      That's certainly true. When I was homeless (nearly 40 years ago, and thankfully only for seven months or so), I absolutely self-medicated to deal with the hopelessness, isolation and fear I felt not having any place to go. Interestingly (and yes, I know I'm an outlier), about nine months after getting off the streets, it was not wanting that again that got me to stop self-medicating (cocaine) when I found myself getting ready to spend my rent money on drugs, and haven't touched cocaine since. Sadly, many folks are unable to get off that particular hamster wheel without lots of help. All that said, as others have pointed out, those with mental health and substance abuse issues are a tiny minority of the homeless population. In fact, a majority of Americans are just one unexpected $600 emergency from becoming homeless themselves. And that makes me sad.
bradlys 3y ago
Build more housing and remove regulations - but wait… developers are never going to build housing that lowers the price of housing overall. This would only help people who have all the cash to build their own single family dream house… which isn’t the people we really need to help. The answer is building public housing where the government has no incentive to constantly extract as much as possible out of the tenants. I don’t see anyway forward for the US other than a public housing revolution. As long as everyone’s NW is tied up in property, public housing will be the only way to get more affordable housing onto the market. Every other action will constantly push the cost of housing up or keep it flat, at best.
- dweissma 3y ago
  Why are we assuming "developers are never going to build housing that lowers the price of housing overall"? This seems to run contrary to research on the issue. See: https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-makes-homes-more-affordable-even-those-who-cant-afford-new-units https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-...
- ch4s3 3y ago
  You do realize that developers are in the business of building housing right? There will be developers building anything legal to build at any cost level that they think will lead to returns. However in most of the US, most kinds of housing are illegal to build. Building triplexes doesn't necessarily make single family homes cheaper(and generally will not) but it does product units that may be cheaper than the current average price. > As long as everyone’s NW is tied up in property It's totally a myth that building new housing, specifically things like apartments lowers the value of single family homes. In some cases, building more housing might increase the value of your SFH, because there is more economic activity nearby and more potential buyers when you go to sell. Housing need not be 0 sum.
  - bradlys 3y ago
    > There will be developers building anything legal to build at any cost level that they think will lead to returns Have you ever considered that developers also own existing property and land? Developers and construction companies are not the same.
grrdotcloud 3y ago
Having been homeless I know the chasm between living on the street in a tent and a suburban home is about a ten thousand decisions over the course of several years. I would argue the life we will have is very predictable, on a 5-year timeline, based upon decisions between today and the next year. Small things, like showing up to work on time, has a compounding impact upon one's life. The ability to afford a mortgage has a dependency of a few thousand good decisions resulting from several years of positive actions.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  I've been homeless plenty and the only thing that got me out was luck and medical treatment. Years of good decisions can be undone by one accident or bad turn. My best personal example of this is one of the first times I was trying to get sober, had gotten a chromebook and was beginning to work online. About halfway to saving money for deposit on an apartment when a cop threw my tent and backpack in the river. I was back in the bottle within a week. The life you live is very predictable, but that's one of the things you lose along with your home. I'm surprised you didn't learn that out there.
  - MSFT_Edging 3y ago
    I'm really sorry that happened to you. There's a major lack of empathy for people who are homeless. The response to homelessness being more police violence is horrific, especially how they basically throw away all their belongings just so people don't have to see the poor and desperate in their neighborhoods. Its absolutely inhumane.
tehwebguy 3y ago
The Bloomberg list in this article is a joke. It lists 10k families without homes in LA and simultaneously only 381 in Miami -- those 2 numbers cannot be correct, I suspect the Miami number is completely fabricated.
_8j50 3y ago
Hear me out: more big cities. How you do that is have fast transportation, especially free public transportation to smaller municipalities. In california, it seems the problem is the richest coastal folks are too powerful for eminent domain to be effective. If that is correct then the answer is political, cali has a decent track record of propositions making huge changes. Perhaps sound minded californians can organize a measure to put this on the next ballot: neuter the coastal commission and fund apartment and condos in the most desirable locations so that the rich still live in scenic coastal places, just stacked in apartments instead of houses and also give cities power to demolish arbitrary houses in lieu of apartments. I see people complain about homelessness all the time but no one is willing to consider extreme measures, just complain about it.
zuminator 3y ago
What a weirdly framed article. It's purports to be a discussion about spiking homelessness in "US Cities." But it's really about a discussion about spiking homelessness in one US city, i.e. New York. The numbers in the chart show that homeless families shot up from 52,824 to 72,675. That's an increase of 19,851. But out of that number, 17,145 represents New York City. The entire rest of the country only accounts for 2,706 families.
imtringued 3y ago
Modern day homelessness is a luxury problem. People prefer a society with homeless people because it gets them some private benefit, otherwise they would have fixed the problem if it was truly important to them.
e40 3y ago
I wonder if cities are getting better at counting the homeless. The big uptick in 2022 probably got them to pay more attention, hire people to canvas various parts of cities to count them. The numbers are definitely distressing. As someone in the Bay Area who has noticed a huge increase, it doesn't seem worse in 2023 than in 2022 (and Oakland is not on the list, which is odd to me).
- 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
  Under capitalism, cities have no incentive to get better at counting the homeless. In fact, they are more incentivized to increase their rate of death than to calculate their rate of existence.
MollyRealized 3y ago
Personally, I'd like to see taxes go towards cheap but secure housing, food and health care guaranteed for everyone within the US. (Barracks? Food prep like this [1]? Health care similar to Armed Forces?) Then if you wanted to live alone and/or better, eat better food, or have spending money, that would be your incentive for a job or doing your own business, etc. I'm kind of cribbing from MANNA (Marshall Brain, ASIN #B007HQH67U, I don't see an ISBN anywhere). But I kind of feel that the basic premise of "here's a safe place to sleep and you won't starve" is a base level we should aim toward. [1] - https://youtu.be/TT-N5wl0l-s https://youtu.be/TT-N5wl0l-s
sharts 3y ago
It's mind-boggling that conversations never touch the total lack of fundamental recovery since 2008. Homelessness really picked up during the "great" recession and the only "recovery" I've seen since then has been in financial assets propped up by artificially low rates. All of this only produced overvalued tech companies peddling products with little to no value ad, marginal if any fundamental innovation to level-up society in any meaningful way, and massively increased concentration of wealth in the hands of few. Fundamentals seem weaker now than even back then and people are still hanging on by a thread. Things will only accelerate when this next downturn really hits. Whether child labor will be legalized this time around or if it'll take yet another cycle is really the only question left to be asked. Unfortunately, we need to directly experience abject conditions first-hand to begin caring about turning the ship around.

62 points by harambae 3y ago

pixl97 3y ago

I mean, housing prices aren't going down significantly either.

klyrs 3y ago
But we can't raise the minimum wage, because that would cause inflation! Or so I'm told.
- bequanna 3y ago
  Federal Government spending is a large contributor to inflation. It increased sharply during the pandemic and never corrected.
  - trgn 3y ago
    People are spending the money they saved up during Covid on biggies (cars, home renovation , ...). More recently, sustained wage increases as well keep people spending (restaurants, travel, ...). Money really is washing out now. Wonder how long it will last.
- treesrule 3y ago
  There is some evidence that increasing minimum wage increases the prices of goods for minimum wage workers so that their rising wages don't actually give them more buying power, also we can just not make it illegal to build new housing in places where there is already housing but ymmv.
  - 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
    If true then capitalism is fundamentally unjust and must be replaced.
    - kneebonian 3y ago
      Exactly we must have a workers revolution, where the buregious is overthrown and the streets run red with the blood of capitalists. Then when we have no more of those parasitic capitalists sucking out the blood of the working man we will establish a glorious dictatorship of the proletariat wherein all will care for and love one another equally, where profit will be no more and the goods and services will flow through the streets without end for every person to be able to do whatever they want. Then not long after the organs of the state will wither away as they will no longer be needed as tools of exploitation by those who own the means of production. Come comrade join me in this glorious future, for this time we will have REAL communism that will REALLY work, unlike all others that came before us.
      - treesrule 3y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTKwL7eW-1Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTKwL7eW-1Q
    - treesrule 3y ago
      IDK that this is a new argument? LMK though if you want a more full response
      - 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
        Who said it's a new argument? My point holds regardless of how true or new the argument is.
  - nobody9999 3y ago
    >There is some evidence that increasing minimum wage increases the prices of goods for minimum wage workers so that their rising wages don't actually give them more buying power I've heard this before, but I've never actually seen that "evidence." Can you point me in the right direction?
    - treesrule 3y ago
      https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/08/the-labor-market-ran-hot-real-wages-fell.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/08/th... This isn't exactly what i've claimed but its in the ballpark (sorry at work will try later to try and find something more specific)
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    I don't see how it can be true that rising wages results in no net gain if vendors aren't increasing costs disproportionally to their inputs. A simple model of product cost is labor costs + "other things" like materials, retail overhead, etc, multiplied by some profit margin. If worker wages double, only the labor costs have doubled. The non-zero "other things" have not doubled (they may increase, but you can apply this argument recursively until you get to the base case), so the ultimate price cannot have increased by the same proportion. Thus, all workers should have a net gain.
    - treesrule 3y ago
      one way this can hold everyones wages have increased so other inputs can also increase
      - AlotOfReading 3y ago
        Yes, I mentioned that already. The argument applies recursively, and the total increase is always less than the wage increase as long as there is some cost somewhere in the supply chain that is not responsive to wage increase. This could be land, or raw materials cost, or fixed tariffs, or fuel costs, compute, infrastructure, doesn't matter. The whole thing is a linear function, so doubling is the max increase that can occur, and any costs that don't respond must lower the ultimate increase.
        treesrule 3y ago
        All of those things as far as I can tell can rise with wage increases as they will get more use? Except for Fixed Tariffs
- sonicshadow 3y ago
  Is inflation a myth to you? The lowest-paid people have seen the highest wage increases in the past several years, do you think the grocery store and Starbucks didn't adjust accordingly to raise prices?
  - klyrs 3y ago
    > The lowest-paid people have seen the highest wage increases in the past several years, Do you have a source for this? Because CEOs, the people with enough money to own several properties for luxury and investment, have been consistently beating inflation while housing costs skyrocket. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/18/ceos-made-a-median-20-million-last-year254-times-more-than-the-average-worker.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/18/ceos-made-a-median-20-millio...
    - sonicshadow 3y ago
      https://archive.ph/GhaL2 https://archive.ph/GhaL2 https://archive.ph/A9OTx https://archive.ph/A9OTx
      - klyrs 3y ago
        Interesting that those look at quartiles and quintiles. The top 20% isn't necessarily "rich," the bottom of that bracket is barely able to afford homes today. The homelessness spike is not driven by the poorest getting relative wage increases faster than the middle class, which is the story presented in your sources. The homelessness spike is caused by 50 years of working class incomes growing slower than housing costs.
        sonicshadow 3y ago
        idk man u made me cite my sources, why dont you contribute and provide some relevant data
        klyrs 3y ago
        What do you mean you "don't know." Your sources don't support your claim. I did provide relevant data. But here's a primary source: https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2022/inflation-experiences-for-lower-and-higher-income-households/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2022/inflation-experiences-for... Inflation hits lower income brackets harder. Wages in the lower brackets are not keeping up with inflation. The continuing spike in homelessness is a direct result of wage stagnation in the lower and middle classes. The notion that lifting people out of poverty will drive inflation is farcical and perpetuates the growing rates of homelessness and poverty. Think for yourself, "idk" isn't an excuse.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  Almost no one in the US makes minimum wage. Last I paid attention it was <2% of workers.

davidw 3y ago

Some good statistics about homelessness and what drives it. Lots of people see the unwell guy on the corner, but that's the tip of the iceberg: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-... And a pretty interesting article on efforts to get people out of homelessness in Texas: https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/06/california-houston-homeless-solutions/ https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/06/california-houston-ho...

itake 3y ago
Noah's article has many broad generalizations that don't hold water. For example, Missippi's has a low cost of living and quality of life (cheaper for people to house mentally ill family members) [0]. California involuntarily imports homeless people from other states, which would lead to other states having less homeless and California having more. Poor mental healthcare could mean that people that need better quality care leave for states with good quality care. I stopped reading after that. [0] - https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/mississippis-low-homelessness-rate-too-good-to-be-true-by-alex-zambito https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/mississippis-low-hom...
- davidw 3y ago
  It's pretty hard data, not generalizations. It's odd how much people resist the notion that "fewer people can afford a good as it becomes more expensive" with housing. It's like the Twilight Zone of economics where supply and demand no longer apply.
  - tehwebguy 3y ago
    It's been 16 years and we're still getting South Park talking points on homelessness.
  - detourdog 3y ago
    It's hard data but his rhetorical device of saying homelessness is 100% related to housing is hardly interesting. How practical is it to write off 20-30% of a cause? There are houses everywhere that are below market rates. They may not be glamorous but they are homes. No doubt we have problems. The accessibility, safety, and energy efficiency gains are a positive. I found the article intellectually lazy and I must be in a real foul mood to even be commenting.

hifromLA 3y ago

As a lifelong Californian I’ve seen homelessness expand from “expected” places like skid row into suburbs in (north) Orange County. I’ve long felt that California was a harbinger for the rest of the nation and if they wanted they could choose to avoid the policy mistakes (e.g. SFH zoning, nimby-ism, prop 13, etc). I’m not convinced that they have because the truth is the current status quo materially benefits a coalition of interest groups including current homeowners and property developers. If we want to tackle this we need a national coordinated strategy. A piece meal approach at the city level is just playing whack a mole.

anon84873628 3y ago
It's almost like our entire political system is premised on the idea that house prices should never go down...
- birdyrooster 3y ago
  it makes sense though as this is how the middle class sees a lot of their wealth passed through death and marriage, its houses for the middle class. its just that the middle class is shrinking and so now the same houses are owned by fewer families. for everyone else there is renting and homelessness.
  - caddemon 3y ago
    In SF/Bay Area there is definitely a separate issue besides just the shrinking middle class. SWEs that by all other metrics would be solidly middle class if not upper middle are having a hard time finding affordable homes there. The only people I know who've entertained ownership in the area are DINK, and I know many people in their late 20s and early 30s who have been consistently earning over 6 figures since the day they left college. That said, I can understand arguments for protecting existing middle class homeowners. I think a huge chunk of the problem could be resolved by having policies that treat property like any other speculative investment while having some sort of exceptions for primary family homes that are actively being lived in by the owners. I'm guessing if that were the only class protected by the SF property tax laws only a small minority of the current places would remain with locked-in rates.

Eumenes 3y ago

Neither is substance abuse

Supermancho 3y ago
> Neither is substance abuse Or gambling or sex or foul language. These assertions are not useful on their own.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- algoatecorn 3y ago
  Would you agree that an influx of narcotics from our southern border has a lot to do with a rise in homelessness across the US?
  - tehwebguy 3y ago
    No
    - algoatecorn 3y ago
      Since you are able to confidently say no, what factors are most influential?
      - Supermancho 3y ago
        Population density + cost of living (primarily influenced by housing costs). If commodities were free, you still need housing to survive. If housing is free, you still need commodities to survive. This is outside of substance abuse issues, which is not often a cause of homelessness. How many people do we all know who are functioning/undiagnosed addicts? It's the cost of living that crushes the lowest income earners. The mentally ill have been left to fend for themselves, for decades. https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/homeless https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/homeless

mbfg 3y ago

Unfortunately i don't see it going anywhere but worse, much worse from here. While there are some who try to do something, money is so now concentrated at the top that it will keep sucking in the next set of lowest economic group that still lives in a house of some kind. It's my future, unless i die relatively quickly.

MSFT_Edging 3y ago

I recommend checking out this channel if you want to see what its like for people on the brink, or trying to claw back from homelessness. I found it today and there's a lot of privileged folks who just don't know. One of the themes on there, is intermediate free housing helps a tremendous amount when people are falling down. Another big theme is landlords evicting anyone who complains or wrongs them. https://www.youtube.com/@OfficialBigSuper https://www.youtube.com/@OfficialBigSuper

petsormeat 3y ago
Glad to see this channel promoted (am not associated with it). What had been an entertaining hate-watch of stupid McMansions for overpriced sale is now an empathetic, disturbing examination of how Americans can abruptly fall into poverty once they're old, chronically ill, or facing domestic abuse.

nobody9999 3y ago

And this is nothing new either. I recall a piece in the Village Voice from back in the 1980s whose title asked the question "What do homeless people want?" Which was helpfully answered in the first sentence: "Homes mostly."[0] And another piece in the San Jose Mercury News from 2000 reporting on full-time public school teachers in San Jose living in homeless shelters because they couldn't afford the rent there.[0] Homelessness is, at its heart, a housing affordability issue, not the "moral failings" of someone who can't afford to pay rent/mortgage. The solution is, of course, more housing. But that would require local rezoning and likely higher density housing. But there are powerful special interests that aren't interested in that, and are perfectly happy to see their fellow humans suffer. And more's the pity. [0] I've repeatedly searched for online copies of these pieces, but have been unsuccessful on numerous occasions. That may be due to deficiencies in my search-fu, but there's also a lot of stuff from back then that just isn't online.

trinsic2 3y ago
Thanks for this. I am going to use it in my area of California. There is a lot of people here that believe that people dont want to pay rent and its really about cost inflation due to house flipping and ect.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
Yes, for most homeless the issue is housing affordability, but for the homeless that people complain about, the mentally ill and violent drug addicts, housing affordability is not the problem. If the "annoying" homeless were all forcibly institutionalized no one would care about the "quite" homeless which is why discussion ignores them.
- nobody9999 3y ago
  >Yes, for most homeless the issue is housing affordability, but for the homeless that people complain about, the mentally ill and violent drug addicts, housing affordability is not the problem. I don't know about you and can't speak for anyone else, but I complain the loudest about people who are homeless (especially families with young children) because of housing affordability. Those with mental health and/or substance abuse issues are (at least in my mind) a separate issue -- one that is related to public health and not housing. And we fail those folks even worse than those who just can't afford housing. >If the "annoying" homeless were all forcibly institutionalized no one would care about the "quite" homeless which is why discussion ignores them. Are you really making that argument? If so, why stop with incarceration? We used to sterilize[0] those folks too. They're not really human anyway, since if they were, they wouldn't be homeless or mentally ill right? Because homelessness, addiction and mental illness are moral failings that only reflect on the individual and not on the society in which they live. In fact, why don't we just euthanize them. And why stop with the homeless? Those useless unemployed folks need to go too. And don't forget about the old and infirm. They don't add anything productive, so why should we suffer them to live at all? Yes, I realize that you're not advocating for euthanizing Grandma, but what you are advocating isn't so far (as history has shown) from that. Or, as the old saw goes, "Don't wish for what you want. You might just get it." [0] https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2020/11/04/americas-forgotten-history-of-forced-sterilization/ https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2020/11/04/americas-forgotten-histo...

megaman821 3y ago

The vast majority of homelessness is caused by unaffordable housing in the area, or temporary money flow problems. This is a different population than the visible, chronic homeless. Sweeping them up into one group seems counterproductive. The mom who just lost her job and is getting evicted from her apartment just needs money or a more affordable living situation. The guy yelling a trees on the street, needs mental health treatment. When people complain about the homeless, it is mostly about the chronic homeless even though they are a much smaller population.

treesrule 3y ago
I don't think this is super true, I think people become the random guy yelling at trees rather than some guy who works at the Duane Reade because homelessness causes you to go insane
- vkou 3y ago
  Yes, homelessness absolutely causes people to go insane. I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. But some people end up homeless because their mental health issues weren't treated (or weren't treated well) while they were still housed and functional. It can only take a few bad episodes to lose your job, and the next job, and then your home, and then you're screaming at the pigeons at 2pm in SOMA.
  - nobody9999 3y ago
    That's certainly true. When I was homeless (nearly 40 years ago, and thankfully only for seven months or so), I absolutely self-medicated to deal with the hopelessness, isolation and fear I felt not having any place to go. Interestingly (and yes, I know I'm an outlier), about nine months after getting off the streets, it was not wanting that again that got me to stop self-medicating (cocaine) when I found myself getting ready to spend my rent money on drugs, and haven't touched cocaine since. Sadly, many folks are unable to get off that particular hamster wheel without lots of help. All that said, as others have pointed out, those with mental health and substance abuse issues are a tiny minority of the homeless population. In fact, a majority of Americans are just one unexpected $600 emergency from becoming homeless themselves. And that makes me sad.

bradlys 3y ago

Build more housing and remove regulations - but wait… developers are never going to build housing that lowers the price of housing overall. This would only help people who have all the cash to build their own single family dream house… which isn’t the people we really need to help. The answer is building public housing where the government has no incentive to constantly extract as much as possible out of the tenants. I don’t see anyway forward for the US other than a public housing revolution. As long as everyone’s NW is tied up in property, public housing will be the only way to get more affordable housing onto the market. Every other action will constantly push the cost of housing up or keep it flat, at best.

dweissma 3y ago
Why are we assuming "developers are never going to build housing that lowers the price of housing overall"? This seems to run contrary to research on the issue. See: https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-makes-homes-more-affordable-even-those-who-cant-afford-new-units https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-...
ch4s3 3y ago
You do realize that developers are in the business of building housing right? There will be developers building anything legal to build at any cost level that they think will lead to returns. However in most of the US, most kinds of housing are illegal to build. Building triplexes doesn't necessarily make single family homes cheaper(and generally will not) but it does product units that may be cheaper than the current average price. > As long as everyone’s NW is tied up in property It's totally a myth that building new housing, specifically things like apartments lowers the value of single family homes. In some cases, building more housing might increase the value of your SFH, because there is more economic activity nearby and more potential buyers when you go to sell. Housing need not be 0 sum.
- bradlys 3y ago
  > There will be developers building anything legal to build at any cost level that they think will lead to returns Have you ever considered that developers also own existing property and land? Developers and construction companies are not the same.

grrdotcloud 3y ago

Having been homeless I know the chasm between living on the street in a tent and a suburban home is about a ten thousand decisions over the course of several years. I would argue the life we will have is very predictable, on a 5-year timeline, based upon decisions between today and the next year. Small things, like showing up to work on time, has a compounding impact upon one's life. The ability to afford a mortgage has a dependency of a few thousand good decisions resulting from several years of positive actions.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
I've been homeless plenty and the only thing that got me out was luck and medical treatment. Years of good decisions can be undone by one accident or bad turn. My best personal example of this is one of the first times I was trying to get sober, had gotten a chromebook and was beginning to work online. About halfway to saving money for deposit on an apartment when a cop threw my tent and backpack in the river. I was back in the bottle within a week. The life you live is very predictable, but that's one of the things you lose along with your home. I'm surprised you didn't learn that out there.
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago
  I'm really sorry that happened to you. There's a major lack of empathy for people who are homeless. The response to homelessness being more police violence is horrific, especially how they basically throw away all their belongings just so people don't have to see the poor and desperate in their neighborhoods. Its absolutely inhumane.

tehwebguy 3y ago

The Bloomberg list in this article is a joke. It lists 10k families without homes in LA and simultaneously only 381 in Miami -- those 2 numbers cannot be correct, I suspect the Miami number is completely fabricated.

_8j50 3y ago

Hear me out: more big cities. How you do that is have fast transportation, especially free public transportation to smaller municipalities. In california, it seems the problem is the richest coastal folks are too powerful for eminent domain to be effective. If that is correct then the answer is political, cali has a decent track record of propositions making huge changes. Perhaps sound minded californians can organize a measure to put this on the next ballot: neuter the coastal commission and fund apartment and condos in the most desirable locations so that the rich still live in scenic coastal places, just stacked in apartments instead of houses and also give cities power to demolish arbitrary houses in lieu of apartments. I see people complain about homelessness all the time but no one is willing to consider extreme measures, just complain about it.

zuminator 3y ago

What a weirdly framed article. It's purports to be a discussion about spiking homelessness in "US Cities." But it's really about a discussion about spiking homelessness in one US city, i.e. New York. The numbers in the chart show that homeless families shot up from 52,824 to 72,675. That's an increase of 19,851. But out of that number, 17,145 represents New York City. The entire rest of the country only accounts for 2,706 families.

imtringued 3y ago

Modern day homelessness is a luxury problem. People prefer a society with homeless people because it gets them some private benefit, otherwise they would have fixed the problem if it was truly important to them.

e40 3y ago

I wonder if cities are getting better at counting the homeless. The big uptick in 2022 probably got them to pay more attention, hire people to canvas various parts of cities to count them. The numbers are definitely distressing. As someone in the Bay Area who has noticed a huge increase, it doesn't seem worse in 2023 than in 2022 (and Oakland is not on the list, which is odd to me).

111111IIIIIII 3y ago
Under capitalism, cities have no incentive to get better at counting the homeless. In fact, they are more incentivized to increase their rate of death than to calculate their rate of existence.

MollyRealized 3y ago

Personally, I'd like to see taxes go towards cheap but secure housing, food and health care guaranteed for everyone within the US. (Barracks? Food prep like this [1]? Health care similar to Armed Forces?) Then if you wanted to live alone and/or better, eat better food, or have spending money, that would be your incentive for a job or doing your own business, etc. I'm kind of cribbing from MANNA (Marshall Brain, ASIN #B007HQH67U, I don't see an ISBN anywhere). But I kind of feel that the basic premise of "here's a safe place to sleep and you won't starve" is a base level we should aim toward. [1] - https://youtu.be/TT-N5wl0l-s https://youtu.be/TT-N5wl0l-s

sharts 3y ago

It's mind-boggling that conversations never touch the total lack of fundamental recovery since 2008. Homelessness really picked up during the "great" recession and the only "recovery" I've seen since then has been in financial assets propped up by artificially low rates. All of this only produced overvalued tech companies peddling products with little to no value ad, marginal if any fundamental innovation to level-up society in any meaningful way, and massively increased concentration of wealth in the hands of few. Fundamentals seem weaker now than even back then and people are still hanging on by a thread. Things will only accelerate when this next downturn really hits. Whether child labor will be legalized this time around or if it'll take yet another cycle is really the only question left to be asked. Unfortunately, we need to directly experience abject conditions first-hand to begin caring about turning the ship around.