8 ms·

There are studies - there are more vacation units than homeless people in the United States - like double.

spankalee 3y ago
Those studies are so often flawed will pieces. Houses begging sold or between tenants are counted as vacant. Vacancies in rural Pennsylvania and Kentucky don't matter much for the homeless in Oakland. What do you even do with that information? Ship the homeless around the country? Other studies should that the higher the vacancy rate the lower the homeless rate and the cheaper housing is. So we can just allow people to build where people want to live and solve both problems.
- throwitaway222 3y ago
  If you do the right "step-up" programs and purchasable housing becomes extremely cheap around the country, it will solve itself. There are a lot of homeless people in Oakland that if found out they can buy a house in Kentucky and afford it with a restaurant dish-cleaning job, they would move. Stop treating the homeless as "shippable containers" they have agency.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    The dish washer jobs pays less than minimum wage under the table, beacuse the government flew desperate people from the poorest part of the planet to town to compete with the existing dishwashers.
    - 2024throwaway 3y ago
      > beacuse the government flew desperate people from the poorest part of the planet to town to compete with the existing dishwashers. Gonna need some sources on this one.
      - willcipriano 3y ago
        From just last week: > The Center for Immigration Studies found last year from January 2023 to December 2023, at least 320,000 illegal immigrants were allowed to fly into the U.S. from their home country through a controversial program of the Biden administration using the Customs and Border Patrol app, the CBP One app that was created to let migrants apply for parole into the US. > The Parole program allows for two-year periods of legal status during which adults are eligible for work authorization. https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/biden-admin-flew-hundreds-of-thousands-of-migrants-into-us-using-cbp-one-app-illegal-immigration-border-crisis-southern-border https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/biden-admin-flew-hu...
        TylerE 3y ago
        If they're coming in under a government program with proper paperwork, they aren't illegals.
        willcipriano 3y ago
        I agree. It's government policy at this point to bring in as many people as possible for some reason. My guess is to drive down wages, some others have guessed that it's due to a belief that global conflict is rising and the native population is unwilling to fight.
        TylerE 3y ago
        Then you should not have said 320,000 illegal immigrants brought in, since you agree they are not illegals.
        exoverito 3y ago
        This perspective seems to be missing the forest for the trees. Bribery isn't illegal for Congress, it's just called lobbying. Insider trading isn't illegal either. Loose immigration policy and the lack of border enforcement obviously exerts downward pressure on wages for low skill workers. It also bids up rents since illegal immigrants are willing to pile into a 1 bedroom apartment. The elite own businesses and real estate, both of which benefit from illegal immigration reducing wages and increasing demand for rent. If you take a minute to think about the incentives, then see the effects in the world around you, it's pretty obvious what's going on.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    Such houses do not exist. A minimum wage dish washing job barely pays enough to eat off of. Your gross take home from a minimum wage part time job is $145/week. Before all taxes and deductions. You can’t afford a closet is crack hiuse on that “salary” even in the boonies. Even in my LCOL areas places that were like $400/month 5 or 6 years ago are over $1000/month.
    - throwitaway222 3y ago
      I think you missed the thread - we're making it nearly impossible for someone to own a rental, it would flood the market with purchasable homes - cratering home prices potentially making the medium drop from $400k to $100k (at least for a certain class of homes), create programs for homeless people to get loans - some kind of step-up, combined with a job, and the homeless would suddenly be home owners and become people contributing to the world again.
      - TylerE 3y ago
        $100k might as well be $100m to 99% of homeless people. Do you think they’re going to qualify for a loan at a non-usurious rate? In case, if the market value drops, well, rich people will just buy them. If you’re currently in a “$300k” home and can buy a “$400k” home for $100k… like how do any of these numbers make any sort of sense?
        throwitaway222 3y ago
        What is a rich person that already has a home going to do with a $100k house that costs another $100k for them each year?
        TylerE 3y ago
        What's the homeless person that can't afford it going to do with it?
      - giantg2 3y ago
        I don't think I missed the thread. Crating home prices is basically recreating half of the 20008 financial crisis when people are underwater and unable to move, nor have any financial flexibility. Giving homeless people a program to help them out of homelessness and into some form of housing can be good, but jumping them up to homeowners seems a giant leap. If you get them into a stable job and apartment, they aren't homeless anymore. If they're stable, they'll eventually qualify for a loan like everyone else.
  - shagie 3y ago
    I believe that you overestimate the ability / desire for someone to move even if there are more opportunities there. A person's friends, family, social support... and frankly, modern culture can make moving a sticky problem. https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/historic.html https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/de... The rate of people moving between states has dropped significantly. https://www2.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/geographic-mobility/figure-a-1.2.png https://www2.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/d... The people moving within the same city has stayed rather constant, it is the distance moves that have dropped - https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/geographic-mobility/figure-a-6.png https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat... --- I believe that if you offered homeless people in Oakland a job and a house in Kentucky that they could pay off in 10 years while working as a dish washer, you would have very few takers. I would also suggest that the town that has the dishwashing job in Kentucky - that business is likely to close in 5 years and there won't be any more unskilled jobs in the town and they'll be out of a job and unable to pay the mortgage, get foreclosed and be homeless again -- they know that story. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't - homeless in California is known while a homeless in Kentucky is something else with even fewer opportunities out.
    - TylerE 3y ago
      Plus that town in Kentucky is likely already dealing with a homelessness epidemic of their own before you start bussing people in from out of state. Also ignoring that many people who live in California would face non-trivial threats to their health and livelihood if they were move to a regressive Bible Belt state. That is not a theoretical concern, but one born out by numerous tragedies.
    - giantg2 3y ago
      "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't - homeless in California is known while a homeless in Kentucky is something else with even fewer opportunities out." Sounds like when homeless people or people on various assistance sometimes turn down opportunities because they're afraid (sometimes rightfully do) that it will ruin one of their other assistance. How do you help people who don't want to be helped?
- 8note 3y ago
  Between tenants should be considered vacant, when you consider that landlords have been colluding to restrict supply and drive up rents
  - giantg2 3y ago
    There should be reasonable lag time of a month or so. That way the landlord has time to perform maintenance between tenants.
Auracle 3y ago
Homeless people are largely homeless because of other life circumstances (drug addiction, mental illness), not affordability.
- lanfeust6 3y ago
  This is wrong. Homelessness scales with affordability, not mental illness or addiction rates. This is why San Fransisco and LA have the highest rates in the country. Noah Smith writes about this at length, the data is very clear.
  - shagie 3y ago
    Homelessness in San Francisco doesn't kill you from the elements in January or July. A homeless person in Minneapolis or Chicago in January may die from the elements on an excessively cold night. A homeless person in Arizona in July can also die from it being too hot. It's rarely ever too hot or too cold in costal California cities.
    - slothtrop 3y ago
      > Homelessness in San Francisco doesn't kill you from the elements in January or July. This would be equally true of other large cities in the southern half (including July for many), and none of them have anywhere near the same rate. Notwithstanding, northern cities have indoor shelters and if the cold mattered that much, the rates would be quite small, but they're not. In expensive cities like NY, homelessness rates are high. See here https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-...
      - giantg2 3y ago
        "Or to put it another way, while 33% of the homeless population suffers from mental illness, nearly 100% of the homeless population can’t afford housing. 100% is a much bigger number than 33%. Which is why mental health, while a factor in homelessness, cannot possibly or statistically be a lead factor." The quality of the analysis and arguments are terrible. We can just ignore factors if they don't explain everything? And why is it missing a section on the biggest correlating factor - lack of employment? The severe mental health and substance abuse (with other factors like criminal records) greatly impact one's ability to get any job. Affordability is a moot point for people in these categories as without a job, you can't afford anything. It would be better to do more granular analysis on those who are employed but homeless. That is likely to be the marginal diffence explained in the housing cost section.
eks391 3y ago
That stat is so impressive that I'm struggling to believe it. Is there a source you can point me to?
matchbok 3y ago
Please take a moment and think if a system where we have 0% vacancy. How would anyone move? Vacancy is not the issue.

Those studies are so often flawed will pieces. Houses begging sold or between tenants are counted as vacant. Vacancies in rural Pennsylvania and Kentucky don't matter much for the homeless in Oakland. What do you even do with that information? Ship the homeless around the country? Other studies should that the higher the vacancy rate the lower the homeless rate and the cheaper housing is. So we can just allow people to build where people want to live and solve both problems.

throwitaway222 3y ago
If you do the right "step-up" programs and purchasable housing becomes extremely cheap around the country, it will solve itself. There are a lot of homeless people in Oakland that if found out they can buy a house in Kentucky and afford it with a restaurant dish-cleaning job, they would move. Stop treating the homeless as "shippable containers" they have agency.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  The dish washer jobs pays less than minimum wage under the table, beacuse the government flew desperate people from the poorest part of the planet to town to compete with the existing dishwashers.
  - 2024throwaway 3y ago
    > beacuse the government flew desperate people from the poorest part of the planet to town to compete with the existing dishwashers. Gonna need some sources on this one.
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      From just last week: > The Center for Immigration Studies found last year from January 2023 to December 2023, at least 320,000 illegal immigrants were allowed to fly into the U.S. from their home country through a controversial program of the Biden administration using the Customs and Border Patrol app, the CBP One app that was created to let migrants apply for parole into the US. > The Parole program allows for two-year periods of legal status during which adults are eligible for work authorization. https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/biden-admin-flew-hundreds-of-thousands-of-migrants-into-us-using-cbp-one-app-illegal-immigration-border-crisis-southern-border https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/biden-admin-flew-hu...
      - TylerE 3y ago
        If they're coming in under a government program with proper paperwork, they aren't illegals.
        willcipriano 3y ago
        I agree. It's government policy at this point to bring in as many people as possible for some reason. My guess is to drive down wages, some others have guessed that it's due to a belief that global conflict is rising and the native population is unwilling to fight.
        TylerE 3y ago
        Then you should not have said 320,000 illegal immigrants brought in, since you agree they are not illegals.
        exoverito 3y ago
        This perspective seems to be missing the forest for the trees. Bribery isn't illegal for Congress, it's just called lobbying. Insider trading isn't illegal either. Loose immigration policy and the lack of border enforcement obviously exerts downward pressure on wages for low skill workers. It also bids up rents since illegal immigrants are willing to pile into a 1 bedroom apartment. The elite own businesses and real estate, both of which benefit from illegal immigration reducing wages and increasing demand for rent. If you take a minute to think about the incentives, then see the effects in the world around you, it's pretty obvious what's going on.
- TylerE 3y ago
  Such houses do not exist. A minimum wage dish washing job barely pays enough to eat off of. Your gross take home from a minimum wage part time job is $145/week. Before all taxes and deductions. You can’t afford a closet is crack hiuse on that “salary” even in the boonies. Even in my LCOL areas places that were like $400/month 5 or 6 years ago are over $1000/month.
  - throwitaway222 3y ago
    I think you missed the thread - we're making it nearly impossible for someone to own a rental, it would flood the market with purchasable homes - cratering home prices potentially making the medium drop from $400k to $100k (at least for a certain class of homes), create programs for homeless people to get loans - some kind of step-up, combined with a job, and the homeless would suddenly be home owners and become people contributing to the world again.
    - TylerE 3y ago
      $100k might as well be $100m to 99% of homeless people. Do you think they’re going to qualify for a loan at a non-usurious rate? In case, if the market value drops, well, rich people will just buy them. If you’re currently in a “$300k” home and can buy a “$400k” home for $100k… like how do any of these numbers make any sort of sense?
      - throwitaway222 3y ago
        What is a rich person that already has a home going to do with a $100k house that costs another $100k for them each year?
        TylerE 3y ago
        What's the homeless person that can't afford it going to do with it?
    - giantg2 3y ago
      I don't think I missed the thread. Crating home prices is basically recreating half of the 20008 financial crisis when people are underwater and unable to move, nor have any financial flexibility. Giving homeless people a program to help them out of homelessness and into some form of housing can be good, but jumping them up to homeowners seems a giant leap. If you get them into a stable job and apartment, they aren't homeless anymore. If they're stable, they'll eventually qualify for a loan like everyone else.
- shagie 3y ago
  I believe that you overestimate the ability / desire for someone to move even if there are more opportunities there. A person's friends, family, social support... and frankly, modern culture can make moving a sticky problem. https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/historic.html https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/de... The rate of people moving between states has dropped significantly. https://www2.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/geographic-mobility/figure-a-1.2.png https://www2.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/d... The people moving within the same city has stayed rather constant, it is the distance moves that have dropped - https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/geographic-mobility/figure-a-6.png https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat... --- I believe that if you offered homeless people in Oakland a job and a house in Kentucky that they could pay off in 10 years while working as a dish washer, you would have very few takers. I would also suggest that the town that has the dishwashing job in Kentucky - that business is likely to close in 5 years and there won't be any more unskilled jobs in the town and they'll be out of a job and unable to pay the mortgage, get foreclosed and be homeless again -- they know that story. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't - homeless in California is known while a homeless in Kentucky is something else with even fewer opportunities out.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    Plus that town in Kentucky is likely already dealing with a homelessness epidemic of their own before you start bussing people in from out of state. Also ignoring that many people who live in California would face non-trivial threats to their health and livelihood if they were move to a regressive Bible Belt state. That is not a theoretical concern, but one born out by numerous tragedies.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't - homeless in California is known while a homeless in Kentucky is something else with even fewer opportunities out." Sounds like when homeless people or people on various assistance sometimes turn down opportunities because they're afraid (sometimes rightfully do) that it will ruin one of their other assistance. How do you help people who don't want to be helped?
8note 3y ago
Between tenants should be considered vacant, when you consider that landlords have been colluding to restrict supply and drive up rents
- giantg2 3y ago
  There should be reasonable lag time of a month or so. That way the landlord has time to perform maintenance between tenants.

Auracle 3y ago

Homeless people are largely homeless because of other life circumstances (drug addiction, mental illness), not affordability.

lanfeust6 3y ago
This is wrong. Homelessness scales with affordability, not mental illness or addiction rates. This is why San Fransisco and LA have the highest rates in the country. Noah Smith writes about this at length, the data is very clear.
- shagie 3y ago
  Homelessness in San Francisco doesn't kill you from the elements in January or July. A homeless person in Minneapolis or Chicago in January may die from the elements on an excessively cold night. A homeless person in Arizona in July can also die from it being too hot. It's rarely ever too hot or too cold in costal California cities.
  - slothtrop 3y ago
    > Homelessness in San Francisco doesn't kill you from the elements in January or July. This would be equally true of other large cities in the southern half (including July for many), and none of them have anywhere near the same rate. Notwithstanding, northern cities have indoor shelters and if the cold mattered that much, the rates would be quite small, but they're not. In expensive cities like NY, homelessness rates are high. See here https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-...
    - giantg2 3y ago
      "Or to put it another way, while 33% of the homeless population suffers from mental illness, nearly 100% of the homeless population can’t afford housing. 100% is a much bigger number than 33%. Which is why mental health, while a factor in homelessness, cannot possibly or statistically be a lead factor." The quality of the analysis and arguments are terrible. We can just ignore factors if they don't explain everything? And why is it missing a section on the biggest correlating factor - lack of employment? The severe mental health and substance abuse (with other factors like criminal records) greatly impact one's ability to get any job. Affordability is a moot point for people in these categories as without a job, you can't afford anything. It would be better to do more granular analysis on those who are employed but homeless. That is likely to be the marginal diffence explained in the housing cost section.

eks391 3y ago

That stat is so impressive that I'm struggling to believe it. Is there a source you can point me to?

matchbok 3y ago

Please take a moment and think if a system where we have 0% vacancy. How would anyone move? Vacancy is not the issue.