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I have an interesting observation about homelessness. I live in a country where the average household makes about US$6000 a year. The cost of living here is a
by K0balt 1y ago
I have an interesting observation about homelessness.
I live in a country where the average household makes about US$6000 a year.
The cost of living here is about 1/2 of the USA, with rents about 1/4. The unemployment rate is about 5%.
Homelessness is very, very low (to the point of near invisibility) and mostly limited to illegal immigrants.
The thing that seems to make homelessness a non-issue here is the tolerance of ad-hoc construction. This leads to neighbourhoods where construction is really low cost / quality, but people are housed.
I don’t really understand why these neighbourhoods don’t devolve into hotbeds of violent crime as I would expect them to in the USA, but they mostly don’t.
Mostly, the construction tends to improve over time, and the neighbourhoods often gradually metamorphosize into more contemporary and inviting areas with vibrant small businesses and elegant homes.
I often wonder if it’s cultural, as poverty is not seen as failure but rather a temporary condition to be transcended as possible?
- magnetic 1y agoWhich country is that?
- K0balt 1y agoDominican Republic
- amy_petrik 1y ago>dominicans >no homeless bro if everyone is homeless than nobody is
- K0balt 1y ago? Not sure what this is supposed to mean. I’ve lived here for over a decade and have seen very few people that don’t have a home of some kind. Family connections obviously play a large role.
- dmoy 1y agoDoesn't Dominican Republic have like a 50% higher homicide rate than the US? Or do you mean it's just not localized in the spots you'd expect it to be?
- kelipso 1y agoNormalize it by region, maybe. Mexico has much higher homicide rate, for example.
- K0balt 1y agoThe DR has a homicide rate similar to the worst 20% of US states, but much lower than the most murdery ones.
- dmoy 1y agoYea that's why I was wondering if GGP was talking about specific areas. There's certainly cities in the US with eyewatering violent crime rates (St Louis, Baltimore, etc). Not sure if OP was specifically talking about a similar localization within the Dominican Republic.
- K0balt 1y agoIdk. IMHO the crime exposure here is pretty insignificant if you aren’t going to the tourist hotspots. At the touristy places it’s about like NYC risk wise.
- K0balt 1y agoIt’s not high for a developing nation. since 2015 the average is about 13/100k. By comparison, Louisiana is 19, New Mexico is 14, Missouri is 13, Maryland is 11, Alaska is 10.