Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[LuckyR]

In cities with not enough housing, it is not required to build only at the lowest end to relieve housing costs. The reason is that every large urban area already contains housing units all along the housing continuum. The problem is that what most would describe as "low end" housing commands medium rent (due to the shortage) thus the lost cost renters are forced out of the market, by those who can afford medium rent occupying what should be low end housing. Building at the medium or even the high end, increases the total inventory such that medium cost renters can be housed in the medium range, freeing up low end units for those at the low end.

Although I am focused on houses for purchase, your point is valid in terms of rentals. I want to see practical homes available and affordable for purchase by the working poor. If they only get hand me down homes to buy, they have to try to work with 3,000 square foot homes in the suburbs, away from public transportation, unaffordable for them to heat and maintain. The free market does many good things for us, but it clearly can't or won't build the homes these people need. We need some relaxed zoning laws and perhaps some loan guarantees or tax breaks from the government to make the prospect appealing to the builders and bankers.

You're right that there is less profit in building "starter" homes, however the reality is that in areas with a need for over a hundred thousand units (like my state), you're not going to get there any time soon by building single family dwellings. Apartments are clearly the first priority.

[Sy Borg]

It has recently come to my attention that the cause of homelessness isn't poverty, rather elevated housing prices. Thus the solution isn't distributing tents nor funding shelter beds. It's loosening building regulations and streamlining permitting.

And slowing immigration until stocks are up. You can loosen regulations all you like but, with high levels of immigration, homelessness can only increase.

Also, beware of loosening regulations too much. Previously people have been allowed to build on known flood plains and bushfire hotspots. Also, we don't want to end up with tofu-dreg construction, at risk of falling at any time (as seen in newer high-rise residential buildings failing in Sydney).

And of course homelessness is not a crime, it's a personal catastrophe.

Alas homelessness is quite variable city to city (due to the aforementioned variability of housing costs) yet immigration policies are national.

Where I live, building permitting is well known for being extremely costly, slow and labyrinthian. Just reducing those to "normal" levels would be greeted by developers and builders as a miracle.

It's said that the issue comes on the supply side but China has many millions of unused buildings and homes, yet it also has many homeless people. Not only do aall the pieces need to be in the place but the system and he homeless need to be in contact rather than pass like ships in the night.

[LuckyR]

It has recently come to my attention that the cause of homelessness isn't poverty, rather elevated housing prices. Thus the solution isn't distributing tents nor funding shelter beds. It's loosening building regulations and streamlining permitting.

And slowing immigration until stocks are up. You can loosen regulations all you like but, with high levels of immigration, homelessness can only increase.

Also, beware of loosening regulations too much. Previously people have been allowed to build on known flood plains and bushfire hotspots. Also, we don't want to end up with tofu-dreg construction, at risk of falling at any time (as seen in newer high-rise residential buildings failing in Sydney).

And of course homelessness is not a crime, it's a personal catastrophe.

Alas homelessness is quite variable city to city (due to the aforementioned variability of housing costs) yet immigration policies are national.

Where I live, building permitting is well known for being extremely costly, slow and labyrinthian. Just reducing those to "normal" levels would be greeted by developers and builders as a miracle.

It's said that the issue comes on the supply side but China has many millions of unused buildings and homes, yet it also has many homeless people. Not only do aall the pieces need to be in the place but the system and he homeless need to be in contact rather than pass like ships in the night.

Really? I was not aware that China allowed folks to be homeless.

[Sy Borg]

And slowing immigration until stocks are up. You can loosen regulations all you like but, with high levels of immigration, homelessness can only increase.

Also, beware of loosening regulations too much. Previously people have been allowed to build on known flood plains and bushfire hotspots. Also, we don't want to end up with tofu-dreg construction, at risk of falling at any time (as seen in newer high-rise residential buildings failing in Sydney).

And of course homelessness is not a crime, it's a personal catastrophe.

Alas homelessness is quite variable city to city (due to the aforementioned variability of housing costs) yet immigration policies are national.

Where I live, building permitting is well known for being extremely costly, slow and labyrinthian. Just reducing those to "normal" levels would be greeted by developers and builders as a miracle.

It's said that the issue comes on the supply side but China has many millions of unused buildings and homes, yet it also has many homeless people. Not only do aall the pieces need to be in the place but the system and he homeless need to be in contact rather than pass like ships in the night.

Really? I was not aware that China allowed folks to be homeless.

They are not allowed to be seen because the CCP is trying to sell a (fake) squeaky clean image to the world, Homelessness is a major issue in all large nations and China is no exception. despite the affectations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdC9xube-2c

[Lagayascienza]

Just because China thinks it's ok to hose the homeless of the streets, does that mean we should think it's ok to do so in LA , London or Sydney?

[Sy Borg]

The figure are staggering. Nigeria has 24 million people who are homeless - that's the scale of a medium-sized nation. Pakistan 20 million.

In a sense, it's not unexpected because those nations have well-publicised problems. However, Egypt's 12 million took me by surprise. It wouldn't surprise me if China had quite a few million homeless, but we'll never know for sure.

People look at he world's problems and think, 'We just have to be positive. We can do this!' - just as we've said for the last fifty years, as things have become steadily worse - more inequitable, more crowded, the removal of nature, increases in fossil fuel use. The line between positive thinking and delusion seems to be blurring more all the time.

When the biosphere's physics reach a point where it restructures itself, times will be much harder for many organisms, with many more will be pruned from the evolutionary tree, including billions of humans.

Of course, hosing of the streets should be reserved to spills of substances that could pose a danger to traffic or pedestrians. A better use of the water than hosing unfortunate souls would be to give them a warm shower and a cup of tea.

It will be increasingly instructive to see how the world handles simultaneously overpopulating while having ever fewer people of working age. This combined increased demand of resources with reduced productivity is a contributing factor to homelessness. There is a growing army of old people, and we are becoming ever more ripe for the plucking, so to speak.

If societies are to survive what's coming, at some point they will have to be more relaxed about euthanasia and to let the frail aged go rather than through a good deal of resources at what are clearly hopeless cases. Given that humans try very hard to (ostensibly) do the right thing, the general situation will need to become significantly worse than it is before we bite the bullet, at least publicly.

My guess is it will be less Logan's Run and more of a prioritising of medical care towards those with more of a future.

[Lagayascienza]

Homelessness is awful. It happens for all sorts of reasons but it's mainly about having a low, or no, income. Most folks won't sleep rough if they've got money for a room. It's sad to see anyone living on the street but, for some reason, I feel especially sad when I see aging women in my country sleeping rough. How can this happen in a wealthy country!? I think the rental crisis here is making it especially difficult. Even people in work are finding it hard to secure affordable accommodation. I have no idea how people on the dole manage. There has always been poverty but I guess that my post-WW2 generation had an easier time than previous generations and probably easier than later generations will have. In the 1950s and 60s there was full employment, low inflation, home ownership for ordinary people was the Australian dream and not an impossible dream and there was a minimal dole payment for those who fell through the cracks. Things are definitely changing for the worse economically and the working class is getting poorer. And our virtually cashless society has made it even harder for homeless people. I'd often drop a few bucks in a tin but I never have any to drop these days. As for our upside down pear-shaped population pyramid, we can, in part, address it by accepting young immigrants. But we need to be careful if we want to maintain our society as we know it - I don't agree with opening the borders to all. And that's got nothing to do with racism. It's about maintaining the culture and ethos of our country. That can happen no matter what race or color people are, but certain cultures/religions seem more problematic than others. (I'm sure I'll get accused of discrimination for saying that. Oh, well. It's what I think.) I'm an advocate for voluntary euthanasia. I don't want to hang around if I can't look after myself. But I hope our aging population won't mean we start thinking about selectively recommending euthanasia for those who can't afford care. Where would that end? Maybe we'll need to tax the big end of town a wee bit more to ensure it doesn't happen.

[LuckyR]

Homelessness is awful. It happens for all sorts of reasons but it's mainly about having a low, or no, income. Most folks won't sleep rough if they've got money for a room. It's sad to see anyone living on the street but, for some reason, I feel especially sad when I see aging women in my country sleeping rough. How can this happen in a wealthy country!? I think the rental crisis here is making it especially difficult. Even people in work are finding it hard to secure affordable accommodation. I have no idea how people on the dole manage. There has always been poverty but I guess that my post-WW2 generation had an easier time than previous generations and probably easier than later generations will have. In the 1950s and 60s there was full employment, low inflation, home ownership for ordinary people was the Australian dream and not an impossible dream and there was a minimal dole payment for those who fell through the cracks. Things are definitely changing for the worse economically and the working class is getting poorer. And our virtually cashless society has made it even harder for homeless people. I'd often drop a few bucks in a tin but I never have any to drop these days. As for our upside down pear-shaped population pyramid, we can, in part, address it by accepting young immigrants. But we need to be careful if we want to maintain our society as we know it - I don't agree with opening the borders to all. And that's got nothing to do with racism. It's about maintaining the culture and ethos of our country. That can happen no matter what race or color people are, but certain cultures/religions seem more problematic than others. (I'm sure I'll get accused of discrimination for saying that. Oh, well. It's what I think.) I'm an advocate for voluntary euthanasia. I don't want to hang around if I can't look after myself. But I hope our aging population won't mean we start thinking about selectively recommending euthanasia for those who can't afford care. Where would that end? Maybe we'll need to tax the big end of town a wee bit more to ensure it doesn't happen.

Sounds logical and that's what I used to assume. Yet poverty (or low income) is not associated with homelessness, high housing prices are. Look at Detroit, it has the highest poverty rate of any large city in the US, yet on any given night has only 1500 persons experiencing homelessness. Why? Because it has an abundance (some would say, overabundance) of housing, thus has very low housing costs.

It's not about poverty, it's about restricted housing. That's why the top cities for homelessness are located in New York and California. California isn't where poverty is concentrated. Los Angeles has 1/3 the poverty rate of Detroit but has the third highest homeless rate in the US.

If you want to address homelessness allow developers and builders to do what they do, build housing.

[Sy Borg]

Homelessness is awful. It happens for all sorts of reasons but it's mainly about having a low, or no, income. Most folks won't sleep rough if they've got money for a room. It's sad to see anyone living on the street but, for some reason, I feel especially sad when I see aging women in my country sleeping rough. How can this happen in a wealthy country!? I think the rental crisis here is making it especially difficult. Even people in work are finding it hard to secure affordable accommodation. I have no idea how people on the dole manage. There has always been poverty but I guess that my post-WW2 generation had an easier time than previous generations and probably easier than later generations will have. In the 1950s and 60s there was full employment, low inflation, home ownership for ordinary people was the Australian dream and not an impossible dream and there was a minimal dole payment for those who fell through the cracks. Things are definitely changing for the worse economically and the working class is getting poorer. And our virtually cashless society has made it even harder for homeless people. I'd often drop a few bucks in a tin but I never have any to drop these days. As for our upside down pear-shaped population pyramid, we can, in part, address it by accepting young immigrants. But we need to be careful if we want to maintain our society as we know it - I don't agree with opening the borders to all. And that's got nothing to do with racism. It's about maintaining the culture and ethos of our country. That can happen no matter what race or color people are, but certain cultures/religions seem more problematic than others. (I'm sure I'll get accused of discrimination for saying that. Oh, well. It's what I think.) I'm an advocate for voluntary euthanasia. I don't want to hang around if I can't look after myself. But I hope our aging population won't mean we start thinking about selectively recommending euthanasia for those who can't afford care. Where would that end? Maybe we'll need to tax the big end of town a wee bit more to ensure it doesn't happen.

Sounds logical and that's what I used to assume. Yet poverty (or low income) is not associated with homelessness, high housing prices are. Look at Detroit, it has the highest poverty rate of any large city in the US, yet on any given night has only 1500 persons experiencing homelessness. Why? Because it has an abundance (some would say, overabundance) of housing, thus has very low housing costs.

It's not about poverty, it's about restricted housing. That's why the top cities for homelessness are located in New York and California. California isn't where poverty is concentrated. Los Angeles has 1/3 the poverty rate of Detroit but has the third highest homeless rate in the US.

If you want to address homelessness allow developers and builders to do what they do, build housing.

Whenever these arguments come up, rest assured that homes will be built in:

1. Bushfire prone areas

2. Flood plains

3. In areas where development causes extinctions.

These are common reasons to disapprove housing developments, and the rules always slacken when governments are put under pressure. In this case, in Australia, it's directly because the government let in too many migrants to boost the GDP.

During a time when there was a huge squeeze on housing, the government let in half a million migrants - a record intake at once. That's almost an extra two percent of population. Australia's population growth is one of the highest in the world, and it's not because we are breeding.

How can that influx without any infrastructure preparation not cause homelessness? Now there are fears that Australia will be like San Fran, with middle class people queuing for food rations.

Unfortunately, as in the US, both sides of politics here are shockingly stupid, and the Greens have gone mad.

[Lagayascienza]

Homelessness is awful. It happens for all sorts of reasons but it's mainly about having a low, or no, income. Most folks won't sleep rough if they've got money for a room. It's sad to see anyone living on the street but, for some reason, I feel especially sad when I see aging women in my country sleeping rough. How can this happen in a wealthy country!? I think the rental crisis here is making it especially difficult. Even people in work are finding it hard to secure affordable accommodation. I have no idea how people on the dole manage. There has always been poverty but I guess that my post-WW2 generation had an easier time than previous generations and probably easier than later generations will have. In the 1950s and 60s there was full employment, low inflation, home ownership for ordinary people was the Australian dream and not an impossible dream and there was a minimal dole payment for those who fell through the cracks. Things are definitely changing for the worse economically and the working class is getting poorer. And our virtually cashless society has made it even harder for homeless people. I'd often drop a few bucks in a tin but I never have any to drop these days. As for our upside down pear-shaped population pyramid, we can, in part, address it by accepting young immigrants. But we need to be careful if we want to maintain our society as we know it - I don't agree with opening the borders to all. And that's got nothing to do with racism. It's about maintaining the culture and ethos of our country. That can happen no matter what race or color people are, but certain cultures/religions seem more problematic than others. (I'm sure I'll get accused of discrimination for saying that. Oh, well. It's what I think.) I'm an advocate for voluntary euthanasia. I don't want to hang around if I can't look after myself. But I hope our aging population won't mean we start thinking about selectively recommending euthanasia for those who can't afford care. Where would that end? Maybe we'll need to tax the big end of town a wee bit more to ensure it doesn't happen.

Sounds logical and that's what I used to assume. Yet poverty (or low income) is not associated with homelessness, high housing prices are. Look at Detroit, it has the highest poverty rate of any large city in the US, yet on any given night has only 1500 persons experiencing homelessness. Why? Because it has an abundance (some would say, overabundance) of housing, thus has very low housing costs.

It's not about poverty, it's about restricted housing. That's why the top cities for homelessness are located in New York and California. California isn't where poverty is concentrated. Los Angeles has 1/3 the poverty rate of Detroit but has the third highest homeless rate in the US.

If you want to address homelessness allow developers and builders to do what they do, build housing.

Detroit's population has been in freefall from around 1960. It fell from 1,849,568 in 1960 to 639,111 in 2020. I think that might explain the lower house prices and the high availability of housing stock in Detroit. And it might go some way to explaining the low level of homelessness there. I agree that some streamlining of approvals may help get more houses built more quickly but you have to be careful with that as Sy Borg pointed out. You don't want substandard homes and shanty towns in high risk areas that make insurance unaffordable.
When you boil it down, I think it really is about poverty, mostly due to unemployment and poorly paid jobs. If people had well paid jobs and the money to buy houses market forces would make sure houses get built.

[LuckyR]

Homelessness is awful. It happens for all sorts of reasons but it's mainly about having a low, or no, income. Most folks won't sleep rough if they've got money for a room. It's sad to see anyone living on the street but, for some reason, I feel especially sad when I see aging women in my country sleeping rough. How can this happen in a wealthy country!? I think the rental crisis here is making it especially difficult. Even people in work are finding it hard to secure affordable accommodation. I have no idea how people on the dole manage. There has always been poverty but I guess that my post-WW2 generation had an easier time than previous generations and probably easier than later generations will have. In the 1950s and 60s there was full employment, low inflation, home ownership for ordinary people was the Australian dream and not an impossible dream and there was a minimal dole payment for those who fell through the cracks. Things are definitely changing for the worse economically and the working class is getting poorer. And our virtually cashless society has made it even harder for homeless people. I'd often drop a few bucks in a tin but I never have any to drop these days. As for our upside down pear-shaped population pyramid, we can, in part, address it by accepting young immigrants. But we need to be careful if we want to maintain our society as we know it - I don't agree with opening the borders to all. And that's got nothing to do with racism. It's about maintaining the culture and ethos of our country. That can happen no matter what race or color people are, but certain cultures/religions seem more problematic than others. (I'm sure I'll get accused of discrimination for saying that. Oh, well. It's what I think.) I'm an advocate for voluntary euthanasia. I don't want to hang around if I can't look after myself. But I hope our aging population won't mean we start thinking about selectively recommending euthanasia for those who can't afford care. Where would that end? Maybe we'll need to tax the big end of town a wee bit more to ensure it doesn't happen.

Sounds logical and that's what I used to assume. Yet poverty (or low income) is not associated with homelessness, high housing prices are. Look at Detroit, it has the highest poverty rate of any large city in the US, yet on any given night has only 1500 persons experiencing homelessness. Why? Because it has an abundance (some would say, overabundance) of housing, thus has very low housing costs.

It's not about poverty, it's about restricted housing. That's why the top cities for homelessness are located in New York and California. California isn't where poverty is concentrated. Los Angeles has 1/3 the poverty rate of Detroit but has the third highest homeless rate in the US.

If you want to address homelessness allow developers and builders to do what they do, build housing.

Detroit's population has been in freefall from around 1960. It fell from 1,849,568 in 1960 to 639,111 in 2020. I think that might explain the lower house prices and the high availability of housing stock in Detroit. And it might go some way to explaining the low level of homelessness there. I agree that some streamlining of approvals may help get more houses built more quickly but you have to be careful with that as Sy Borg pointed out. You don't want substandard homes and shanty towns in high risk areas that make insurance unaffordable.
When you boil it down, I think it really is about poverty, mostly due to unemployment and poorly paid jobs. If people had well paid jobs and the money to buy houses market forces would make sure houses get built.

You are correct about the reason why Detroit has ample housing. I'm correct that ample housing drives down the cost of housing, which drives down homelessness.

If it makes you feel any better, before I knew about the data, I too "thought" poverty drove homelessness. But there's a reason Sociologists do research and don't just fly by the seat of their pants.

"In a 2022 book titled "Homelessness is a Housing Problem", Clayton Page Aldern (a policy analyst and data scientist in Seattle) and Gregg Colburn (an assistant professor of real estate at the University of Washington's College of Built Environments) studied per capita homelessness rates across the country along with what possible factors might be influencing the rates and found that high rates of homelessness are caused by shortages of affordable housing, not by mental illness, drug addiction, or poverty.[11][101][102]

They found that mental illness, drug addiction and poverty occur nationwide, but not all places have equally expensive housing costs.[101]: 1  One example cited is that two states with high rates of opioid addiction, Arkansas and West Virginia, both have low per capita rates of homelessness, because of low housing prices.[101]: 1  [102]: 1  With respect to poverty, the city of Detroit is one of the poorest cities, yet Detroit's per capita homelessness rate is 20% that of West Coast cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego"

As to the motivation of developers and builders, there isn't much profit in areas with high housing prices (what we're addressing here) building shanty towns, it's in the middle third of the market. However, adding inventory in the middle third will drive down prices in that sector allowing middle income tenants to move from abnormally high priced lower third housing to middle third housing, thus freeing up lower third housing for the homeless as their prices normalize (lower).

[Lagayascienza]

Yes, I know there is a shortage of affordable housing. That is a big problem that needs to be addressed here in Australia, too. It would be nice if all those who could work could find employment and earn enough to buy an average house. But when people are paid US$8 bucks as hour (the minimum wage according to usa . gov / minimum-wage) how can they ever hope to afford to buy any sort of house or even rent a half-decent one and still have money for food and other essentials. (I must look up the stats for the percentage of workers in the USA on the minimum wage. And the same for Australia. Then I'll calculate my basic living expenses to see if I could scrape by on either.)

[chewybrian]

The US Supreme Court will hear a case this week over the exact issues we have been discussing here. An Oregon court struck down a local law that made it illegal to sleep in public spaces. The lower court said that people should not be punished for something over which they have no control. I would love to see the Supreme Court agree and establish the right for people to lawfully be human in public spaces. Ideally, we should provide simple shelter and places to use the bathroom or take a shower for homeless folks, but without the strings often attached to the options that exist now. Either way, though, the mere act of sleeping without violating any other law should not be a crime.

Empathy is endangered here in the states, and the court has been packed with far right wing judges, so I am rather pessimistic at the chances of upholding our rights. It's a frightening precedent to effectively say that we must pay to exist at all times, yet we are never guaranteed a source of income adequate to pay the toll. On these terms, almost anyone could find themselves in prison when they can't meet the basic costs of living. This could happen to any of us, though the brown shirts (or the red hats) are always so certain that punishments are for "others".

[Lagayascienza]

I hope the court finds in favor of humanity. I hope the justices can find some empathy in their hearts. But, as you say, the composition of the current bench doesn't inspire confidence.

[LuckyR]

The US Supreme Court will hear a case this week over the exact issues we have been discussing here. An Oregon court struck down a local law that made it illegal to sleep in public spaces. The lower court said that people should not be punished for something over which they have no control. I would love to see the Supreme Court agree and establish the right for people to lawfully be human in public spaces. Ideally, we should provide simple shelter and places to use the bathroom or take a shower for homeless folks, but without the strings often attached to the options that exist now. Either way, though, the mere act of sleeping without violating any other law should not be a crime.

Empathy is endangered here in the states, and the court has been packed with far right wing judges, so I am rather pessimistic at the chances of upholding our rights. It's a frightening precedent to effectively say that we must pay to exist at all times, yet we are never guaranteed a source of income adequate to pay the toll. On these terms, almost anyone could find themselves in prison when they can't meet the basic costs of living. This could happen to any of us, though the brown shirts (or the red hats) are always so certain that punishments are for "others".

In this area (homelessness) there needs to be a balance, legally. Oregon learned that with the decriminalisation of small amounts of drugs passed by the voters through Measure 110 in 2020. The majority agreed with the decriminalization, but those on the front lines realised that the threat of prosecution is what drove those cited with tickets into considering rehab. And those who reside or whose businesses are pkagued by de facto open air drug markets bore the brunt of the collateral crimes associated with this neighborhood blight. Thus 110 is being reworked.

Similarly, the interests of the houseless and businesses and homeowners need to both be taken into account when making policy.