They are actually posting no trespassing signs on bridges around here. I assume that means there are regular police checks. It sucks enough to be homeless in the Midwest in the winter, but it's becoming both illegal to be homeless and unaffordable to have a place to live. I have no idea what people end up having to do, but I do notice a lot of people walking way down a highway where it will take them a good hour to get to the edge of town early in the morning, presumably to get to some shitty job that pays them minimum wage.
They finally put out the no sleep benches in my city. For a long time it looked like they weren't going to, and I had some respect for who ever was saying no to them.
Thankfully, there's way too many low concrete walls in this city for them to be able to do that, but the library (my wife is a library administrator) also lets them stay there all day and even sleep in a chair or sleep outside the library as long as they don't set up camp. They're also opening up a new branch in another part of town where they will have a sign-up sheet and one person at a time will have access to a room with a washer, a dryer and a shower. All free. Libraries are amazing in what they do for the poor, let alone the community as a whole... so at least someone is trying to help the desperate people in this town, but it's not nearly enough and there's so much fighting against it, even against the library. People came to the board meeting where this got approved from the neighborhood talking about how they had homeless people camping in their backyards (what have they tried actually doing about it if that's even true) and it would bring even more to the area. And fuck those NIMBY assholes.
I don't understand the endgame here. Are we just supposed to die at some point after maxing out debts to purchase a place to sleep? Am I to be ground up into a fine paste with all my neighbors and poured down into an apartment through the ceiling to maximize human per cubic inch? Isn't this an extremely pressing crisis that must be addressed aggressively and immediately?
Endgame is a serious housing crash, I think. Or maybe some pretty draconian legislation on who is allowed to own residential property, how much, and for what purpose, i.e. serious regulations on landlords. Hopefully the latter.
I'm Canadian. When I was a teenager, 25 years ago or so, my parents bought a house in the suburbs for $130k, they sold it 15 years later for half a million. Now it's worth $1.1 million.
My generation and those going forward are so utterly fucked. My boomer dad even had to admit it, and says that there's no way anyone can afford this shit anymore.
Small time landlords aren't any better. They love that rental prices are increasing and generally increase their tenants rents because they can. They get their mortgage payed for and extra income on top.
I know this because I work with people who do it and they like to fucking brag about it. Fuck all landlords.
The idea of "renting" needs to die in a fire. Kill it, kill it dead.
There is a solution. Basically, we need to create an owner occupant property tax credit for owners of low-density housing (single family, duplex, triplex, or quadplex housing). If you hold the deed on your residence of record, or you are under contract to purchase it, you will get a 5% credit on your taxes. Renting? Your landlord pays the full tax rate.
Next, we hike property taxes on low density housing. We hike them a lot. But, every time we increase the property taxes, we also have a commensurate increase in the owner-occupant credit, such that an owner occupant never sees a significant tax increase.
We will still have people using property as investments, but the kind of investment we will see will be private mortgages and land contracts, where the occupant is either the owner or under contract to buy, and thus gaining equity.
Landlords will still be able to rent out the unused unit(s) in duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes, while retaining the owner occupant credit, so long as they live in one of the units.
The awesome part is that this can be implemented locally, at the county or city level. As it benefits both homeowners and renters, it would probably pass by referendum in the areas that need it most.
I have unironically seen this as the solution in dozens of housing threads.
It always follows the same path.
"We need to build high density housing everywhere"
Every new high rise that has been built hasn't lowered the cost of existing buildings. The new buildings are always "luxury" condos and sell at outrageousprices. Also, the infrastructure (roads / utilities) needs to be vastly expanded to handle higher density.
"That's because they're being built too slowly. If a bunch came out at once, that would low prices"
Yes, and that's why builders would never build a ton of units all at once. They would stagger them on the market to get the highest possible prices.
"OK, then the government should build high density low income housing"
... like projects? Do you know any history at all?
"Also infrastructure doesn't need upgrading if everyone rides bikes"
What, like the low cost medium and high density construction that many European and Eastern block countries used to house their populations. It helps if you don't intend to stuff them with the poor and disenfranchised and then ignore them from the outset.
In Canada we also have no housing, some places have 0% availability, not even 0.2% or 0.1%, literally 0% apartment for rent.
To top this, our PM has no problem with 500'000 to 1 million new immigrants per year. Schools are overwhelmed by kids (classes go from 20 kids per classroom to 30) who sometimes does not speak English or French, healthcare/hospitals/ER are at 200%, people die in corridor, forgotten. And there is 0 renting available to house people.
Do the immigrants pay taxes for schools and healthcare? How is an increase in population from immigration different than a possible increase due to births?
Sounds like you are blaming basic social problems caused by conservatives limiting social services on immigration.
Unfortunately a lot of refugees or immigrants do not work, either because they have no diploma, do not speak english, or their diploma are not recognized. If they work it is part time at low wages, for too many of them, it is sad I know. Of course some come with $$$ or whatever and are engineer etc, but it is harder for refugees. I have nothing against them I am one myself!
And births compared to immigration is minimal. For instance we have 227 births per day, 198 dead per day, and 800 new immigrant per day. Just in Québec, a small province.