rule

You can’t just say this and not say the staggering numbers

There are about 15 million empty homes in America and about 750,000 homeless people on any given night. It would be trivial to end homelessness without building a single new home. The next time someone is like “oh we need to build more housing” you look in their stupid fucking face and laugh because as long as housing is an investment commodity you can build all the housing in the world and it won’t matter

In practice, your plan would just result in abandoned dead towns in rural Kansas being turned into fenceless concentration camps for the formerly homeless.
- Truth. “Ending homelessness” unfortunately isn’t just as easy as “give them homes.” There a huge hurdles to overcome that are created by other ghoulish aspects of capital.
  Just one example, a huge proportion of unhoused people suffer from addiction and PTSD (veterans hugely overrepresented) and what this means for some solutions like building big apartment buildings (called “permanent supportive housing”) can devolve into conflict and interpersonal violence without meaningful recovery and mental health support—which of course we know is also restricted by a for-profit model of care.
  And again that’s just one example. Another example I commented elsewhere is that @ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com’s plan without providing transportation could result in malnutrition or health concerns by positioning victims of homelessness deep in food and care deserts. This of course is the inhuman exploitation of healthcare under the fist of capital.
  Don’t mistake ofc, there are some very smart people out there working hard to make plans through this maze, but that maze exists, and is difficult, and I don’t like laughing at people putting in the labor to explore the solution.
- there are plenty of houses and land just kept empty for the speculative value in almost every city
It would be trivial to end homelessness without building a single new home.
I mean, no, but I get what you mean. Plenty of empty homes are in areas with low homeless density, so you would need a non-trivial system to transition homeless people, get them jobs, transportation to grocery, education and medical, etc.
Again you are not wrong cuz I get what you mean but, for example, if you see a project tackling homelessness by building housing (especially in urban and historically zoned areas, and especially when it’s government or ngo owned [not for investment]) it doesn’t necessarily mean they are full of shit, just that they are engaging on a different front of the battle. :)
- Plenty of empty homes are rental units in areas with high homeless density, we would just have to re evaluate our relationship with treating housing as a commodity which is literally what I said
  21,000 empty residential units in Philadelphia as of 2024, 5200 homeless in Philadelphia around the same time. Many cities would follow this trajectory.
  But use some cities where the homelessness issue is absolutely tremendous:
  NYC 247,000 vacant units and 350k homeless with the broadest definition of homelessness. Not enough, but the surrounding metro area could cover and transportation is more addressable here. Additionally NYC has 88,000 rent stablized units off the market, obviously not enough to cover here but enough to make a serious dent. Rent stablized units will stay empty because landlords would rather deny housing to a human and keep “equity” in their portfolio then rent at an affordable price and pay for renovations to make livable housing.
  LA - 93-111,000 empty residential units. 75,000 homeless
  The narratives that you and @woodscientist@lemmy.world perpetuate aren’t inherently untrue, they become true in some scenarios like NYC. But what they primarily do is defend a system where wealthy elites commodify housing instead of allowing it to be a human right.
  When I was younger in my career I worked mobile therapy and one part of that was crisis response, which included responding to the cops when it was -2 degrees F out and they found a homeless person camping. I would often have to just drive around with them until morning because all the shelters are full or take them to my office and let them hang out while I did paperwork so they wouldn’t freeze to death. When I encounter your rhetoric I think of that, and the similar response when it would be 100+ degrees in summer, and I wonder how you can think that not housing someone is ever the correct choice
- Downvote all you want lmao this is researched social services data, look it up, not at all even my opinion 😂 I promise I am on the same side as you and just discouraging “laughing in the stupid faces” at people working for the good of our underprivileged neighbors. ❤️
  I hate how toxic this site is gyatt damb.
And don't get me started on "luxury" housing - projects that do less than nothing to address the problem. If I had my druthers it would be illegal to put up any new luxury housing in any municipality that has an identifiable homeless population.
The thing is that we always have vacant homes. Homes that are under renovation or waiting for the next tenant to move into or are in the wrong location. Vacancy rates are currently at one of the lowest points in history. We're doing a better job cramming people into available housing than ever before and it's not enough.
- Missing some key education a moderate amount. The numbers this cites specifically point to livable homes. So renovations and transitions are explicitly excluded from that count.
  Further, vacancy rates are primarily increased by rent-seeking behaviors (capital) like dual home ownership, AirBnB, holding homes empty as an investment, etc. This is what the post is speaking to. People owning multiple homes. As such…
  We’re doing a better job cramming people into available housing than ever before and it’s not enough.
  False. If we were doing a better job, the number of homes per rich individual would not be growing.

In the same vain, we have the technology and ability to give everyone on earth access to clean drinking water. We just can't do it and still run a profit, so it doesn't get done. Capitalism is the enemy of humanity.

Why don't they just drink champagne if their water is dirty?
- That was literally how a good chunk of recorded human history did it, except with weak beer or diluted wine.
Ideally, projects that are beneficial to everyone but unprofitable are picked up by the government. Like building highways and maintaining public lands... What we're seeing in the US is what happens when you "run the government like a business". It doesn't mean efficiency, it means revenue generation for the board members. Sadly the fucking chuds in the US are too dumb to figure that out.

The GOP is working hard to fix this ... by greatly increasing the number of homeless people.

RAHHHHH USA USA

I have a few suggestions to alleviate this.

Bear in mind that I find it OK, or even desirable, for people to invest, and have some properties to rent to support them in their later years.

1- build public housing, with a rent equivalent to something like 40% of minimum wage. Building should done in random areas, to prevent ghettos from appearing.

2- tax the fuck out of vacant houses.

3- tax house ownership, by individuals or corps, progressively, to discourage accumulation and speculation.

Have 1 house? 0%, 2->10%, 5->15%, and so on, so that having more than let's say, 10 units stops making sense.

3- tax productive empty land (developpable, housing/comercial/agri) like empty homes, to make speculation and accumulation non attractive.

Thare are many more, I'm sure but these protect private property, investment, would lower prices, make housing accesible, while normalizing the sector.

This is democratic socialism. Allow capitalism, but keeping extremes in check, while providing a safety net.

This is democratic socialism. Allow capitalism, but keeping extremes in check, while providing a safety net.
I see americans saying this fairly often, but what you describe is social democracy, not democratic socialism
- I generally use the terms interchangeably. Are there fundamental differences?
- What is a landleech?
Whole point of capitalism is breaking the game to get ahead. The meta is too advanced, and we no longer get good stuff out of it as a side effect; that waste has been largely eliminated.
Any solution will not last, unless the beast is slain, and the more we try the more we kludge up the engine. It's not worth running anymore, if it ever was.
- Wasn't really ever worth it. There has been calculable dehumanization, exploitation, and genocides all in the name of profit and efficiency. The quality of life going up for some of us in some parts (which is largely because of unions anyways) should not excuse the harm that capitalism has done and continues to do.
  As you say, the incentives in the system are not towards a prosperous and stable society, but towards maximizing how much you can squeeze out of people.
  So in my opinion it was never worth it is essentially what I'm saying.
People are getting toxic at you so as OP i just want to send love for your radical [compared to the status quo] acknowledgment that vacant homes should be taxed.
Other people are being mean sickos for a percentage you mentioned, and though I share their perspectives, it still stands true that NO ONE in our current government would be caught dead saying such a radical anti-1% thing as far as I know. Keep fighting for human rights and don’t let the internet trolls push you backwards. ❤️
[There is time in the future for you to learn and perhaps become even more radical <like me lol ✨> but no shame for advocating for basic tier one human rights oriented policies.]
- your radical acknowledgment that vacant homes should be taxed.
  imagine thinking thats radical 🤣
  how about housing as a human right? How about abolishing the class system where you have those that own and those who work? Any system which allows for "passive" income is by the definition of the phrase unjust.
Part of the problem is there is no market incentive for speculators and landlords to lower the costs of their units. They use software to set pricing with goes right up to the line of "collaboration" but doesn't quite cross it.
I like the idea of a tax or fine for empty housing that is porportional to the highest advertised lease price of the unit. Let's say 10% for starters, so if an apartment wants to jack the prices up on their "luxury" units to 2k a month, they pay $200 every month that unit is unfilled. 100% of that fine goes to subsidizing housing for low income renters. Now we have an incentive for housing prices to go down, but still have the ability for them to go up to meet actual market demands, and we provide more money for lower income renters to afford that housing in the first place. It also gives us another "lever" to pull to manage the housing market. Increasing or decreasing that tax/fine rate to manage real estate bubbles.
40%? Why not 30%? Or 20%, maybe even 10%?
I think it's better for building to be done mixed-style, eg fancier homes mixed with less fancy ones. Prevents ghettoisation too, and forces the rich to interact with the poor more.
Taxing vacant homes is meh, I think it's better to outright seize them. We then can claim we don't tax vacant homes (as there aren't any).
Plus not taxing vacant homes removes the incentive for the government to make MORE vacant homes. If it's taxed, at least let the vacant home tax be less to the government in terms of profit, than having them be occupied; but more taxed to homeowners. The extra money left should be used in a way that doesn't incentivise people to profit off vacancy. We could for example use it to build new homes which cannot be bought nor owned even partially by people already owning a home - which will drive down the price for vacant homes.
Thus we get an effect of:
too many vacant homes
--> vacancy tax (levied by independent non-profit volunteer agency, which gives a part to government, less to government than if it were occupied; thus giving the government an incentive to build homes).
--> remainder of both vacancy and occupancy tax goes to homebuilding by social housing cooperations (not landlords)
--> more homes are built.
--> More homes
--> price goes down.
--> People are inclined to sell the vacant homes.
--> Fewer vacant homes
--> Fewer are built
--> Price stabilises around rates where vacancy rates are at their lowest and the fewest second home occupiers exist.
We should also necessitate that as much as possible in the government is for and by the people themselves, as decentralised as possible.
Democratic socialism is not capitalism. Democratic socialism is a system without capitalism altogether. What you suggest is social democracy. Which, although it is good too, has its deficit in not tackling for-profit egoistic mindsets enough. While capitalism "excels" at raising productivity for the employer, socialism excels at raising living standards for all. Kropotkin has written more about this in his Conquest of Bread. Very good work, might I say!
- Taxing vacant homes is meh, I think it's better to outright seize them. We then can claim we don't tax vacant homes (as there aren't any).
  I wasn't super with your comment at first, but this point - - holy fuck, watch the "housing crisis" disappear overnight if this was even hinted at.
- Taxing vacant homes is meh, I think it’s better to outright seize them. We then can claim we don’t tax vacant homes (as there aren’t any).
  It'll upset the powers that be, they'll yell communist!
  So, increasingly tax'em for a couple of years, then seize them (and maybe use that tax money for remodeling if need be).
Have 1 house? 0%, 2->10%, 5->15%, and so on, so that having more than let’s say, 10 units stops making sense.
I'd go with 1: whatever%, 2 50%, 3 75%, ...
Note that having one house, even occupied is already taxed pretty much universally.
In some jurisdictions, it might make sense, but in rural areas, it generally doesn't. My parents bought a house to live in that happened to come with a second house on the land in the middle of nowhere. No one wants that second house.
The "productive empty land" could be a nightmare, lots of deforestation to ensue in areas that can ill afford it. There's enough dead commercial properties to reclaim before we need to start going after "empty land".
- Forested land is already environmentally productive, and can get rebates as such. Developing it wouldn't make much more anyway, as the land value in rural areas is rather low. This tax would hit city property first, and could be implemented for cities only anyway.
  In cities, not only would this hit empty residential structures, it would also disincentivise big parking lots and single floor buildings.

Start setting empty homes on fire until the issue is solved

You can just say this without mentioning Utah, so I'll add to the conversation:

https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how TL:DR: Give 'em a home, AND a social worker to figure out how to keep them housed.

https://jobs.utah.gov/homelessness/

https://www.unitedway.org/our-impact/financial-security/homelessness-home-ownership

Thanks for sharing!

Let's battle.

ba ba ba ba ba ba bumm bumm badum-dum (screen swirls in black)
mweeer bwer bwer-ner
mweeer bwer ner-ner

It’s by design

Humph....who wants to house the homeless? Certainly not me whose house is now worth 100x more than when I bought it!

I know you're being purposefully flippant, but just to point out that you don't need those kinds of returns in an actual healthy economy.
I would even argue that wild, unpredictable swings in value like that are the sign of unstable market speculation based on both fear and greed.
In a healthy economy houses are safe, boring, predictable, and highly regulated.
- The problem is that NIMBYs would often protest to prevent affordable housing to be built to prevent depreciation of their property value; which, let's say, was bought for €500k but the house is now worth €16 million. The depreciation in 10-20% from the €16 million would not even make a dent to the person's personal wellbeing and survival. Being worth €13 million in the end is not even going to make someone poor and it is more than enough for most average people.
  There has just been growth of greed in the last decades. Community is destroyed by excess individualism.

I am always on the lookout for different ways the same thing is taxed in different regions.

Australia's Victoria region (state?) taxes one on the total value of all real estate, with large increases if the total amount is high, the building is empty for more than 6 months, or the building is owned by a trust (Caution: Australian law may define these things differently than your government.)

Unfortunately it isn't actually that straightforward. That number includes abandoned and run down homes that are currently unlivable, houses that aren't actually on the market because they're being remodeled, they exist in the middle of nowhere where people don't want to live, etc. Fundamentally, the problem with housing in the US is supply. We don't build enough housing in the places people want to live.

While on the topic, a lot of people say that housing is commodified and that's why it sucks. This is not accurate. Housing is treated as an investment that should go up in value over time, not a commodity that can be easily bought, sold, and traded.

If anybody is interested in learning more about housing in the United States from someone who studies this full time, I recommend Clayton Becker

Housing is generally cited as the canonical opposite of commodity products. Each one has to be valued independently and there's often a huge delta between sales price and market price.
- Each one has to be valued independently
  i guess therein lies part of the problem. since each house is a bit different, there's no economies of scale, and that's a large part of the reason why housing is so expensive.
  i'm in favor of the city building a million homes and renting them out at non-profit rates. people joke and say it looks ugly, but ask homeless people: would you rather be homeless or live in a soviet-style building? i haven't done the experiment but i suggest that 90% of homeless people would rather not be homeless.
  just as a rough idea: i saw a documentary about eastern germany (back when it was still sovjet) the other day and it casually mentioned that rent was around $60 per month (in 2019 dollars) (yes, you read that right). rent was incredibly cheap. though i'm not sure whether it was only the economies of scale or also some subsidies through the government.
That number includes abandoned and run down homes that are currently unlivable, houses that aren’t actually on the market because they’re being remodeled, they exist in the middle of nowhere where people don’t want to live, etc.
Would love a citation? The commonly cited numbers I know explicitly only include livable homes. Remodeling also excluded.
a lot of people say that housing is commodified and that’s why it sucks. This is not accurate. Housing is treated as an investment that should go up in value over time
yup and that sucks so bad BASED BASED BASED thanks for sharing
- To my understanding, vacant housing refers to housing in which someone is not currently living, including housing that is under repair/renovation, needs repairs, or is abandoned/condemned.
  https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/census-reveals-vacant-housing-mysteries
  Also, of the housing that is vacant, two thirds are vacant for 6 or fewer months, and ~85% are vacant for 12 or fewer months. The median duration of vacancy is about 2.4 months. Only a small portion of vacant housing is actually vacant in the way people typically think when they hear vacant housing. Freeing up the ~10% of housing that is actually vacant long-term the way people think just would not alleviate the housing crisis. We gotta build more housing, y'all.
  https://www.tiktok.com/@divasunglasses/video/7189814160165702955

Y es indecente, es indecente
Gente sin casa
Casas sin gente

"No Hay Tanto Pan" -- Silvia Perez Cruz

Translation:
And it's indecent, it's indecent
People without houses
Houses without people

Is that more houses that are unoccupied in the long-term or just unoccupied in general?

You'd also need to forcibly move the homeless population away from areas that have lots of homeless but no homes, to places with lots of homes but relatively few homeless. That means depopulating Los Angeles of homeless and instead moving them to... Maine, or Vermont, or Alaska, where there are lots of homes but nobody living in them.

Empty houses are relatively spread out pretty evenly. As in there are always more empty houses than homeless people.
There's an average of 38 empty houses per homeless person in the US. California has the lowest ratio and it is still 6 empty houses per homeless person.
Mississippi has the highest ratio with 205 empty houses per homeless person.
- Again, is it empty because it's just sitting there, fully habitable and just accruing value, or is it empty because it's under renovation, or in-between purchases so someone up the chain is buying and the house is sitting vacant while it's being sold, but not for long enough for anyone else to be living there? Or currently sitting in legal limbo where a large number of people inherit a house and can't all agree to sell it? I don't know about the US but I know Malta has that problem where there needs to be consensus among all members of the estate before a property can be sold, so it sits empty, potentially for years.
Why are people in those places? Would those reasons change if they were offered a home by someone fucking credible? Where do they prefer to live? Have you bothered to fucking ask? Im actually in los angeles, have skme good will with some clusters of unhoused people, please let me kniw if you want somebody to do that.
Maybe don't jump straight to coercion cruelty and 'depopulation'.
Like, offer the fucking houses. See who takes em,who doesn't. Ask why, then work on that and keep the offer up. Zero fucking 'forcible' 'depopulation' fucking required. Does liberalism just mean a coercion kink? Because if they don't actually stand for anything else-please explain; my parents were liberals, so id very much not like to think about the implications of being correct here.
Like, fuck, when i want children to eat better, my first thought isn't 'cut off their hands so it's harder for them to get junk food, zip tie them to a board, and put a tube down their throats. Shock them if they struggle.' Call me fucking crazy, but I try to fry up some broccoli or make an appealing salad or some shit before I reach for the machete and feeding tube.
- Why should someone get to choose exactly where they want to live when they have nowhere to live currently? Not even the Soviet Union gave you that option. You were given an apartment, but you didn't get to choose where it was, you got an apartment where there was one available and where your job was. In the case of the unemployed, you technically also got an apartment, but that was because you couldn't legally be unemployed and were forced to work regardless.
  So it's not a 'liberal' thing to forcibly move people to where there's housing, it's actually a Communist thing.

But with your help we can change that, just donate your alcoholic uncle's glass bottles and a couple of bucks to us and we can bring the number of vacant houses down real quick.

i don’t get it but happy for u :)
- Molotov cocktails make the housing investment market crash! :)

does Youngster Joey have opinions about what to do about Blackrock?

Pokemon Red/Blue hitting with the facts.

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