Based on currently available numbers, there are about 31 vacant housing units for every homeless person in the U.S.
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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Looking at the vacancy data:
https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf
... it seems as though the vast majority of vacant homes are rentals looking for tenants, rather than rich peoples second homes.
Make of that what you will.
Landlords are scum.
If you want to rent whom should you rent from?
There should be options other than renting and owning. If you don't wish to own property there should still be housing available to you, but it doesn't need to be rented from a landlord, it could be collectively owned (by tenants), municipal ownership, or something else. Relying on people with capital to provide housing while profiting from your need for housing is a broken system.
Sure, why dont you start one and give away your labor to people that dont want to work as much as you?
If you don't want to participate in a market system why do you not simply die?
Because I dont want to die. If there were no market system how would you get food and survive?
Do you think market economies are the only kind humanity has ever had?
No, but how is a market economy worse than what people did in the past?
Consider the thread we're in. Housing perhaps should not be market driven
Do you really want government provided housing? The ones I am aware of are places like the projects and were the worst place to live (unless you were a drug dealer).
When imagining that the government do more can you not imagine that it do better?
Yes Americans have a shit government, they also don't have a socialist government.
You're pointing to the corrupt right wing hellscape you currently live in to deny that another way would be better.
What is one definitive thing the government does better? I want a 100% solid thing, and not just a thing that they have a monopoly on.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the government" but why not look at the medical system in the US compared to any other similarly developed nation?
Is your thesis that profit motive and competition the only way that any good or service should be produced?
Would you prefer to pay a toll on every privately owned road you take? How should mercenaries be paid in order to guarantee they won't mind living in a nuclear sub for months? If the weather service can't raise enough capital by selling stock how should we collect weather data?
The medical field is one of the most regulated things in america.
My thesis is that the government structurally cant do things efficiently.
I dont want zero government, but I want smaller government. RIght now the US has the biggest government(s) in the history of the world, why not make it a bunch smaller? The government is the direct cause of why things are so expensive, would you like to have cheaper housing and in exchange less government involvement in your life?
As someone who considers my ideal society to be one that's left-anarchist I can sympathize with that point. However that's not something that can be done overnight and requires building parallel power structures and communities.
However, given the realities of today. A State that serves people interests rather than profit interests is the next best thing.
Every statement you're making and your entire way of looking at this problem are rooted in existing capitalist frameworks. I'm not going to convince you that there are better ways, but putting aside my online persona for a minute I encourage you to learn about what other ways MIGHT be.
You are only thinking of the state as its current neoliberal incarnation. Your critiques of the state are local in time and geography to today and where you live.
Humans have come up with wildly different ways, and there are many more that might only be enabled now in what's effectively a post scarcity economy with respect to our basic needs. We are overproducing and wasting every single thing a human needs: shelter, clothing, food. Yet people still don't have those things. Is this an efficient economy?
You don't owe me anything, but maybe you'll find it interesting to think about these things and learn about wildly different ways that things could be working so that you can broaden your imagination. A skim of the topics in here might inspire https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works
The problem is that the state will not ever serve the peoples interest, that power will be taken by the powerful and directed where they want.
I think your biggest problem is that your dream includes taking away my rights to interact with people as I wish. I want you to have freedom, but you want to take away my freedom. We can run down the various reasons why socialism/communism dont work even in theory, but I dont think that will help you see what the end result would be.
As I said my dream is anarchism, which has free association as part of its core. I'm separating that from my idea of how a state should function because states are something we have to live under today.
Anarchism is compatible with (to put it mildly) communism and socialism. In fact you'd be hard pressed to find anarchists who aren't those things. And it does not require anyone to be forced into anything.
You said left anarchism which is the communist side of things. The libertarian side has a lot of anarchists, and those are the most famous ones. See Dave Smith and Michael Malice. Communism is the biggest form of government in the end, you have to use force to get people like me to do what you want.
You're very misinformed. All Anarchists are opposed to all forms of oppression and free association is core to left anarchism as well. Communism is not the same as authoritarianism.
You've completely bought the propaganda, I'm sad to say. I encourage you to do research.
I don't respect Libertarians for the most part, because they're individualists for the most part, and they don't usually oppose capitalism, which an authoritarian economic system
Why would I join you in your communist utopia if I dont want to?
Let me leave you with another question seeing as you seem to be a pro capitalist "anarchist"
Why should workers take orders from dictators? Why is the economy authoritarian and not democratic
The only reason someone should take orders from a dicator is if they will die if they dont (or be imprisoned). The economy is not authoritarian, if you dont want to work with me you dont have to. The part that gets authortarian is when the government wont just let you live out in the woods off the land or in some other way. But that is arguably a good thing overall, but could be reduced to allow you to have complete economic freedom.
If you don't want to work in a capitalist system you don't have to, you just do if you want to eat or have shelter... You're so ignorant, willfully so, it's depressing
If we didnt have a capitalist society, where would your food come from? You keep just talking in circles, you need to directly say things.
Do you really think capitalism is a requisite for growing or distributing food? You talk about capitalism like it's your God.
Read the link I sent you earlier at least a little. It's structures as a question and answer document, you're repeating a lot of those questions and I'm not going to answer them.
I'm telling you this in the tiny chance that you care to learn. You're really really uninformed.
Capitalism isn't the same thing as trade, or markets, or money. Nor are those things necessary for an economy. Capitalists reading your comments must have the biggest hard-on knowing how well their propaganda has worked on you.
You truly need to educate yourself on these things, as one human being to another I'm telling you this so you can grow
Editing to remove snippy comment. You should just learn about anarchism on your own. You're asking redundant questions.
I probably know more than you do about communism; what would you do if I didnt agree to join your "utopia"?
You're a waste of time. You're not speaking in good faith. Fuck you and have a nice day.
Pro-capital anarchism is a joke, your ideology is an oxymoron.
You could educate yourself but instead you keep asking the stupidest gotcha question. If you knew anything about communism or anarchism you'd understand that your question is laughable.
I'm not going to explain, and you're welcome to think you're right, but know that you're completely ignorant and that's just sad
I love how you cursed at me and then wrong three more paragraphs as though I would read them (hint- I didnt). The issue is that communist is for people that dont have the ability to do well in society.
You're trying to twist everything to fit your existing worldview. The only person hurt by that is you. You will hopefully one day care to learn
A basement suite isn't a vacant home when it's not being rented.
a homeless person could live there and not be homeless anymore
True! What's your point?
Someone putting a basement suite in their home isn't removing a purchasable dwelling from the market, it's adding to the number of available dwellings.
Then who fixes and maintains it?
The homeless guy.
It is tough sometimes. It is not a full-time job.
Oh that is funny. Normal renters dont take care of a unit let alone a person that is homeless. And many problems are out of the ability of almost everyone. Is the homeless person going to replace the HVAC system?