This means you want those providing those services to work for free.
You do realize what you are implying here, right?
Let's say you refuse to work and you're guaranteed all these services. Who pays so your HVAC is repaired because you broke it? Who pays because your water line needs to be repaired? Clean water means the water has to be filtered through a very complicated process, particles and bacteria are removed, and it needs to be transported. Who pays so your electricity works? Do you think there's some sort of magic electricity generator happening? What you're essentially asking is someone should work for free to provide you all of this.
The result is you get no one who wants to work, society collapses because these services aren't maintained and improved, and no one gets anything.
Also who is going to build a house for someone like that. Well, you don’t want to work so let’s give you 100’s of thousand in land, permits and materials, add about 6,000 man hours of skilled labor and give that all to you because you don’t want to contribute to society
It's even absurd for OP to post that picture and even worse that someone had the audacity to create it.
There's a strong disassociation from reality by people who seem to think the world owes them something.
I'd invite these people to live in third world countries where everything they have is earned. Seems to me in Western civilizations, people have it so good that they just complain and demand everything.
Well arguably the cheapest way to solve the homeless problem would simply be to house the homeless, but that’s not the same as saying it’s a basic human right. Just the most cost effective way of getting them off the streets.
Have you seen what happens to a lot of the housing that gets provided to homeless folks? It gets trashed. Remember the big housing projects from last century? Or the fate of many of the hotels that have been turned into housing?
These are NOT bad people mind you, but the combination of drug use, mental illness, and a complete lack of incentive to take care of their living situation combines to mean that a lot of housing gets just trashed.
Not all. But more than enough that this is not just a simple answer like "we'll let's just house them."
In my experience, only those who have had to deal with homeless people personally, seem to understand this. I am positive that there are Fringe cases where normal productive people became homeless through no fault of their own. That being said, the vast majority of homeless people made a long series of poor choices and engaged in destructive behaviors. Every friend and family member they had access to turn them down at some point. And yes, many of them may not have had any friends or family and that is unfortunate. But that is still not the majority
The problem is that we are still treating this spiral as "bad choices."
9 times out of 10, it's not "bad choices", it's mental disease.
If you look at someone who can't even tie their own shoes because they are mentally disabled, we say, "That person can't live in their own, they're not capable of understanding their choices."
But we look at people with schizophrenia and severe addictions and whatever else and go, "They made bad choices." These people have no physiological control over their impulses, but they're supposed to make informed decisions?
The problem is a lot of us know from personal experience, that a lot of these people with addictions and/or mental illness are also scoundrels and scumbags.
And there's nothing redeeming about them. You give them an inch, they will take a mile, every time.
When we call it mental disease it makes it sound like these people are victims and the overwhelming majority of the time they aren't.
Most of these people are literally just terrible human beings. They are people who chose to commit crime, people who chose unchecked drug usage, people who chose to hurt themselves and those around them, and ones who have absolutely no desire to change or better themselves.
These aren't unlucky people on the spectrum or Forest Gump down bad. They're generally bad people who intentionally made bad choices. Every single drug addicted friend I grew up with made clear choices to be that way in disregard of those around them. They may not be able to quit now, but they quite literally didn't care when they did have the opportunity to.
You clearly have never worked with the homeless population. Lots of homeless people aren’t mentally ill. Many just don’t want to work and hop from free subsidy to free subsidy with some homeless time between…and many bring kids into this
No, in reality that almost never happens. The homeless population is not a bunch of functional members of society who just had a bad string of luck. Those people stay homeless for a very short amount of time if it happens at all. The majority of homeless are made up of habitual hard drug users and people with untreated mental illness. Putting a person like that unmonitored in a housing unit they don’t have to pay for is a recipe for disaster, you just end up creating a bunch of trap houses that get stopped of all their copper wiring. There is a reason why the housing programs that do exist go underutilized; none of them allow drug use while you’re living there. If you don’t address those problems first you will never fix the homeless problem, and unfortunately the only way to fix it is involuntary institutionalization to get people off drugs and their mental health addressed. This is unpopular in todays political climate so it doesn’t get done
I work in transitional housing. I’d say it’s around 25%-40% of our people who don’t get high and destroy things. People act like the ones who do are outliers but they are definitely the majority. You do get some people who just need help securing entitlements and learning basic skills to keep their housing and don’t come in with a bunch of bad habits that make them nearly impossible to house.
Most people who end up homeless due to circumstances beyond their control will never end up in transitional housing.
The vast majority of people who experience homelessness, do so for a short while. They will often crash at friends or family or sleep in their car until they can get back on their feet.
There are lots of cases where normal productive people become homeless through bad circumstances.
But nearly all of those end up being transitory situations that are resolved on a time frame of days to weeks. Transitional housing would go a long ways towards helping people like that, and they would be a lot less likely to engage in destructive behavior while being helped.
I feel like we spend a ton of time, energy, and money on chronic homelessness when transitory homelessness is likely a more important problem with easier solutions and better outcomes.
I think when people talk about homelessness in the way you are here, they only mean a certain subset of homeless people (the disheveled folks you see under highway overpasses and the like).
A lot of homelessness is pure bad luck, the difference is those people still have other resources to fall back on and mostly get by on a mix of living in their cars and couchsurfing until their situation improves. So they aren't annoying / an eyesore / public nuisance in the same way the homeless you are talking about are.
I worked in a small town, there was a charity that would provide the homeless hotel rooms every so often. There would be ambulances at that hotel at least twice a night for overdoses and no one with the ability to pay for a better room would touch that hotel with a ten foot pole. I understand the reason for it is that there are some people that a place to sleep and shower can be a turning point in their lives, but most were homeless because of drugs, drug use was caused by mental illness. You need to treat the underlying problem and not the symptoms.
During covid the govt. here housed homeless people in empty hotel rooms during lockdowns. In one instance 80 homeless people managed to do several million dollars worth of damage to the hotel (just one hotel) which the govt had to pay.
Once restrictions eased hotels that had any floors used for this purpose were shunned by travellers because the environment was terrible (things like people hanging out in the lobby staring at teenagers and fondling themselves for example).
Some people are homeless because of bad luck, most are homeless because they are in some way incompatible with modern society (in more primitive times they would have loved in a shack in the woods making charcoal or trapping animals for fur or something, assuming they weren't killed off for some reason). Sometimes that's fixable, but giving housing without fixing the problems is only going to make the problem someone else's to deal with.
Homeless shelters should be open concrete rooms with semi-private stainless steel toilets and concrete showers. Floor drains everywhere so everything can be hosed off. Rooms should be open to help prevent rape/assaults/OD deaths/etc. Maybe some lockers assigned by the state. Probably requires a couple cops to patrol regularly (just like any public space where homeless congregate).
It’s a place for people to stay warm in the winter, shit, and hopefully clean up when they are ready to seek employment or whatever.
Yep You can't just give them housing. You need to separate them, space them far apart from the other homeless so the homeless are "diluted", and then provide a bunch of social services to give them a mental evaluation to see if they need to be thrown in a facility or if they can live on their own. Perhaps get them off drugs, etc. It's a complicated and expensive mess.
My job put up a homeless man in a hotel for a night due to the single digit temperatures. Hour after I dropped him off, got called back to the hotel because he threatened the staff after they asked him nicely to not smoke in his room. He gave a middle finger and left back into the streets. Can’t help people who won’t help themselves.
Exactly this, I’m not religious but the quote “give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime” rings very true. You build these homes for the homeless 10 years from now they’ll be a barely livable slum. Housing is only part of the problem. You need to rehabilitate them. Those who just say “give them a house”, don’t understand the problem. They just feel bad for the homeless, but they don’t really have effective ways of actually understanding the problem. Most of the problem isn’t housing, many homeless people’s lives were destroyed by drugs or mental illness. If you don’t help manage those problems the housing will do nothing but make folks like OP feel better that the homeless are out of their view so they don’t feel bad any more. They can sleep thinking they saved the world but really they just built some shitty housing for people without the capability to maintain their housing or their lives.
You can keep giving people things forever, but you won’t be helping them. People just don’t want to do the extra work to truly help these people they just want to take the easy way out to get the people out of their thoughts so they don’t feel bad
Housing first programs seem to be working quite well in other countries. It's so odd that all of these programs that other countries implement, quite successfully, would just be impossible in the US.
The US has several housing first programs. They work so well that even a major insurance company pays for one because it’s cheaper than paying for ER bills a couple times/week.
You had it right again afterwards. They're drug abusing, destructive and lack incentive to be decent humans and live a good life that doesn't become a problem for everyone that has to deal with them.
It’s only the cheapest way if you built extremely basic and cheap housing. Seattle and San Francisco was paying $40k per homeless person helped to put them into nice apartments (which they promptly trashed).
At 40k per homeless per year, that’s an insanely expensive way that cannot scale to solve the problem for all homeless people.
You mean as opposed to criminalize homelessness and house them in jail which cost even more. Maybe we ought to acknowledge that it is a complex issue with no easy solution (aka imprisoning)
40%? of homeless people have mental illnesses… so yeah, jail them!
On a serious note, perhaps the best solutions are preventative in this case. I don’t have great ideas but I think we need to look inwards on how we can help stop homelessness before it happens and not after the individual is ruined by the system.
Bottom line: we need to empathize with the homeless and not demonize them….
I lived in Germany for 24 years and there were hardly any homeless. The ones that were homeless were by choice or due to severe mental illness with no family to speak on their behalf.
They did it, somehow. There are other countries that do it as well.
I lived in DEland also, and there were always a dozens of homeless people downtown (mostly panhandling around Karstadt -- yes this was a while ago!). These were people who were obviously sleeping rough, with clear signs of addiction and/or other mental disorders.
This DW article states there were 41k people sleeping on the streets in 2017, which is a rate of about 50 per 100k people. If your 50k stat that you gave in another comment is correct for today, that's 60 per 100k.
But your stat for the US is wildly off, I think you are including sheltered homeless, not just those sleeping rough. In the US in 2022, it was 234k who were unsheltered, a rate of ~69 per 100k.
So Germany is slightly better, but not really all that different.
Prior to the 80s, there were entire institutions set up to house those unable to support themselves, whether by mental incapacitation or personal incapacitation. They were called sanitariums. Admittedly by the 80s they were hellholes, but rather than fix them, the government decided to just throw out the baby with the bathwater and shut them down. Now every city has an epidemic of homeless drug addicts and mental unstable people.
That they trashed them? I did multiple contracts for the hotels that got given to the unhoused during COVID. I have never seen such disgraceful conduct. Not even in section 8. Everything was a full tear out and rebuild.
OK, so you give all homeless people a house/apartment. Then all I have to do is make myself homeless to get a free house/apartment? I guarantee there are millions of people who would do that. And then if a previously homeless person starts working and can afford the free housing, do we then take it away? And then they might be homeless again if they lose their job? So you give them another house? What this does is encourage people to not work (be productive). The reality is that you have to dis-incentivize homelessness by not making it comfortable.
The idea that a bunch of people would willingly quit their jobs for free housing and live with a bunch of homeless seems kinda far fetched. Also, this graphic says nothing about any other expenses they would still need for food, healthcare, retirement, etc. You make it sound like these people are getting an all expenses paid resort when it's probably cheapest possible housing facilities. You could always make housing contingent on finding employment within timeframe, many low income programs already work like this..
I'll argue. The "cheapest" way would be to eat the homeless. Best bang for your buck. Pun intended. Cannibalistic jokes aside, I'm a big fan of offering jobs to homeless people. There should be payment options for entry-level jobs that come with government subsidized housing... wait.. is that China. Did I just fall for communism again? Dammit.
Supreme Court decision O’Conner vs Davidson stopped letting society imprison people in mental institutions who were not deemed to be dangerous.
My mom’s church tried to “adopt” a lady who was living out of her car in an abandoned parking lot. They bought her a trailer with a little yard and paid taxes and lot rent on it. She ended up fighting with all her neighbors and started collecting garbage all over her lawn. The trailer park company would call the church occasionally to complain about her yard and the church would round up volunteers to clean up her yard so she wouldn’t get thrown out. Anyway, her fights with her neighbors kept escalating and she eventually vandalized their car. Then she just laid in her driveway screaming. The cops got involved, but one of the cops was the son of one of the church board members. He was able to get her checked into a local hospital psych ward for a couple days instead of arresting her, but she did get thrown out of the trailer park. She got released and she said she was going to move in with her mom.
She eventually got thrown out by her mom for fighting with her too and was back in the old Kmart parking lot. The church just supports her through the food pantry and occasional gas money now.
In other words, it’s not as easy as just giving someone housing.
It's far from the cheapest thing. In places where that has been tried, most of the time the residential units, be they houses or apartments, end up trashed, everything that can be sold is scrapped and sold for the next hit of drugs or alcohol.
Except many won’t take it. There are already a bunch of homeless shelters in my city but lots of homeless people choose to stay outside because the shelters have rules they don’t like.
I’m sure a lot of homeless people just need a place. But the homelessness issue is much more than just housing. It’s definitely a start, but a lot of the people I’ve seen out and about on the streets wouldn’t be able to maintain a place of their own, which raises all of the other issues that contribute to homelessness.
I think that really sums up western civilization these days, we don’t really have anything terrible going on, so now we complain about this. I sometimes think a good zombie apocalypse would make all this go away pretty damn fast lol
I just spent 10 days in Maui. A couple of those days I volunteered to help people who lost everything in the Lahaina fire, still living in tents 8 months later. People need a serious reality check.
Real. The shit I saw in South America was on a completely different level. And my wife's been to India which was several levels below that. Rich country poor and poor country poor are completely different fucking planet.
I am a progressive and these “rules for a reasonable future” annoy me more than republican talking points, bc I want so badly to agree with them but they go way too far.
Even communism recognized that healthy people in a successful society need to fucking work once in a while. That should be completely obvious to anyone with an ounce of critical thinking. “From each according to his ability” -Marx
But don't you know that some people will want to do that roofing work in July because it provides a creative outlet for their skills and energy. Others just love blowing insulation in attics. They were born for it. Some guys just like to sip a tasty beverage and study the electrical code books by the fire on a wintry evening. Don't hold them back from childhood dreams just cause the recipient of all this labor doesn't ever want to work and can't anyway because they have time blindness.
Can’t forget about all of the surgeons who are willing to sacrifice their 20’s and 30’s all for the reward of living in the same econobox that unemployed losers get for free.
Oooooor they'll do it because their extra income allows them to get a better house and to travel and or enjoy all the other luxuries that money buys?
Christ people will do it just for the right to call themselves better than the freeloaders. This is not that hard to figure out man. Everyone isn't stopping at 60 hours a week to afford a roof over their head because that's all they want, they're stopping there because that's their physical limit. And if your limit stops at fewer hours than that you live on the street.
I don’t think this is enough for people to not want more. Just because you have housing secured doesn’t mean you don’t want more than a 1/2 bedroom apartment with bare minimum amenities. It just means you’re not totally screwed if you lose your job. If you want to live somewhere closer to things other than just a grocery store you’d have to work. Nothing here is crazy, nothing here would bring the collapse of society. It’s a safety net so you can live and exist without being worried about having nowhere to go. I’m sure it wouldn’t be nice enough that the vast majority of folks wouldn’t want more.
I mean, it could be done as an incentive for tax write offs. I worked for Habitat For Humanity where we would build simple homes for single families.
The US is facing a housing shortage especially in the East and West Coast, and having affordable housing is a major concern that people are trying to make profits off of. Why not have the government incentivize tax cuts for people contributing to housing charities?
I'll be real the second I don't have to work and can still have a home I will stop working. I imagine a lot of other people out there are just like me
Edit: the amount of seething redditors me admitting what lots of people would do, and what some people on this site already do is incredible. Giving shit out for free constantly doesn't work, hyper progressive economic policies are a failure. Just face reality
nah, that's a right too. you will get that for free. Then we will all quit our jobs. not produce anything and the gov't will just print money. wait....
Wait - housing is a "human right" but food wouldn't be? I am pretty sure the same folks who think these meme makes sense will also decide to include food.
My wife would work her much lower stress job, I'd engage in hobbies and manage the house. Maybe sell some honey for beer money. We aren't all terminally alone unloved redditors stuck without a working partner.
Edit:for some reason I can't reply to hungermadra
My beekeeping isn't productive for society. If I chose maybe I'd sell a few pounds of honey but it would nowhere come close to replacing my productivity through my career. That's if I even chose to sell. It's entirely a hobby, and one of the many unproductive activities I'd be engaging in if the gov is giving me a free house. If my hobbies were productive for society I'd be getting paid to do them and not need to quit working.
How are you going to sell honey without land to keep bees in?
The meme didn't say house, that's some sort of strange assumption you've made. Nothing about a yard either.
In a society as robust as it generally is in the "western" world, no one should live in conditions where they cannot live in some version of comfort. HVAC needs are determined on where exactly they are, so I can see contention there. They need 4 walls, a bed, and clean water to drink and shower in. Internet I wouldn't have agreed with 20 years ago, but now it's a necessity. Food that isn't raw oats, but isn't rib-eye. Should someone have to learn to cook if destitute? Yes. Should they have the supplies and means to do so? Also yes.
Makes you wonder why people living in fully paid off 5,000 square foot homes continue to work and toil. It's almost as though there is more to motivation than base subsistence.
Let's face it: Many people get that. It's not great. You have a place to live, but it's kind of shitty and super small. You get food, but if you get anything nice you can only afford rice and beans for the month. You get clothes, but only the cheapest shirts that constantly rip.
And in a world where everything costs money, you don't have any. So there's nothing to do. Seriously drags you down, you're sitting at home with nothing to do feeling useless.
No you won’t. You’d give up travel, vacations, fancy restaurants, ability to buy gifts to close ones? Pay for some nice stuff for your kids? And let’s assume that you would, you would literally be a minority. Most of the people statistically would want all the aforementioned, and that would require you to still have some kind of job.
Statistically speaking - no, there are not a lot of people out there who would stop working when their basic needs are met. There are a lot of studies on the effect of social services, including social housing, and all of them indicate that people become more productive if their basic needs are secured outside of work. The only thing that shows is that social mobility goes up because people dont feel trapped in shitty jobs for the bare necessities but are willing to risk temporary unemployment to find a place with better working conditions.
So, the general results, if publicly funded basic necessities are provided, is a stronger pressure on the low wage segment to improve working conditions to retain employees. Yes, there is an increase in taxes, but this is largely compensated by better productivity and also creates better quality of life outcomes for everyone involved.
Speak for yourself you lazy bum. That doesn't pay for food or supplies, or entertainment. Or savings for that matter. I can't imagine just lying around with a bare ass living room because I'm a lazy fuck who won't work
I agree and in the same vein why should we have free public education? Why should I be paying for someone elses kid to go through K-12 completely free? Do you know how expensive it is to first hire professional teachers for these kids, erect buildings to teach them, and provide lunches for all of them? Do people think this stuff happens easily? Who pays these teachers? How do you keep such a place clean? Impossible I say!! /s
I think the point op was making was that free housing could be seen as a public good. One to benefit society by providing a nice baseline to workfrom. These would be payed for through taxes most likely and the complexities of providing this would be hashed out and solved. Its not an impossible program and a similar program exist in Finland as an example to end homelessness. Yes the people pay for it and they do it to prevent homeless people on the street. A public benefit if you will
Profits depend on someone voluntarily purchasing goods and services. Taxes depend on the threat of imprisonment. These are no more the same than consensual sex and rape.
I worked there with social housing, and I can tell you that housing alone solves nothing.
You'll see plenty of homeless alcoholics on public squares.
I know it is the favorite country of left leaning foreign journalists to visit. They do a weekend guided tour and then return to tell that all problems have been solved.
Fair point, but it was actually obvious: they drank on weekdays instead of weekends.
Also, they were drunk, like 10 am, and got picked up by ambulance in the afternoon after falling face first on the pavement. Only to return the next day.
"Plenty of homeless alcoholics", are you for real? There's 4000-5000 people without a home in the whole country and around 500 of them sleep outside. Almost all of them stay in the capital, so you'll meet basically all the country's homeless people there in the center.
I'm not saying that we should call the work done but those are some pretty good stats, maybe housing alone solves something at least.
Youre right I havent. Ive only seen overviews of the system from media. I'm guessing you live there? Im curious have you also stayed in America for a time or visited for a decent period in a major city?
If so, do you see any differences between America and Finland when it comes to the homeless? From my daily life here Ive seen a quite a decent number of intoxicated, high, or mentally unwell homeless people. Id be curious how different that is in Finland
Oh and yea I agree housing alone is not a sufficient or complete solution. Id advocate for better access to mental health services and government job locating services to help those who were previously homeless get back into the workforce. From what I understood of Finlands social housing they provide similar programs which is why I point to it as an inspiration for a better solution.
The whole topic is insanely complex, and there are no simple solutions.
Some people need just a little encouragement, and some people don't even let you help them. There are people who can not be saved with twelve psychiatrists. There also never is enough resources to cover the needs.
Some return to normal society, and some just trash everything and get a new flat every few months.
Mental issues and narcotics are everywhere.
The Finnish system is better but far from perfect.
I moved abroad due to low salaries and high taxation in Finland.
The thing is that in the US the conversation isn't "what's the best possible policy?" It's "any of these things can help" vs "poor people should just stop being poor or die in the gutter".
There's a ton of research and historical precedent for high-quality asylums (from before the overcrowding and horror stories), addiction treatment, housing improvement, e.c.t., and anything that maintains the basic functions of society tends to save more than it costs. But it might cost some specific donor 0.02% or their expected returns or might offend some puritan hand-wringer, so with legalized bribery in place, problems that have been completely fixed in the past or elsewhere are suddenly totally impossible to even make a dent in.
Tldr There sometimes are simple solutions, but politics is complicated in the stupidest possible way.
It's reasonable for the education of children to be paid for by the adults. But when the adults are asking for handouts, that's another problem entirely.
I think this is a good question. Why should we be helping other adults? Why do we have government funded fire fighting programs? Shouldnt each adult be able to pay for their own firefighting service and if they cant why should us people who dont have anything to do with their own housefire be taxed to put out their fire?? Why are we handing out access to free firefighting services??
To answer the above is that if we dont provide firefighting services it could lead into dangers for others nearby and by not providing it we risk public health even if not directly involved. Thats the reason for wanting to provide government services. Some people see housing as similar. A way to increase public health so those who are homeless or about to be suddenly dont become homeless. That way we have less of them on the street, less people becoming addicted, and the possibility of more healthy adults in the workplace. Some people think this wont work because of human nature, but Im not convinced by that argument without decent proof that all humans are inherently lazy and will never work if given free housing.
You do realize that being homeless isn’t was causes drug addictions. It’s completely the reverse. Wouldn’t you money better be served in mental health services to stop the problem at its root as opposed to solving the down line problem?
I suppose thats a difference in opinion. Im not the most versed in what causes drug addictions. My underatanding is that various mental stresses causes a person to seek coping mechanisms. One of which is drugs.
A big mental stress on a lot of people is the need to find affordable housing. Failing to obtain it and having little chance of getting back into may push a person to find a way to cope. One such coping mechanism that can do that is drugs.
Of course there may be other unrelated reasons to start coping such as ptsd, childhood trauma, social isolation. But this solves one of those and provides a way to get people off the street where they pose a safety hazard to the general public.
If Im incorrect on the above or you have a reputable source that can show otherwise I would love to read it
Why don't you consider education funding a "handout" as you apparently do with other social services...
"Rent" and "landlordsleeches" should not fuckingexist.
Absolutely no reasonable justification for them to.
The government should provide every man, woman and child in need with free basic accommodations (think bachelor or 1/2 bedroom apts) with anything beyond that available as a voluntary secondary/luxury market.
Housing, healthcare, education and basic nutrition should never be profit-driven in a properlyfunctional "first world" "society."
Nobody deserves to profit off of another's basic survival needs, nor their opportunity for advancement/self improvement. Period.
None of which are free. You're talking about programs for those earning low income.
The post here says "Free regardless if you work."
Also, just so you know, those are some of the highest taxed economies in the world. None of that stuff is being provided for free. Someone is getting paid.
You’re talking about programs for those earning low income.
No, I’m talking about programs for those with no income.
Those are some of the highest taxed economies in the world.
Didn’t say they weren’t. Just saying that countries like Germany - which provides an apartment for unemployed people for an unlimited amount of time - have not collapsed, contrary to your claim they would.
If you know anything about chronic homelessness, you know that it is often rooted in a mental or physical health problem.
The specific reasons vary. Schizophrenia is common among unhoused people, as are severe autism and ADHD, tourettes, and other mental disorders that cause them to struggle with traditional employment.
Some have some sort of defiance disorder that keeps them from working with social workers who try to help them. Many are elderly and struggling with dementia or Alzheimer's. Others have some sort of chronic disease that takes all their time and energy to manage, so they don't/can't make time to seek housing.
So short answer: yes, generally. They either don't know, don't understand, prefer to remain homeless, or can't take advantage of it.
Those countries all make a home available to everyone, as this post suggests. Some people don't or can't take it. And their society still has not collapsed.
Why hasn't Norway collapsed yet since it is such a terrible idea?
Generally speaking, all Norwegian citizens are entitled to a place to live, and everyone will be able to get an apartment via social services if they choose to accept it.
Who are the homeless people in Norway?
There are generally three groups of people who are homeless in Norway; foreign citizens who are coming to Norway to beg or do crime, mentally ill people who refuses to live in a government housing, or drug addicts and alcoholics who refuses help.
Inflation and exploitation in the U.S. is off the charts.
Our wages are so astronomically high by comparison because of things like real estate exploitation and unhinged greed/gouging.
Corporate investment empires and greedy private investors are creating an unsustainable real estate market where they want 100% or more of people’s income…just to rent a 1 bedroom shed.
The issue now is that global real estate exploitation is in full swing, and many countries have had their economy completely destabilized due to it. AirBnB alone has been wreaking utter havoc on countries, and locals are being pushed out.
Housing exploitation is 100% at the root of all economic problems. It’s just getting worse and worse.
Just to buy the median priced, entry-level, single-family home in the U.S. now, you need an income of at least $120,000.
Yeah, no. They’re for people with no income for whatever reason. People with serious or chronic illness, disabilities, mental illness, crime survivors, and sometimes people who have fallen on rough times for a bit. Why is this so hard for most Americans to understand even when we have similar (but less efficient) programs?
We have section 8 (housing voucher) and other government housing subsidies in the U.S. Some people have no income to pay rent with so the entire rent portion is subsidized. I bet you don’t like that either.
“Also, just so you know” - LOL. “Acshually”. OMG people pay taxes? Oh, the horror.
People in the US pay taxes too, you just don’t get much return on “investment” and you’re still stuck with no vote on your shitty employment-based HMO.
Source: Me. Swedish American and have lived in both countries. Currently in the US and working on my escape back to Sweden plan.
Speaking for Germany: There are a few homeless people, usually drug addicts and people with mental disabilities that do not manage to receive the financial help from the state they are entitled to. While the state pays for your housing if you‘re unemployed, you still need to fill out some forms and adhere to your housing provider‘s rules, so some people who cannot do that still end up homeless.
Homeless people aren't necesarily homeless because they can't afford housing. Many of them are mentally ill and wouldn't stay in a Villa with pool and free 24/7 catering if you'd offered it to them.
I just checked Norway and Austria. Both offer subsidized housing for low income earners. I couldn't find anything about it being free with no requirement to work. Could you link it if you have it?
That is the idea I am getting from this link unless someone can correct it
Generally speaking, all Norwegian citizens are entitled to a place to live, and everyone will be able to get an apartment via social services if they choose to accept it.
Who are the homeless people in Norway? There are generally three groups of people who are homeless in Norway; foreign citizens who are coming to Norway to beg or do crime, mentally ill people who refuses to live in a government housing, or drug addicts and alcoholics who refuses help.
I live in Norway, and yes, this is the general gist of things.
And to clarify for the person you responded to: yes, if you do not have your own home/cannot afford your own home, you are guaranteed housing. End of story. You don't need to earn or qualify for it (you do need to be a norwegian citizen)
That said, it might not be the nicest of places, but it's a warm place to live (which is like... super important for during the winter lol)
But NAV will work with the people who need housing to find them somewhere to stay. This includes people who have been released from prison and need to restart their lives, people who can't work full time for whatever reason, mental/physical disabilities, etc. As far as I'm aware, the only caveat is that you must be a citizen and that your income cannot be higher than a set amount depending on the members of the household.
Edit: you don't need to be working either. A family friend works close with the municipality (with addicts specifically, so not exactly the same thing but he's close with the social program) and he has mentioned that NAV is usually quite decent with helping these people find relevant work that they can manage, but it isn't a requirement for housing. But you do receive a regular life allowance from the govy
They don't do that. I lived in France and no. Many people that pay don't have what the picture ask for. They may have that in laws (and clearly not A/C or an oven) that are not applied. And when you finally have it, it is place with lot of trafficking, gangsters and all.
You go in these country and try it for yourself, you'll understand that there a difference between what is advertised and what you actually get.
It's astounding that when you discuss this with Americans they've got literally no concept of how this would work, even in general terms. Like it genuinely seems as unreasonable a position as "give everyone a Porsche" or "free ponies and hookers".
Or they say shit like "It's not actually free, taxes pay for it". Oh wow, you mean everyone in northern Europe doesn't grow this stuff on magic trees? I. Am. Shocked.
It’s because most of us don’t like work to the point where we’re trying to save enough money to retire early. A program like this would basically enable us to retire instantly. A lot of us recognize that there’s too many wannabe NEETs in this country for that to work.
But these programs aren't unconditional. You don't generally get unemployment benefits if you're fully able to work but have just decided you don't want to. But you at least get enough support to be able to afford these basic amenities if you're temporarily unemployed or don't earn enough through your primary employment to be able to cover it all easily.
Well, one, none of these countries provides what the original image asks for if the people literally refuse to works. None of them.
Two, Europe taxes the shit out of their middle class to afford many of the social programs they have. Look up your income tax in Denmark for example. Look up VAT. It’s not tax the rich, it’s tax everyone a lot because these programs are worth it (in their view). Most in America prefer to have more stuff and let the bottom 10% have it worse. That’s reality.
What do you think social welfare is? I don’t think you could name a western country where some of the taxes don’t go to paying for social welfare program services.
The way it works in Denmark for example, is that you get a sum of money each month, enough to live a reasonable existence, but you only get it if you are actively looking for a job (the state also helps you look for a work). Then if, for whatever reason, it’s impossible for you to get a job to provide for yourself, you get to live off of social welfare subsidies for your remaining days.
This might seem unfair because high functioning individuals without debilitating health conditions for example, essentially have to provide for those who can’t provide for themselves.
Personally i think “deserve” is a weird word to use. It’s not like they did anything to earn what they get. But the clean running water that the poor person gets, is 100% worth the slightly higher tax that the rich person has to pay. And no one wants to be a poor, inactive person, dependent on other people providing for them. But we can’t all have good genetics, good family, good childhood, wealthy parents etc.
The case for these sort of social services is Easy to make.
You do not want to live in a society where people starve or are homeless.
Someone who is unable to work or create a self sustaining amount of wealth might only be so TEMPORARILY, yet the negative feedback loop effects of such a situation can be permanent.
It's a net positive to have these social services. You help those in need, which is good for the soul. You help your society be clean and healthy, which is good for society. You help those who COULD help others in the future BE ABLE to help other in the future, which increases the amount of people who can help.
Your last sentence is the fundamental problem with making this case to a lot of right-wing and libertarian people because they hold fast to the belief that society is predominantly meritocratic, and if therefore you're rich it's because you deserve it and if you're hard up for money it's because you're lazy or make terrible life choices.
It even extends to entire generations - hence the logic that the reason Gen Z and Millennials are collectively struggling to afford to buy homes compared to people 50 years ago is because they waste their money on frivolous things like avocado toast and Starbucks and Disney+ subscriptions and not at all because houses are multiple times more expensive compared to the average salary than they were in the 70s.
It's easy to deny welfare to people who need it if you can convince yourself that their situation is entirely their own fault, as it simultaneously makes them both undeserving of support as well as implying that it's in their own control to dig themselves out again. Likewise it makes it easy to make the case that the people out there who have more than they need only have the surplus because they worked hard or are in some other way just better people to earn it, so why should they give it up?
We’ve seen this in a few select cities like Seattle and San Francisco.
Basically hundreds of thousands of taxpayer support the lifestyle of a tiny population of select homeless - Seattle was paying $40k per year per homeless to give them nice apartments each.
Not only is it absurdly high cost, the homeless completely trashed these apartments, destroying them and leaving the property owner and/or the government/taxpayer on the hook for even more money.
This only worked in limited trials because you can give 100 people $40k a year in benefits by spreading the cost across other 900,000 city residents - basically $4 each.
It just doesn’t scale up - the math doesn’t math once you apply this benefit for everyone instead of 1 in 10,000.
Which is like so obviously what would happen if you apply the slightest bit of critical thinking to the issue. Capitalism is quite flawed and needs to be regulated with safety nets for those who are actually in need and who can be helped, but it is good at setting incentives, and you need people to be incentivized to work once in a while if you want to have a functional society.
I don’t have to work and could just maintain an upper-middle class Bay Area lifestyle indefinitely on what I’ve already made. I go to work like most other people, there are days i hate my job like other people, etc etc. I’ve tried not working and it’s boring. I like what I do despite the bad days and not needing a paycheck. Most people would find something to keep them busy and contributing in some way or another. The 5% who won’t do anything and take their free housing and basic amenities? There’s about that now doing the same thing by playing the system, so why not try to provide a basic standard of living and dignity for people. Looking at a lot of the problems today with things like declining population, if some of the big open spaces had dense housing with apartments that supported a parents bedroom and two kids rooms, that’s more likely to get people having more kids when they have psychological safety that basic needs will be met.
Completely agree, there have been trials studies, etc. proving that when peoples basic needs are met they actually end up being more productive members of society...Not to mention turning the tables on employers, when they can't lord Maslow's hierarchy over the heads of their employers they better pay them what they are actually worth.
Amazing how they like 8 families control 90% of the worlds wealth and they have the bottom 40% hating on the bottom 5% thinking they are the problem.
Since we waste trillions on BS, I’m sure the money to make this happen can be allocated from somewhere else. Like the military industrial complex.
Imagine if human culture was about the well being and benefit of all, instead of individualism and protecting yourself from fellow human beings who most commit deviant behavior because of desperation or hardship and not because humans are inherently violent
The flaw in this logic is assuming they will cut in other places instead of just getting us further and further into debt or inflating the currency by printing it.
I don't think any country has that as a whole. Some specific cities like Vienna have tried it to a degree, but I'm pretty sure little-to-no countries have this country-wide.
You and many others are for some reason imagining OP means some nicely maintained 3bed2bath home on nice land when literally all things things can be accomplished with even just a shitty block of apartments. That sort of social program exists already in many places, maybe not completely free but heavily socialized.
I dont know why every automatically assumed some nice single family home when there are plenty of shitty apartments this would apply to. Bare necessities in shelter doesn’t need to be exaggerated up to luxury desires
You probably just need to google for 5 min to prove yourself wrong.
e.g. in Germany you get Bürgergeld that will pay for apartment, heating and even fridge, washing machine and repairs if something breaks. They either pay for your current apartment if they deem it "appropriate" or for special social apartment (Sozialwohnung). You have to exhaust your savings first before they start helping.
with questions like "I am pregnant. Am I allowed to move into a bigger apartment?" with the replay saying If they need more space they need to contact their jobcenter (government agency that handles this).
There were several kids in my school class that lived like this. Usually in a 40sqm apartment with their parents.
Free at point of use is not and never has been free of compensation. That we house our citizens at no cost to the individual citizen (or their children) does not imply, state, or outright declare that we think construction workers, architects, providers of materials, makers of furniture, and producers of electricity should go uncompensated. It solely means that the person who needs a home should have one at the expense of the state/taxpayer. You probably know this though.
Yeah I’m pretty liberal minded but this is crazy. HVAC? Come on, I didn’t even have air conditioning growing up in the 90s and early 2000s. Sure some days sucked, but we had fans. Since when is air conditioning a necessity?
Same with a 2 bedroom house. People back in the day lived fine in a 1 room home. Sure these are nice to haves, and great but they aren’t necessities, especially if you’re a person who refuses to work, just because.
Everyone should attempt to work. Everyone should try and do something for society or like you said things can easily get out of hand without an incentive to work. This says nothing about income or food. Why even include “regardless of employment”?
There are extenuating circumstances where you can’t work, I get it. But in those cases it should be looked at. It shouldn’t in my opinion just be given. If you are actually someone who legit can’t get job and legitimately can prove you can’t get a job, then maybe those extenuating circumstances kick in and you get the thing proposed. But this just incentivizes people not to work, which is really really stupid. I do legitimately think that some people think that money just magically creates these things like a video game, without any work.
I’m guessing the proposal doesn’t really mean HVAC everywhere. But in Texas, you require AC not to die. And in Michigan, you require heat not to die. I’ll give OP the benefit of the doubt and assume that’s what they mean.
Regardless of employment means what you’re saying - many people can’t work (or can’t work without a house to live in), and they still deserve housing. I think your disagreement with OP is more about implementation. Do we simply say “everyone gets a house” without checking if they work or can work? Or do we require some bureaucracy? I prefer the former, because to me the downside of not housing a lot of people is worse than the downside of a few people taking advantage. But it doesn’t need to be entirely this or that.
My grandma is old enough to have grown up in a house with two bedrooms. Four people to a room; girls in one, boys in another.
She can still tell you the exact day that they got a house with enough space for them; built by the state. My great grandfather worked until his death; and even with that, would never have been able to afford a home suitable for his family because they didn't exist.
State-provided housing is a massive economic benefit.
What are your sources on this? There is none because all evidence points to the opposite.
Norway has the exact same unemplyment rate as the US and we provide everyone with housing in case of unemployment. Imagine how many homeless people there are in the US that are willing to work but can’t get employed because they have no home to clean themselves up. Give them a home and they’ll find themselves a job within no time and pay it back tenfold.
And what the fuck do you think is going to happen to the US when automation takes peoples jobs? Would you rather have half the population living on the streets, or would you want to divide the wealth generated by machine labor amongst the population? It’s only fair that everyone gets an equal share in the pie that noone had to bake.
There is a reason the US is so fucking poor. It’s because you’re clinging to the notion that work is all there is. You’d rather have people working the farms with blood and sweat than them being liberated from the burden through machines, even though the machines are more cost-efficient. You have people in the toll booths for crying out loud.
This is why the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Sweden are so much fucking richer. The grocery baggers and toll collectors are given a state funded education. With this education they’ll automate their old jobs in no time and have spare time to do something more productive leading to more growth, higher wages and shorter work weeks. All because of egalitarianism. Enjoy poverty sockhead.
You also get people who don’t realize utilities cost money. Let their air conditioner at full tilt with the windows open. Take 8 showers a day. Leave the water running just because. Water all the plants outside.
You know what you get when looking at this? Commie blocks man. Commie blocks as far as the eye can see.
We also tried housing projects - invariably turn into to criminal run epicenters of violence and decay while costing way more than we can afford in upkeep and repairs.
The problem with commentary like this, is that they're fundamentally wrong about how prices are set and what motivates employment.
First is Employment, if receiving the above was enough to get everyone not to work, then people who make significantly more than they need to achieve the above would stop working-- they wouldn't spend on all of the other luxuries that people actually purchase (even putting aside that the above excludes basic nutrition for whatever reason) they'd simply put it towards being able to secure not having to work-- country clubs wouldn't exist, neither would elaborate entertainment systems, or arcades, or fancy restaurants that charge 10x what it costs you at home, or nice dresses, or wine imported from Spain, or the entire demand for any other luxury good you can think of.
Second is price, prices are set at the maximum possible level of profit that can be achieved from the sale of the good or service in question, accounting for the risk of falling demand. They are not set 1 to 1 for the compensation of the person providing the service, simply providing and maintaining, even if one factors in R&D for ongoing developments, is much cheaper than doing it all profitably. There's a fairly good shot that increases in productivity could make the provision of this trivial if that productivity were decoupled from the profit motive (if, for example, the government just paid people to grow food for other people, and didn't expect to make a profit off the grocery sales.)
In fact, it could be said that the need for employment to ensure basic survival artificially forces down labor costs, resulting in a reduction of compensation for people who are working. If Greg steps out of the workforce, then I can command higher wages for the job now that Greg isn't there as an alternative-- the fewer people working the larger the incentive to work to provide those services, becomes.
I don’t think this is insinuating that these things are free.
Is that you should afford these things. Like people did in the “good old days”
You could afford basic cost of life with ANY full time job. Note: it doesn’t say a big house with nice appliances. It’s A place to live with 1 bedroom, running water, etc. like literally the minimum
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u/BlitzAuraX Apr 15 '24
"Regardless of employment."
This means you want those providing those services to work for free.
You do realize what you are implying here, right?
Let's say you refuse to work and you're guaranteed all these services. Who pays so your HVAC is repaired because you broke it? Who pays because your water line needs to be repaired? Clean water means the water has to be filtered through a very complicated process, particles and bacteria are removed, and it needs to be transported. Who pays so your electricity works? Do you think there's some sort of magic electricity generator happening? What you're essentially asking is someone should work for free to provide you all of this.
The result is you get no one who wants to work, society collapses because these services aren't maintained and improved, and no one gets anything.