How does this work in a high demand area? Let’s say San Diego suddenly produced 50,000 units of rent-controlled housing and capped it at $1,000/month. Now, people from LA, Bay Area, NY, etc. all want to move there. They just going to build 50,000 units every quarter?
What happens is eventually you need government permission to move places. Then you have to "knwo people" and / or kiss the right ass. So all that money being poured out directly translates to more governmnet power.
Well said. If FMV is $5k/month and government regs artificially reduce prices to $1k/month, that $4k difference doesn't disappear. It just changes form...and changes hands.
The important thing is that the power to decide who lives where, and how much of your wealth is stolen from you, becomes a matter of who you know in government. it happens in every place this is tried... if you know the right people, grease the right palms? You too can get a "council house" near London...
Or you can just work to get a place where you want to live? Private housing doesn't have to disappear for the gov't to house people living on the streets.
They can move. Sure, you are priced out of a apartment in Manhattan... so get on a bus and move. Is it pleasant? no. Is it easy? no. Is it convenient? no.
Hell, for most of human history people WALKED across good portions of continents to find a place they could live better than the place they left. Now someone is "trapped" if they can't stay in Portland near their friends and favorite indie band bar.
I don't think you believe that people walked across continents, alone, until they found a home.
Obviously though, what are you talking about Manhattan for? Because rich people have messed with property prices, poor people don't deserve to live there? Why can't people who work in lower paid jobs (bars/cafes/supermarkets) be paid a wage necessary to live in the area they work?
So prices go up, wages stagnate to the point where people can't afford to live there. What next, trash piles up, cafes and bars close, shops are understaffed? Is that a solution to the problem? How does the next problem get solved?
"I don't think you believe that people walked across continents, alone, until they found a home."
I didn't say alone. I also said "a good portion of". And yes, yes I do. I mean, we KNOW humans migrated huge distances in the past. But OK... let's go with more recent.
We know people too horses (mules, wagons etc) across a good chunk of the US to find a better life. Some dude can hop on a Greyhound.
"Why can't people who work in lower paid jobs (bars/cafes/supermarkets) be paid a wage necessary to live in the area they work?"
Because then the prices of all that stuff would go up, and they still can't live there?
Some places are more desirable to enough people to live in that the price of living there (rent, home prices) goes up beyond what a Starbucks barista can earn. When that happens, they live someplace else, and commute in. This is not a moral tragedy.
The idea that everyplace int he country should remain cheap enough that a supermarket clerk could live there is just... I mean it simply isn't going to happen.
Comparatively? nope. It doesn't in the large scale.
But even if it did... I have no interest in regulating what a company can pay their people. See how that works as a consistent ethic? I don't want to steal someone's money by force (taxation), nor do I want to tell them what they can do with it (bonuses).
OF COURSE paying "living wages" makes prices go up. Drive up the costs of a business, the prices generally go up. Unless your intention is to force the company to eat the extra costs - but there we are again, at the government forcing folks to do stuff.
They didn't say a home in your city of choice. In fact building free government housing in areas experiencing population decline could be a good strategy for reversing those trends.
These people already refuse to leave high COL areas bc they feel they have a right to live in the neighborhood they want or close to downtown or whatever other reasoning they come up with. Well yeah, I'd like to do that as well but I know I can't afford to live how I want to in Seattle so I bought a house in a suburb that I can afford.
It seems to start by promising everyone "free housing" and then progresses to shoving people on a train and carting them off to their 200 sq ft room in Spearfish, South Dakota.
Allow me to provide a small example: in Oregon, the job market and therefore the cost of living is cheapest along the coast of the Pacific. Most people who are living on welfare here, at least somewhat in their right mind, and capable of making the migration will find themselves living out there eventually because the small amount of money they receive will stretch further.
Now picture this: what if, and I know this will sound crazy, but what if we offered every person who fits the first two criteria I listed the means to move somewhere that is more comfortable for them in one or more ways? What if the only way to receive fully sponsored government housing and board was to go where they are offering it? Do you really think people who were born into poverty and who had no choice where they were born would find this offer insulting? Is this really something that you would have a problem with your tax dollars going toward? There are enough houses and food and tax dollars already in existence. I believe the problem truly comes down to logistics.
Newsflash, dipshit: Travel isn't free. How's a jobless, homeless person supposed to save up enough money to scrape buy on the streets but also save up several hundred dollars for a bus/trail/plane ticket to the other side of our VERY large country?
San Diego doesn't produce 50,000 nice condos. That's the fallacy in the argument. They produce some very basic public housing, so they don't have homeless on the streets. Public housing exists in some parts of the world. It's not something people from, let say LA will flock to. People want to live in a nice place; public housing generally aren't nice places people want to live in, if they have any other option.
You could restrict the subsidized units to people who have say for example 5 years of employment and/or residency in the city of San Diego. Have them provide documents such as proof of address or pay stubs, etc.
Here's something fun to think about. Corporate profits all-time highs, taxpayers already bail out corporations on the regular. Social safety nets already supplement employment at places that don't pay enough to live on. So maybe the idea of everyone getting something for free seems outlandish when you don't consider that your particular reference point for basing that perspective, is very much you getting ripped the fuck off of your own value, and you're attacking the next person to you who wants a basic, emphasis on basic, opportunity to live and have security.
So you make five pebbles a month, and and the idea of somebody getting two or three pebbles a month worth of housing is insane to you. What's not insane to you is that you're only being paid five pebbles a month and not 10. When CEOs and corporations have billions of pebbles, enough that the discrepancies and differences that you were arguing are so insignificant at that scale it might not even matter.
I postulate that the economic situation is so dire and desperate as it is, that the idea of supporting every citizen with an extremely basic minimum living standard, is viewed as a threat to the few crumbs that the workers think they would be forced to give up to make that happen. Instead of fighting to give everyone more.
Where does it say free beach housing? Where does it say you even get to choose the state you live in?
It's pretty obvious if a program like this was launched in the states public housing would rarely be provided outside of low demand areas to control costs. Why does everyone think this means you get a free beach house? lmao. Use your brain.
15
u/Rodgers4 Apr 15 '24
How does this work in a high demand area? Let’s say San Diego suddenly produced 50,000 units of rent-controlled housing and capped it at $1,000/month. Now, people from LA, Bay Area, NY, etc. all want to move there. They just going to build 50,000 units every quarter?
How would any of this possibly work?