Rents over the last two decades have risen much faster than employee pay, contributing to an escalating homelessness crisis in the U.S.
A growing number of Americans are ending up homeless as soaring rents in recent years squeeze their budgets.
According to a Jan. 25 report from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, roughly 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023, up roughly 12% from the same time a year prior and 48% from 2015. That marks the largest single-year increase in the country's unhoused population on record, Harvard researchers said.
i paid rent this month the exact same as last month and they emailed me after a week saying i owed them $35 more. just out of nowhere, just because. yes it's only 35 but also fuck off
My front office totally fucked up my rent. They put me on a different rate than I agreed to, and added on their own renters insurance which I opted out of by showing proof I already had renters insurance. My bill was like an extra $300 because of their fuckups.
People drop off the unemployment numbers after 6 months as they're considered to have "given up" searching for work. They're one of many metrics the government uses to gauge how "good" our "economy" is doing that are absolutely useless and paint a false narrative.
Corporate landlords are using price-fixing software to illegally raise prices and gouge average Americans. Executives need to go to jail for robbing us all.
America no longer has classes. There’s the wealthy and the non-wealthy.
The non-wealthy get divvied up into something that is closer to caste.
We are at a point now where most people will see a person on the street and instantly toss them into a specific bucket of people based upon dress, posture, cleanliness, accent/dialect, hairstyle, car, whatever.
Notice specifcally missing from this list is race. I’m not saying America isn’t racist. But as a privileged suburban cis white male, I don’t think it’s nearly as relevant as it once was. There’s centuries of institutional racism that’s still weighing down progress, try as we might to avoid it…but I think that “race” is often getting mixed up with other “otherings” related to outward appearance, and the overlap tends to not include that persons own race.
I.e, I think there are a lot of people who would feel nervous around a muscular 20-something black or Latino man in urban-style streetwear downtown, that would otherwise gladly grab a coffee with the same person dressed in a well-pressed oxford shirt and khakis at the office. Racism there isn’t the problem, it’s more of a distaste culture that had been formed by the race, and that’s distinctly separate, in my mind.
Anyways, that was a bit of a tangent. What I’m basically trying to say is that class warfare isn’t really what we’re making it out to be. The classes are literally 8 billion people on one side and 20 on the other.
“Millionaire” don’t mean shit anymore. Any boomer who bought a house anywhere but BFE on the 90s and managed to pay it off is at least halfway there just in equity. Another quarter of the way there for the median 401k balance at 65 of $235k. Thats 75% of the way to a millionaire, just in house and 401k (and $235k isn’t really enough to live off on its own over the course of retirement. Thats something like $15k withdrawal from ages 65 to 85, and hopefully you die by then).
They should GET A JOB! And don't you COMMIES tell me that Wages won't cover a one room rental because that's a LIE! I BOUGHT my house 30 years ago working as a JANITOR! Kids today are just LAZY! GIVE me my Social Security you COMMIES!
College only cost me $25 and a jug of corn liquor and when I got out, they immediately made me president of a metal fabrication company! What are these lazy millennials complaining about?
And...no one (people I know) believes me when I tell them who the homeless are. Every one just holds onto the concept that they are just mentally-ill people who need to be in an institution. When I explain that any person's mental health decreases the longer they live without a home, a job, and a family for support. Homeless people end up turning to drugs because they can't stand the fact that their ability has decreased so much that a drug-induced hallucination is better than reality.
A number of homeless are indeed are victims of our terrible socio-economic system. However I have heard many homeless outreach workers say the same thing "The ones who stay homeless are the ones who stay addicted". Addiction is a serious issue and the challenge of beating it is nothing we should dismiss, however it is clear some people end up homeless due to drugs and stay homeless due to a refusal to get clean. When your life is centered around just getting high, you won't care much about anything else. All the horrors of living on the street disappear once you get your fix, and some people are okay living like that.
I guess I'm writing all this to say that homelessness is a very complex and nuanced issue. They aren't all victims, they aren't all criminals, they aren't all mentally ill, they aren't all addicts, and for some its the only life they've ever known.
This is why the conversation around homelessness is so difficult. People just latch onto their idea of what being homeless is then build their argument from there, dismissing the remaining context of the concept.
I highly suggest doing homeless outreach to broaden your perspective on the matter (look up a local Food Not Bombs group if you live in a city!). If that isn't something you'd like to do, there are plenty of videos on youtube that give you more insight into the homelessness experience. Obviously watch out for the videos that treat living on the streets as a spectacle or oddity, I absolutely hate these videos because they serve to shock and entertain, not educate.
A lot of people on the streets have no one left to help them for a reason. They've burned every bridge with loved ones. Saying this as someone who's dealt with an addict on my wife's family. Thankfully she's not in the streets right now but she has been several times. We've helped her out in so many ways just to end up getting stolen from
Secure and close the borders to relieve the pressure on housing demand and limit the amount of people with no means to support themselves from entering the country. If our country and economy is failing at providing for the people we already have we shouldn't be letting in any more.
You clearly haven't educated yourself on the economic factors at play.
The "richest" country in the world is rich in valuation, not monetary wealth.
There's a difference between having a bunch of products (and businesses) that are expensive and of high quality than having a bank full of money. (See fed balance sheet)
If you actually take some time out of your day from being condescending to people that actually educate themselves on these matters and look up the current situation with liquidity (i.e. money) in the banking system, you'll realize that the multiple bank failures in 2023 was a prelude to what's going to be happening in 2024-2025.
This is an issue happening all over the world and people continue to not educate themselves on macroeconomics and then have the audacity to comment on it in the exact same fashion you just did.
If our country and economy is failing at providing for the people we already have we shouldn't be letting in any more.
Wait -- our country is supposed to be providing housing?
I won't lie, I'm super into that. Normalizing rent across hundreds of millions of people would go a long way to stop bloodsucking leeches from buying property, price gouging residents to live there, and calling that a "job"
It wasn't anything like coordinated rent increases from large groups of landlords using a pricing app, it wasn't a worldwide pandemic disrupting the market, it wasn't America keeping housing as an investment vehicle instead of a means of sheltering humans, it wasn't decades of wealthy investors buying housing to convert into rentals.
Nope, all of that complexity can be tossed out the window because one single man is to blame: Joe Biden. All in his first term as president too!
It’s amazing that rentals are going through the roof all around the world, there seems to be different reasons everywhere but the problem is the same. The underlying problem is probably capitalism underscored by neoliberalism which drives laws and policies to support short term, high growth returns.
It wasn’t anything like coordinated rent increases from large groups of landlords using a pricing app
Which Biden has no interest in doing anything about. Why isn't he using the bully pulpit to name and shame enemies of his administration?
it wasn’t a worldwide pandemic disrupting the market,
It's been years since you and the rest of Democrats gave a shit about COVID, so it's hypocritical to blame the ongoing pandemic.
Perhaps if Biden didn't give up entirely on public health then the ongoing economic problems caused by COVID could be addressed, but instead we don't even talk about it like it's still a serious issue and ignore the ongoing wave of deaths. We are still having excess deaths far above the pre-pandemic period, but I bet you don't even wear a mask to the store. What a joke.
it wasn’t America keeping housing as an investment vehicle instead of a means of sheltering humans, it wasn’t decades of wealthy investors buying housing to convert into rentals.
Both problems are something Biden helped establish over his long tenure as a Senator.
Nope, all of that complexity can be tossed out the window because one single man is to blame: Joe Biden.
Liberals in every country do this thing where they use complexity as a way to mystify and obscure the consequences of their party's actions and inaction. Somehow the President is powerless and problems come from nowhere. No one is to blame, except maybe the red team.
With a Republican controlled House and Senate, no less.
Complete control of the government, carte blanche to enact yr policies ... All they can do is pass a tax cut.
Republicans are the most ineffective political body in the world. More so than Democrats, who's only bid to relevancy is "I'm not them!" while simultaneously only passing Republican written legislation.
So the cycle, take note, is Republicans get power because Democrats don't do shit for anyone on main Street, who've seen their living conditions fall to third world status (3rd world has cell phones too people, like 90% of humanity has a cell phone), bicker about social issues and imagined offensives then pass a tax cut and forgive debts to the people held by Big business. Supreme court shenanigans whenever possible. Democrats get elected with nice stories of going to Disney land. Get in, can't do anything they promised cuz reasons but they pass the Republican think tank written policies cuz gotta point at something. BUUUT no field trip for you, get back to work. Get booted out because now I'm 47, living in a Kia with my 2 dogs and hamster and I've never been to the Disneyverse. Get told the economy is doing better everyday. Every other day someone else I know ends up homeless.
Well, at the moment, the other option is Trump. We all know we need better politicians in general, but are you suggesting things would be better with him?
Weird how people who are 'I'm so COMMUMIST!!' reserve their criticism for US politicians closer to the left and don't bother saying shit about Trump or the Republicans in congress.
It's weird how you make things up to get mad at. The BLM uprisings were full of communists, did you forget about that? We were the ones who sided with the People's demand to defund the police, before liberals betrayed us by trying to frame that as reform the police.
Your confusion comes from thinking liberals are close to the left. They are not. They are capitalist, imperialist, anti-communists.
Also, I am not telling people how to vote. I am criticizing Biden. Am I allowed to do that, or is that blasphemy?