Homelessness was on the rise even before the pandemic

It IS unreasonable. Just as the best employment figures Trump obtained are unreasonable...and the two are related.

U6 (unemployment + underemployment) plus those who have stopped looking for work in the competitive, below-poverty minimum-wage environment; the best Trumped achieved was c.10% of the working age workforce.

So the situation is bad at the bottom...the obvious solution is subsidized housing for the working poor, plus a job guarantee.

Mark Carney: value or price? – Michael Roberts Blog (wordpress.com)

"Thus Carney (a former banking high-flier) reaches a dilemma: price or value?; ie, profit or social need? Economics should be about increasing social well-being, but it is obsessed with market pricing instead. “This underscores the moral error of many mainstream economists, which is to treat civic and social virtues as scarce commodities, despite there being extensive evidence that public-spiritedness increases with its practice.” Carney’s answer is to restore ‘a balance’ between markets and morals; between price and value."

But he doesn't spell out HOW to achieve this...

 

I agree, but simultaneously disagree at the same time. If you want to meet the social need, mainly the proper way to do it is to give purchasing power to those in need. Trying to adapt the economy in other ways is likely to cause massive waste and unnecessary inefficiency.

 

I agree with that idea, but subsidized housing is not going to be the solution if the problem is a housing shortage to begin with. That is, whether this is a demand side problem or a supply side problem.

(demand side = poor do not have enough money to afford housing , supply side = the housing is very expensive because it's in short supply)

 

So how do YOU propose to give purchasing power to those in need?

I had in mind provision of public/social housing; eg there are always buildings or land available for purchase and conversion to public housing by the government.

 

If you are naive enough to swallow neoclassical economists' question begging fallacies....

 

In bold above, many are not interested in housing, many have drug and alcohol issues, many have mental illness issues, many have physical issues, many are not qualified for work...any solutions must address all of these things...

 

That's the worst thing to do, if you're not actually qualifying 'need'.

In the First World, need isn't an empty wallet. Need is behaviour. A rich man can empty his wallet in Las Vegas, then claim need.

 

Who will qualify? How will you ensure that it's always going to those in need, instead of being abused by people who are simply irresponsible? Will you allocate locations according to soonest availability, or to personal preference?

 

Then you address the root cause, instead of just the symptoms. Unfortunately that will never happen, as long as a certain powerful sector keeps blocking it. They're invested in homelessness increasing, so toeing their line means you're aiding and abetting them.

 

I totally agree with you there, but that is not what we are talking about here. I think we can find a more objective definition of "need".

 

The ONLY objective definition is behaviour, because behaviour is a choice. No one is forced to blow their dough in Las Vegas (or whatever), so it's entirely fair, just, and equitable to predicate all forms of welfare on that criteria.

In a physical reality bound by cause and effect, those in need are not going to choose to blow all their dough in Las Vegas. If someone DOES choose to do that, then they are ipso facto and necessarily not in need, or are declaring that their need is not so great that it doesn't allow for irresponsible spending. It's a physical reality that cannot be argued or worked around - and this is the only reality we have.

 

1. Means testing. 2. Introduce a Job Guarantee and cancel welfare; thus virtually recreating the full employment conditions that existed in Australia between 1946 and early 70's (before the Asia boom; with NO youth underemployment.....in those days a young lad could always go down to the rail-yards in a city and get a job on the spot loading freight). 3. (a)Link public housing locality near work places where possible; eliminating vexatious 'personal choices'. Most people in housing stress will jump at affordable housing rentals.

 

Chicken or egg problem? Most if not all those negative social outcomes you list there ultimately exist BECAUSE we don't have " the obvious solution is subsidized housing for the working poor, plus a job guarantee**.

**Anyone can be trained (if necessary) to do some socially useful work. I suspect you haven't understood the point about market pricing versus social value. The innovators are rewarded handsomely enough, and a modern economy can be highly productive with remarkably few, true innovators (now that the essentials are produced by a minority of workers eg food production only engages about 2% of the population these days; robots account for c. 90% of motor vehicle production.

The Case for a Job Guarantee | Pavlina Tcherneva (pavlina-tcherneva.net)

One of the most enduring ideas in economics is that unemployment is both unavoidable and necessary for the smooth functioning of the economy. This assumption has provided cover for the devastating social and economic costs of job insecurity. It is also false.

In this book, leading expert Pavlina R. Tcherneva challenges us to imagine a world where the phantom of unemployment is banished and anyone who seeks decent, living-wage work can find it – guaranteed.

Any questions...like (let me guess): "how do we pay for it?"....

 

1) So the rich man who blew all his dough in the casino, will qualify? While the working class man sacrificing fun to pay off a home for his family, misses out? And you're actually okay with that? We can see who's side you're on, if so.

2) And when the rich man who blew all his dough in the casino, decides he's too special for those jobs?

3) On the contrary, we're seeing that SOME people in 'housing stress' are as picky about where they live as millionaires. They'll demand a familiar area, or an inner urban (aka, insanely expensive) location. Yet our pal, the working class man paying off the modest family home, buys in an area he might not like - because that's what he can afford.

 

Look, my only point here was that homelessness increasing was a sign of longer-term economic change.

Surely you'll be willing to agree with that?

When the economy goes downward, a certain (small) segment of society becomes homeless when they wouldn't have become homeless before, under the previous economic conditions.

But this isn't just about them. There is a much bigger segment of society that finds themselves squeezed.

 

No. He will be out on his ass as he should be, sell his rich man's house, or his rich man's car.

No I'm not OK with it.

A JG wage replaces welfare. That rich loser will HAVE to work, (part of the social contract: the Right and and the Responsibility to work and receive above poverty wages)...let's see whose side YOU are on ....

"Some" (in capital letters)?... % estimate please.... but in reality most people are prepared to live where they can afford to travel to work. Not your fantasy of a house in some outback ghost town, though...

Addressed above...you sure are keen to blame the individual for the baleful social consequences of the current dysfunctional neoliberal economic system - compared with the 1946-1970's Keynesian era, in which unemployment rates <2% were the norm (and no youth unemployment), before Thatcher ("there is no such thing as society"...lovely lady..a Genghis Khan wannabee, maybe?) decided she had to sack a million mine workers without compensation....

 

Right: landowners. "Toil on the treadmill that powers our escalator, or fall off the back and be homeless. You have full freedom of choice! So what are you complaining about? Shut your insolent mouth and get back on the treadmill. Now."

They're invested in homelessness increasing, so toeing their line means you're aiding and abetting them.

 

I don't think property owners are really benefitting from homelessness increasing. That is just a side effect of population increases, which have been a boon to property owners and developers.

If a neighborhood goes bad because there is more poor people, and the middle class moves out, they have to move somewhere else, so that is more profits for developers building new neighborhoods further out.

I'm not saying landowners and developers are intentionally supporting population increase specifically because they are benefitting, but if they are doing well they're certainly not going to complain about the situation, and may be likely to support that population increase for other reasons (political or humanitarian).

 

They benefit at least two ways:
1. They benefit from the higher rents that make housing unaffordable in the first place, and
2. The threat of homelessness helps keep tenants in line, and makes them afraid to resist rent increases or demand maintenance, better improvements, etc.

As already explained, population increase, cet. par., increases market land rents and reduces market wages, but does not cause homelessness except to the extent that people are deprived of their liberty to use land and build housing.

That's OK: I'm saying it.

Landowners, humanitarian?? Don't make me laugh.

 

There are solutions but voters don't support them...

 

Too much diatribe...and your 'negative' comment is disrespectful...

 

OK try this: most of the "issues" people have can be managed with a Job Guarantee. Full stop .

There... no diatribe, just simple reality.

 

No, I don't agree with that. Economic climates are eternally changing - ever in flux. We in the First World barely suffer with these changes AND we have all the tools needed to adapt, so we can reduce the impact of any change.

I see the current situation as a good thing for humanity and the planet, because it will force First Worlders to rethink their insanely greedy demand for private, individual homes. If more people give up their sense of entitlement to absolute privacy and freedom (to live as they please within their private, individual housing), far more people would be gainfully housed, and far less construction would be happening. There is no down side.

 

I very much disagree and think you do not really know what you're talking about, or have enough experience to know why that idea would be very problematic.

Yes, it is possible to make some very excellent residential buildings, but they are very expensive. I mean probably more expensive than regular houses. When we are talking about cheaper multi-home buildings, of the type people are likely to afford, there are some big problems. One of them is with noise. Another is race relations issues, because they are not allowed to discriminate. The lack of privacy and space really creates problems there, all the more so when you start combining people from different backgrounds. (In fact I think this is yet another example of how anti-discrimination laws have had a terrible impact on the environment, but that's another separate subject)

Now, that being said, there definitely are some advantages to multi-home buildings, like for example in designing city neighborhood spaces that are more walkable, so people do not have to rely on cars as much.
However, ironically in most current city plan layouts, these multi-home buildings are very close to major roads with high amounts of traffic, so the people actually living in these buildings do not actually benefit from reduced traffic on the roads, and indeed they are unlikely to even want to have to walk outside, with so much traffic nearby (the noise and pollution).

What you have brought up raises some complicated issues, that I think might be more appropriate to discuss in a separate area.

I think if multi-home buildings are constructed they should be all built in their own separate city, so that the people living in these buildings can actually reap the benefits that these buildings can provide to the wider area (like taking up less space so there can be more open space, and allowing people to live closer to commercial and work area so they do not have to have cars, and with fewer or no cars on the road, people will be more willing to walk or bicycle outside). Maybe you could even ban private cars in some of these cities, and that would make it part of the reason people would choose to live there.

 

1) Of course property owners benefit from a permanent underclass. The more people there are unwilling to own property and thus depend on rentals, the more they push up demand, and thus prices.

2) How can a neighbourhood 'go bad'? Neighbourhoods almost always become gentrified - it's very unusual to see a suburban or urban area get worse.

3) Property developers aren't supporting population increase (I've no idea how they'd do that anyway), they're supporting an increase in the permanent underclass. When the people opt out of home ownership, they're opting to support the dynamic of the Big Money controlling the vast majority. When the vast majority are dependent on rented property, they've handed control of their lives to the Big Money. They will live in perpetual fear and uncertainty. They will be incapable of doing for themselves, so develop yet another dependence - upon purchased goods and services. When you're dependent on purchased goods and services to survive, you know true insecurity. We will have a massive underclass of people who will never experience self-reliance, autonomy, independence, security, or people power. Big Money wins. The only way to thwart their plan is to refuse to play their b@stard game. Do whatever it takes to own property.