Padawanbater2
Well-Known Member
TL;DR: our government should build houses via taxpayer $ for the homeless population (and in fact all American citizens) which would in turn stimulate the economy by freeing up the majority of resources that were originally spent on rent/mortgage, eliminate the homeless population and provide jobs for people building the houses. Please point out where I'm an idiot, gladly appreciated!
This seems to be an increasing issue in the States, especially these days. Have any of you guys heard Obama or Romney say one word about it?
"According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were 643,067 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons nationwide as of January 2009. Additionally, about 1.56 million people used an emergency shelter or a transitional housing program during the 12-month period between October 1, 2008 and September 30, 2009. This number suggests that roughly 1 in every 200 persons in the US used the shelter system at some point in that period."
What are the underlying reasons we have homeless people? Is this an unsolvable problem?
I used to work with a guy who spent a while being homeless in LA, the stories he told me were pretty intense, and I've seen a few documentaries about the homeless way of life, it's difficult to say the least..
Have you ever been homeless? Close to being homeless? What would you do if you were homeless? How would you get back on your feet or develop a solid foundation if it happened?
Living paycheck to paycheck is almost like being homeless, one payday away from the streets, worried about whether you're buying food today so you can eat or paying bills and only drinking water convincing yourself it's just 'another day'.. Shit is tough. I can just imagine how much tougher it would be without the roof.
Imo, it's a crime we let people in our society exist just to occupy the streets, begging for survival. Consider if every able citizen gave $1. Just $1. That would be in the ballpark of $250 million dollars. We couldn't solve the NATION WIDE homeless problem with $250 million dollars?
Unemployment, OK. Give these people a house, how will they pay for it? I don't know, but I do know that paying upwards of 40% of your salary just to have a roof over your head is insane, and some people pay 50%, 60%, 80%... How can normal people be expected to pay their bills on time when the cost of housing is more expensive than weekly earnings?
I'm an idiot when it comes to these things, so forgive the ignorance, but somebody, please explain this to me..
Why doesn't our government just give people houses? Build government funded houses using taxpayer money or use already built houses (plenty of empty houses around the country) and ensure each citizen has one to live in so they don't have to spend that much of their money each month just to exist? I realize this is probably against a lot of your own opinions, as it would increase the power and size of the federal government, but can someone honestly tell me why they haven't decided to do it? Is it because not enough homeless are dying every year to really matter all that much? Is it because that would be an encroachment on the housing industry and would be against some amendment I haven't reviewed?
Seems like that would be a great idea, it would completely eliminate the homeless, automatically inflate every American citizens monthly earnings, stimulating the economy (people with money buy shit), and momentarily create jobs (somebody has to build the houses).. So what the fuck, why don't we take on national projects like this? I would gladly pay for something like this in taxes, would you?
I must be missing a shit ton of the story of how this all works and hopefully somebody can give me a legitimate reason why our government doesn't do stuff like this..
This seems to be an increasing issue in the States, especially these days. Have any of you guys heard Obama or Romney say one word about it?
"According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were 643,067 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons nationwide as of January 2009. Additionally, about 1.56 million people used an emergency shelter or a transitional housing program during the 12-month period between October 1, 2008 and September 30, 2009. This number suggests that roughly 1 in every 200 persons in the US used the shelter system at some point in that period."
What are the underlying reasons we have homeless people? Is this an unsolvable problem?
I used to work with a guy who spent a while being homeless in LA, the stories he told me were pretty intense, and I've seen a few documentaries about the homeless way of life, it's difficult to say the least..
Have you ever been homeless? Close to being homeless? What would you do if you were homeless? How would you get back on your feet or develop a solid foundation if it happened?
Living paycheck to paycheck is almost like being homeless, one payday away from the streets, worried about whether you're buying food today so you can eat or paying bills and only drinking water convincing yourself it's just 'another day'.. Shit is tough. I can just imagine how much tougher it would be without the roof.
Imo, it's a crime we let people in our society exist just to occupy the streets, begging for survival. Consider if every able citizen gave $1. Just $1. That would be in the ballpark of $250 million dollars. We couldn't solve the NATION WIDE homeless problem with $250 million dollars?
Unemployment, OK. Give these people a house, how will they pay for it? I don't know, but I do know that paying upwards of 40% of your salary just to have a roof over your head is insane, and some people pay 50%, 60%, 80%... How can normal people be expected to pay their bills on time when the cost of housing is more expensive than weekly earnings?
I'm an idiot when it comes to these things, so forgive the ignorance, but somebody, please explain this to me..
Why doesn't our government just give people houses? Build government funded houses using taxpayer money or use already built houses (plenty of empty houses around the country) and ensure each citizen has one to live in so they don't have to spend that much of their money each month just to exist? I realize this is probably against a lot of your own opinions, as it would increase the power and size of the federal government, but can someone honestly tell me why they haven't decided to do it? Is it because not enough homeless are dying every year to really matter all that much? Is it because that would be an encroachment on the housing industry and would be against some amendment I haven't reviewed?
Seems like that would be a great idea, it would completely eliminate the homeless, automatically inflate every American citizens monthly earnings, stimulating the economy (people with money buy shit), and momentarily create jobs (somebody has to build the houses).. So what the fuck, why don't we take on national projects like this? I would gladly pay for something like this in taxes, would you?
I must be missing a shit ton of the story of how this all works and hopefully somebody can give me a legitimate reason why our government doesn't do stuff like this..
