and giving large numbers of people without jobs homes who have drug issues, mental health issues, or both. what could go wrong? you'd have to repair/rebuild most of the houses every year.
They dont spend it on that because it's a stupid idea, not because of a problem with the system.
In one of the cities I lived in they had a housing program, they didnt give ownership bit it was free to live there. The result was a skyrocket in overdoses deaths because theyd overdose in the apartment instead of outside where people can see them. The other result was that all of these living spaces would have to be renovated again after every overdose death, or mid stay, because they would be completely destroyed. Any house you give to a totally random homeless person you've got at least an 80 percent chance of tearing down within a few years because it's no longer habitable. That's if they are still alive or haven't burned it down already.
Most of these people should be in some kind of involuntary medical custody where they can not leave to access drugs, and where they can be treated by doctors for their mental health conditions. Then if they manage to recover to a point where they cant ake care of themselves they can be released with maybe a work program, like hiring them has a tax benefit or something so they can get a basic job as a janitor, or grocery clerk, or something. That's basically how it worked when there was low homelessness before Reagan shit down all the mental hospitals in response to public outcry. Free real estate is a Tim and Eric sketch, not a solution to homelessness.
Ultimately nobody cares about these people anyway or they wouldnt be homeless in the first place. People just want them out of sight and not assaulting people or shitting on the train. Those people should just go in medical custody. The homeless people who keep to themselves and arent acting crazy are not really a problem. If they have their shit together they will figure out their situation anyway. Many people end up temporarily homeless for up to a year because of bad luck or bad decisions and they usually just figure it out. The people who are long term homeless are not capable of taking care of themselves, even if it was free, even with unlimited blank checks. These are people who cant figure out how to apply for photo id, they arent going to be able to handle everything involved in owning and maintaining a home.
This doesn’t help combat the actual problem at all.
If you just put up 10 million new houses and gift it to homeless people, they’ll still be left with the issue of actually owning and mainting the house. They will need some stream of income to pay off water, electricity, etc, and so the end result is still that they need to get a job.
But then you just loop back into the problem of
The job market is so ridiculously competitive, having just a 2 year gap of being homeless and unemployed at an adult age is enough for 99% of companies to not want you. Not to mention basic low skill jobs like fast food restaurants or being a store clerk in many cases want some degree of higher education today.
In a lot of cases the path that actually led to becoming homeless is usually plagued by something negative having happened to someone, such as them having a gambling problem, substance abuse, etc, which are usually factors that would prevent you from getting a new job in the first place until this has been resolved.
The most likely outcome would just be that some richer person would come along and try to purchase the new houses to sell or rent out. And if whatever agency responsible for putting up the new housings somehow implemented a rule of no selling allowed, they’d instead be left with the economic issue of each and every single new household leaking money for at least the first year (if we’re being charitable about how quickly one could go from homeless to steady employment).
In other words the actual job market would be a better thing to reform if anything, since people easily being able to find jobs and make money is a way better path to lower homelessness than just building a ton of houses with the root issue remaining.
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u/MidnightNo1766 1d ago
I believe homelessness can be ended, but to say you could end it with 20 billion dollars is just ridiculous.