Free housing for all?

[Benvolio]

Free housing for all, free health care, free food. Communism has been tried and it doesn't work. And remember, " from each according to his ability" means the welfare class would be forced to work. Imagine the howls.

Part of the housing problem is that zoning, rent controls and other laws together with protection of bad tenants has made low cost housing unprofitable.

 

[sixthson]

That which costs us nothing has little or no value to us. Pride of ownership, on the otherhand, comes from working and earning something, thereby becoming valuable to us.

 

[Beachguyj]

Part of the housing problem is that zoning, rent controls and other laws together with protection of bad tenants has made low cost housing unprofitable.

I know that some communities have checks so that felons and people who have had evictions or other credit problems can't get in.

 

[Kulindahr]

If we could only have the worry free future shown in Star Trek The Next Generation. The only concern would be what career to invest your time in. Sweet.

One step at a time.

What foreign models apply?

When I think of subsidized rents, I think of Mitchymo's local counsel and his struggles with them to keep a basic flat. Or I think of Russia and there industrial styled apartments with little space and less quality of life.

I was president of a Habitat for Humanity chapter a few years back. They have insight into affordable housing. Their model solves two problems at once: it sells a house to the new partner at rates less than or equal to rental rates, and it helps train a former life-long renter to think in terms of home ownership and the changes that brings in financial responsibility and maintenance.

American subsidized housing has been a huge fail when left to public housing projects. The model should be with individual housing opportunities dispersed across the land to prevent creating or perpetuating slums.

The landlords have been ruthless during the collapse of 2007. Folks who lost their homes to default jumped right out of the mortgage frying pan into the fire of rent-gouging.

The percentage of income for housing has risen obnoxiously in proportion to income of the poor over the last century. It's a stain on the American (and many foreign countries') character.

So housing that rented at say two-thirds of rental rates for an area could be a good place to start. I can see the virtue in that, if for no more reason than that it would be less of a shock to the economy.

 

[Kulindahr]

Free housing for all, free health care, free food. Communism has been tried and it doesn't work. And remember, " from each according to his ability" means the welfare class would be forced to work. Imagine the howls.

How about discussing the topic? It's definitely better than making up your own stuff and shoving it in here.

 

[Kulindahr]

That which costs us nothing has little or no value to us. Pride of ownership, on the otherhand, comes from working and earning something, thereby becoming valuable to us.

That would be an important issue -- probably was in the back of my mind when I wrote in a rent rate even though my title said "free".

 

[Alnitak]

Adequate housing for everyone is desirable but it doesn't fix the causes of poverty, those that are related to job opportunities and income. Various "projects" have also been met with dismal failure.

 

[star-warrior]

I don't think it'll work, unless you introduced communism to the states in a palatable form.

 

[pat grimshaw]

Here's some cheap housing schemes

(Cuba)

 

[Kulindahr]

I don't think it'll work, unless you introduced communism to the states in a palatable form.

If I were a multibillionaire like Gates or others, I'd introduce it in capitalist fashion, providing housing for one-fifth people's income. It's entirely possible to make a profit from rental properties at half the rates charged today -- you just have to look at the long run, not at recouping your investment in ten years.

But I really don't see cheap or even free housing for everyone as communist -- it's just providing a respectable foundation for a free market, where people can have the confidence to make life changes without having to cling to where they are because they can't afford to risk moving.


BTW, I still haven't heard any responses to the question of how to define "basic housing".

 

[Kulindahr]

Here's some cheap housing schemes

(Cuba)

Are you going to post something relevant?

 

[darden]

"free" housing... tbh, I'd be really curious to know what percentage of the homeless are that way purely because of economic means (rather than mental illness and drug abusers). I think programs like Section 8 do a good job of keeping a roof over people's heads.

 

[pat grimshaw]

Are you going to post something relevant?

Cuban tenements are relevant to the topic of government-supplied housing.

They may be not be relevant to YOUR notion of subsidised housing because —until you start talking dollars— your notions of free housing are fantasy.

 

[cgymike]

Houses are millions in this neighbourhood. Some are over 20 million.

 

[JohnnyAnger]

Cuban tenements are relevant to the topic of government-supplied housing.

They may be not be relevant to YOUR notion of subsidised housing because —until you start talking dollars— your notions of free housing are fantasy.

So your only example of social housing is from a country who have had poverty forced on them by America due to their attempts to make life on their small island better after an American backed fascist government had been raping them for years. It is such an Aunt Sally fucking argument.
Anyway I am up for free housing, but we need to get the money from somewhere so in the meantime allow the taking over of all empty property and give them to people in need and set maximum pricing based on the size and quality of apartments.

 

[peeonme]

Just don't pass an "affordable housing act" and start some web sight that doesn't work, I tried heath care .gov. again this morning.

Affordable housing not free housing is what we need, after the economy took a shit in 2008 I bought a used mobile home, for cash.
I only pay a low lot rent and utilities now.
In the park where I live we have many empty sights, no one buys new mobile homes, they are too expensive, this is primarily because the U.S. government passed a law back in (I believe) 1978that required mobile home to be built like sight built homes.
It didn't take long for mobile homes to stop being produced, it priced them out of the market.
They had served as a reasonable way to have a roof over ones head for a cheap price for many years.

I am a liberal, however sometimes a well meaning government creates problems by inhibiting free enterprise with too many rules and laws.
We could employ people to build mobile homes again and they could earn enough to own one, it is not a luxury life stile but it beats the hell out of living in a car or in a shelter, worse yet the streets.

I am talking private companies and privately owned parks and no government handouts, not a bad way to go.

 

[pat grimshaw]

....everyone were guaranteed a minimum level of housing, at a rent rate of, say, fifteen percent of their income? ...

I'd vote for the scheme, Kulindahr, on the proviso that the renters undergo this small, quicjk and painless procedure. Like I said in an earlier post— we have had subsidised housing for a century now which means we have been paying for four generations' worth of breeding freeloaders.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Free housing for all, free health care, free food. Communism has been tried and it doesn't work. And remember, " from each according to his ability" means the welfare class would be forced to work. Imagine the howls.

The welfare state is terribly inefficent and quite unfair... but the alternative is worse.

That which costs us nothing has little or no value to us. Pride of ownership, on the otherhand, comes from working and earning something, thereby becoming valuable to us.

Having your life suspended because there's no way in Hell you can afford a roof over you head isn't very good for morale at all, and doesn't do the rest of society any favors either.

Part of the housing problem is that zoning, rent controls and other laws together with protection of bad tenants has made low cost housing unprofitable.

If rent control and rent protection are abandoned, I'm sure landlords will throw the rent up to the highest possible level.

 

[pat grimshaw]

I'm surprised none of my enemies have noticed my post #40 here.

 

[Alnitak]

I'm surprised none of my enemies have noticed my post #40 here.

Um yeah... the thing about trolling is people tend to develop antibodies.