Fuck Elon, but also there’s absolutely zero chance you can solve homelessness with $20b unless you’re just building tent cities with no other resources available there.
I mean…you could really build rather modest dormitories outside of cities for not much money. Throw free bus rides into and out of the city (where jobs and social resources are) at it, and you’ve got not a solution, but a pretty damn good bandage to help people and families get (back) on their feet.
Hell, rent them on a sliding scale if so inclined. But the scale has to be $0 up until a decent income, like at least the first quintile.
20 billion could house and feed our entire homeless population for twenty years. While that would not solve the problem, it would drastically improve their lives.
I don’t really believe that. It cost us $10 billion just to provide free lunches to kids for a year during covid. I think we should spend that every year. But the cost of housing is much higher unless you’re planning housing with no HVAC or energy costs. Even if that number were theoretically real, it clearly isn’t accounting for inflation, or the potential increase in homeless population when they start providing free housing.
650,000 homeless people times one thousand in rent for twenty years.
650000 x $1,000 x 20 years = $13 billion. That leaves enough left over to also feed them for 20 years as well
Do you believe it now!? Don’t answer that, because it is clear you have a serious case of learned helplessness.
Edit:
650,000 x 12 x $1,000 x 2.5 years of rent with no food. Buuuut Elon gained 50 billion so that would be over 5 years with food. He could house every homeless person and feed them with the money he made since the election.
Wouldn’t that be $1k a month minimum? Even if you could find housing at that price where most destitute people are located… that’s $7.8 Billion a year.
Yeah your right. That would only pay for almost three years. Honestly though $1000 may be a bit high for a room, but perhaps not an actual house depending on the area.
Putting aside your confusion on monthly versus annual rent, the pricing you are thinking of has baked in the assumption that the homeless are not participating. Every value is based on supply and demand, and there’s no such thing as a true objective numerical value for “a month of rent”. If hypothetically you have housing for a 1,000 but 1,500 people to house, then the rent is going to go up so long as 1,000 can afford what’s available, and 500 would be left out.
Of course with more incentive, construction can happen, but just saying it’s not that simple.
See also cost of college. Well intended measures to make financing available to everyone caused massive cost increases in universities. Any measure to try to secure these resources for everyone requires more than just throwing cash at the problem.
I would wonder about the distribution of available housing stock. If you can place every homeless person, but to do so you tell them they have to move 80 miles to the empty house you find for them, that is likely not going to work.
Also, they likely need more than just a roof over their heads to have a safe, healthy life. There’s a high likelihood of that housing stock being mismatched with the capacity to provide those services.
Fuck Elon, but also there’s absolutely zero chance you can solve homelessness with $20b unless you’re just building tent cities with no other resources available there.
I mean…you could really build rather modest dormitories outside of cities for not much money. Throw free bus rides into and out of the city (where jobs and social resources are) at it, and you’ve got not a solution, but a pretty damn good bandage to help people and families get (back) on their feet.
Hell, rent them on a sliding scale if so inclined. But the scale has to be $0 up until a decent income, like at least the first quintile.
What til you find out about the number of unoccupied houses in the USA. Zero chance anybody is getting rich solving homelessness so we ain’t doing it.
That assumtion is an annual cost. Although doing it for one year only would still probably reduce the homeless numbers considerably.
https://www.sciotoanalysis.com/news/2024/1/16/what-would-it-cost-to-end-homelessness-in-america
20 billion could house and feed our entire homeless population for twenty years. While that would not solve the problem, it would drastically improve their lives.
I don’t really believe that. It cost us $10 billion just to provide free lunches to kids for a year during covid. I think we should spend that every year. But the cost of housing is much higher unless you’re planning housing with no HVAC or energy costs. Even if that number were theoretically real, it clearly isn’t accounting for inflation, or the potential increase in homeless population when they start providing free housing.
You don’t have to believe it, good lord!
650,000 homeless people times one thousand in rent for twenty years.
650000 x $1,000 x 20 years = $13 billion. That leaves enough left over to also feed them for 20 years as well
Do you believe it now!? Don’t answer that, because it is clear you have a serious case of learned helplessness.
Edit:
650,000 x 12 x $1,000 x 2.5 years of rent with no food. Buuuut Elon gained 50 billion so that would be over 5 years with food. He could house every homeless person and feed them with the money he made since the election.
Wouldn’t that be $1k a month minimum? Even if you could find housing at that price where most destitute people are located… that’s $7.8 Billion a year.
Yeah your right. That would only pay for almost three years. Honestly though $1000 may be a bit high for a room, but perhaps not an actual house depending on the area.
$83.33 a month for rent?
Yeah that was not right
Putting aside your confusion on monthly versus annual rent, the pricing you are thinking of has baked in the assumption that the homeless are not participating. Every value is based on supply and demand, and there’s no such thing as a true objective numerical value for “a month of rent”. If hypothetically you have housing for a 1,000 but 1,500 people to house, then the rent is going to go up so long as 1,000 can afford what’s available, and 500 would be left out.
Of course with more incentive, construction can happen, but just saying it’s not that simple.
See also cost of college. Well intended measures to make financing available to everyone caused massive cost increases in universities. Any measure to try to secure these resources for everyone requires more than just throwing cash at the problem.
Yeah my math was way off.
Putting people in tents is just ridiculous. You need to get that thought far out of your mind.
No need for construction though as there are already more empty homes than homeless by a large margin.
I would wonder about the distribution of available housing stock. If you can place every homeless person, but to do so you tell them they have to move 80 miles to the empty house you find for them, that is likely not going to work.
Also, they likely need more than just a roof over their heads to have a safe, healthy life. There’s a high likelihood of that housing stock being mismatched with the capacity to provide those services.