I think governments should offer free housing to everyone who asks, in their city of choice. "But why should taxpayers pay for that? It's expensive!" Yes, it would be very expensive. But you know what's even more expensive? The sum of everybody's lowered wages, bad bosses, fear for the future, fear of having kids and so on, due to the threat of homelessness. Yes, building housing is expensive, but the removal of fear will pay for it many times over.
I think the challenge is that some will use it as a jumping of point to change their lives and some will use it to stick to their poor lifestyle habits and expect the provider of the housing to provide free house cleaning, free maintenance and free meals and in exchange be a community nuisance.
The latter ruins it for the former.
As a taxpayer, I would be willing to provide free housing in a lower cost of living area, in exchange for the receiver maintaining the home, no issues with the law and perhaps helping others build their homes, etc.
I think it's still much better for a country to have a bunch of untidy annoying people housed for free, than to have the same bunch of untidy annoying people live on the street and serve as a constant reminder to everyone: "keep working and don't annoy the boss or you could be homeless too".
I agree up to a point, and I pay nearly 50% income tax.
In my opinion this free housing should be built within an acceptable commute ride from city centers, maybe up to 30' ride? And scattered all around, not creating any slums. Hard problem to solve, I'm sure.
Nowadays there are years long waiting lists for city housing because they have flats available in expensive areas, which I feel is not the best bang for buck from taxpayers perspective.
Most people have little to no money, hence being without the ability to afford housing. You’re obviously not familiar with the social security system we have in place now. The only thing lacking is the inspiration to escape that system as Medicaid and social security insurance don’t allow for any savings so participants are frightened to lose the only thing keeping them and their family alive. Provide them with housing at no expense, higher education at no expense, and a food stipend and you’ll see a lot more success and a lot less homeless.
Just pay them money which they can spend on housing. Either from free market or from social housing. Lot of housing in Finland is run and owned by municipalities and those units are rented just like others. Only the biggest fuckups go into system where money is directly paid to city for the housing.
You do have leeches, but well it is probably lot cheaper in long run than not paying. Like for example my car has never been broken into. And I haven't heard theft being any way rampant.
anyone can hide and claim they have no money, better to provide housing to good students with good job. We can call it I don't know, "credit score" or something like that.
Enter now a bureaucracy who will ask the right questions, involve all the stakeholders, foster an environment of trust and cooperation, coordinate across organizations, proactively address any issues, create a people-first strategy, etc... Meanwhile nothing gets built....
Most liberal democracies have provision within their founding documents and case law to allow for central governments at all levels to provide for the general welfare.
You are asking highly vague implementation details about a small hypothetical. It comes off as incredibly rude and like you're fishing for some answer you already mentally dunked on.
Why does your opinion matter more than anyone else’s opinion here?
Even if you believe my previous questions were too opinionated, responding with even more can only be detrimental, and it is not going to lead anywhere productive.
For example, try making a substantive argument as to how a credible enforcement system would come into existence. Otherwise the default assumption is that it will not turn out any better than already existing government systems.
The part where you like to go around being annoying and then when people get upset retreating to "my opinion is just as valuable as yours". Which I think is stupid, except this time I'm not even going to engage on that and directly say that I also agree with their position, which means that not only is your opinion dumb it is also in the minority.
Do you have an actual direction you want to take this conversation, or will you just keep asking questions like this that seemingly nobody can satiate?
What do you gain from doing this?
(Speaking in my own words again: I am going to be very, very explicit here. You have a habit of asking super vague questions which require people to do a massive amount of work for you to explain their position while you can sit and continue at little cost to you: a sort of verbal DoS. Except we're not computers, we are people, and nobody takes kindly to this. When they inform you of this you retreat to "ok, and why should I listen to you?" which is even worse. I think you should take a good look at how you communicate with other people and see if you frequently leave them upset and unwilling to continue talking to you. Maybe you should direct one of your questions at yourself for why they keep doing that, such that you have to keep replying like this: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....)
This still seems incoherent, I’m assuming your the same person behind ‘saagarjha’, who entered into this comment chain and raised multiple bizarre
points including “… which means that not only is your opinion dumb it is also in the minority.”
I’m not going to pretend your past comment doesn’t exist.
So the number of users opining in a comment chain is relevant… how…?
Edit: If you don’t like someone else asking questions, just leave the comment chain, otherwise don’t waste people’s time.
You're focusing a lot on my past comments (which I assure you were written by the same person who is writing this one) but I think the best response to your concerns is actually contained in what you've written yourself. You yourself raised the question of whether someone else's opinion can matter more than anyone else's here; i.e that opinions should implicitly be equal in standing. Not only is this false (and you have, long ago, said the same) but I also wanted to demonstrate that even if opinions were equal there are now two that disagree with you, which obviously leads us to believe that your singular opinion matters less.
This is of course a lot of words to say the more straightforward thing, which is that you are the one wasting people's time here, and they don't really appreciate that. You can't really ask people to leave a comment chain while also asking them to respond in a certain way that is very expensive for everyone else.
> Yes, it would be very expensive. But you know what's even more expensive? The sum of everybody's lowered wages, bad bosses, fear for the future, fear of having kids and so on, due to the threat of homelessness.
I doubt your supposition. Once you create free housing you reduce your tax base. You are creating a positive feedback loop of costs, lost revenue, leading to more costs, leading to more lost revenue... and so on.
You've also not explored alternative means of solving those other problems on a more direct level or have any information as to what that might cost. You could just as well increase direct funding for small businesses and approach anti monopoly law with a renewed vigor.
To me it's putting a bandaid on your eye when you've cut your finger. So very nearly the right idea it's a little painful.
If free public services caused this kind of feedback loop, rich social democracies wouldn't have free healthcare, free education, socially provided housing for the needy etc. Or do you see housing being special in this regard?
Funny story, I was sitting in a pizza place in Spain talking with a coworker about the high cost of rent in Hawaii and the homeless people who wander around Waikiki. Some guy (also an American) overhears us and butts in, blaming the Liberals for all the social programs that make homeless people want to move there. My response: how'd the homeless people buy tickets to Hawaii? He didn't have a good answer for that one.
What you're proposing is classical Soviet communism. Particularly Khrushchev era communism. Much have been said and written about it, if you're interested.
What nonsense. Did you hear me proposing nationalizing all industry? Having a state ideology? Closing the borders? Removing freedom of speech? No, what I proposed was giving people free housing. Another thing I'd propose is giving people free healthcare. Both these things are good ideas. Mentioning the USSR doesn't make them bad ideas.
I'm not bothered by if you think it's a good idea or a bad idea. If you want to learn about the largest undertaking of the exact housing idea you are proposing, there is a wealth of knowledge available from programs that involved entire nations and isn't just an idea in your head.
I can say all day that my ideas are 'good.' But the only place in the modern era that has tried mass 'free housing' are communist ones and all those societies stopped doing it or failed altogether. That doesn't seem like it has worked out as a 'good idea.'
Finland does not have free housing for everybody. Finland has never had free housing for everybody. Finland will never have free housing for everybody. For historical examples of that idea, you have to look to the neighbour in the East.
