How much would it cost to house the poor in America and should we?

Do you mean: free housing; free healthcare; free food; free education including college; free spending money?

Also have wide open boarders to let immigrants free flow into the USA?

Then there aren’t enough billionaires to pay for it. The middle class likely doesn’t have enough money to pay for it either.

I have an Idea. Lets all vote for Biden/Harris to find out.

I don’t know the answer. But there was a large tent city population in the town I work in. It got very cold so the mayor shut it down. Other issues contributed to the shutdown including the homeless were stealing water from a nearby business.
A rich businessman had a huge old house he wasn’t using and donated to the homeless. They stayed about a week and moved out. They said it was too constricting to their way of life.

How about a simpler solution like some better rent control policies and not letting banks randomly change someone’s mortgage rate? We should work on making it so someone’s rent or mortgage doesn’t increase 400 dollars then go from there.

Let’s work with what we already have instead of using buzzwords that will just upset those that hate poor people.

@gondwanalon Obviously, I don’t, I talked about people still paying taxes to support the community. People would like need less food stamps and be able to pay for regular daily needs themselves. I’m just trying to get people at a point that they aren’t under constant extreme mental stress, which is destructive in so many ways to the individual and society. Trying to create neighborhoods that everyone can be safe in, children can feel safe and free. The housing would interwoven with middle class. I grew up and live in communities that all levels of income used the same rec centers, pools, schools, tennis courts, etc.

@Blackberry Places like Singapore the public housing was basically available to everyone, which overcomes the stigma situation that I think you are referring to.

Mortgages don’t go up if it’s a fixed rate mortgage. Some cities have rent control and rent stabilization, and there are good and bad sides to it. Probably, how it’s done now could be tweaked.

I think it’s a great question. I’m not sure if that solution would work but I certainly think we need to do more to mitigate against poverty in our country and the huge disparity between the wealthiest and the poor or even the working class.

Of course it’s a great idea, but we don’t need billionaires, we just need people with the means and will to donate.

The bigger city down the road has quite a homeless population, some preferring it as a lifestyle choice (as @chyna mentions) and some who do not. For those who want it, a local non-profit is creating up to five villages of tiny homes on donated land.

https://www.ky3.com/content/news/Eden-Village-organizers-begin-work-on-new-development-of-tiny-homes-in-Springfield-567392331.html

^I like that idea. It’s not for everyone, but for the people who truly want to get off the streets, I think it’s a great start. You could tell the woman in the video was so grateful.

You wouldn’t need to do that,just bring these poor slobs wages up to a living wage and they can look after themselves, but the wealthy would have nothing to do with that it cuts into corporate profits.
The poor are to be exploited by the wealthy then thrown away like garbage when done with,that is the capilitist way.

@SQUEEKY2 Yea exactly, look at any job search website now, it’s all Amazon Warehouse jobs. They’re grinding through people and tossing them aside for more people.

People are reporting getting literal “good job” placards and cards instead of raises.

IMO the homeless problem has to start with healthcare. It is my understanding that the vast majority of homeless in America are suffering from mental illness. In most civilized countries these people would have their illnesses treated and they are treated with humanity. In America, we cast them aside like refuse and act annoyed that we’re forced to endure their presence.

Housing the homeless should always be a goal. But we have to remember that, with that free house comes a refrigerator and utilities. Do we continually stock their cabinets and freezers with groceries? Will there be house insurance? We have to get this right because making them leave their house for non-payment of bills would be a travesty. Home ownership of any kind is very expensive.

Higher wages fixes part of it, but not everything I don’t think. Some parts of the country the housing is a fortune, even too high for average middle class. The high income earners just keep paying higher prices. It’s out of control.

You need a real master planned community to not create ghettos all over again in my opinion. The social classes are too divided in too many cities and towns around the country.

I’m right with you on the idea that corporations currently get government subsidies indirectly by allowing them to pay low wages and then the government allows the poor to pay no income tax, get food stamps, Medicaid, section 8 housing. Basically, that’s a corporate subsidy.

So, how much money is it going to take though if we wanted to build these communities? I just looked it up, and the statistic I saw was 40 million people are poor in America. If we spent $50,000 per person that would be 200,000,000,000 Is my math right? 200 Billion. Probably, doesn’t need to be that much, because some are families, so one house for 4 people on average.

Maybe those who prefer to be “homeless” we develop a safe town like what is done for Alzheimer’s patients in Europe.

@gorillapaws. I agree with much of what you said but with most cases of mental illness we can only place a bandaid called pills. What mental illness medication would make a disturbed individual into a normal functioning one?

@gorillapaws I agree we need better healthcare, especially for mental illness, but I’m not only addressing the homeless, I’m thinking about the poor and getting rid of these unsafe neighborhoods. I want to revamp and create new environments with less crime, better education, safer environments. I think we could reduce mental illness by half if life is safer and easier.

Yes. Everyone deserves a hand out instead of a hand up.

Basically, yes, we should provide for the needs of the poor. And it should be done intelligently.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that intelligent action may be beyond us, as most of our nation is mentally ill at this point, and being driven further and further insane by our media and intentionally-perverse political conversations. Some of which are on this very subject.

The problem is evidenced in the first reaction: @gondwanalon characterizes it as “Free everything…”.

But it isn’t free, and nobody says it would be giving it away for free to everyone. But it is a matter of shifting the way we as a society spend our money. It’s cheaper to house people in small homes that are livable than to deal with them as a “homeless problem”.

It is cheaper to have single payer healthcare, where instead of paying for health insurance, the same amount goes to socialized medicine.

And free public education is known as “investment in human capital” and pays an excellent rate of return.

I do think something should be done; I’m just unsure of what. The homelessness crisis is out of control here in California. But what’s the solution? Do we just build more housing? What if the number of people becoming homeless continues to increase? In that case are we better off tackling the reasons people are becoming homeless at their source? It isn’t a matter of just providing housing for those who are homeless now, it’s also changing the system so that fewer people become homeless in the first place. That’s obviously a much more difficult task but I think a much worthier one in the long run. As others have said, we can’t simply put unemployed homeless people with drug issues and mental health problems in houses and expect them to fare well. It isn’t going to happen.

Speaking for California, I’d like to see less money spent on illegal immigrants and more spent on solving the homeless crisis.

I thought we had already tried this. It didn’t work out so well. The biggest problem to overcome is that anything granted for free, anything that doesn’t require work to attain is worthless. Cabrini Green is not the only attempt to do this but is the most spectacular failure.

You know I agree that there should be large systemic changes that make this question unnecessary. But in the meantime, it would cost practically nothing to house every single homeless person in the US right now.

The fact that there is one involuntarily-homeless person in this obscenely rich country should make every citizen humiliated. I sure am.

@Jaxk If you read the first sentence of your link, you might change your interpretation:

Cabrini-Green was once a model of successful public housing, but poor planning, physical deterioration, and managerial neglect, coupled with gang violence, drugs, and chronic unemployment, turned it into a national symbol of urban blight and failed housing policy.

What Chicago and other cities tried to do was to warehouse people without any support to get them to live on their own.

@Jaxk ”...anything granted for free, anything that doesn’t require work to attain is worthless…”

There are a lot of Americans who got a free public K-12 education that would disagree with that statement. Likewise, there are many people alive in the UK because of the NHS that would be dead had they been living in the USA who would also disagree.

@Jaxk: “anything granted for free, anything that doesn’t require work to attain is worthless”

When the right accidentally makes the case for inheritance abolition. :)

@hmmmmmm True that inheritance can be harmful and undeserving to those who are on receiving end. But the decision where value of estates go should be from the individual who works his/her entire life and paid the taxes should decide. Not the government.

@zenvelo – You need to read the whole sentence including Drugs, Gang Violence, and Chronic Unemployment.

@gorillapaws – A good education requires work. The ones that don’t put in the work are the ones that can’t read.

@hmmmmmm – Not exactly the same thing but this one is better argued on a separate thread.

The housing projects that I’ve been to here in NY, people piss in the hallways and piss in the elevators and piss in the stairwells, write graffiti on the walls, write graffiti on the benches outside, throw garbage and dirty diapers out the windows, the list goes on and on. I am all for a hand up but sometimes, people don’t appreciate things that they get for free.

@jca2 Yup, I have been in some of the places too in NYC. It can’t be just building buildings in inner cities.

I don’t think free housing is the answer. What can be done is home ownership. I remember when I lived in the Bronx run down neighborhood being torn down and town homes being built. Years later the neighborhood still looked good. It was homes for families with little wealth. Before they could claim the home as theirs to possibly sell they had to maintain it and pay the mortgage for 15 years. Any shorter than 15 years or missing payments or letting the house go to crap and it went back to the state to sell. It’s like housing but with the promise of ownership. Families who otherwise would never have a chance of owning their own home now could. Especially in a city where homes and owning property were beyond even lower middle class hopes so never mind those earning less than 50 thousand a year with a family. They would never be able to move out of housing. So they built it. I went back some 20 years after they were built and they were still being maintained well.

My point is housing gets trashed because its never theirs to own. So no matter how nice it is, it will eventually get old and run down and people will not take care of it because its not theirs and they didn’t have to work hard to live in it.
Living in a place that you have to earn through care and paying for it is what encourages people to take care of things.

Like a former neighbor. Bought their child 2 cars and she treated it like trash. Didn’t wash it and didn’t take it in to get tune-ups. Nothing. Dad did that for her as well. The moment she paid for the car herself she suddenly became conscious about caring for it. See, she understood that she was no longer going to get a free car when she wanted it. She actually had to save her own money and pay for everything so she wanted it to look good and work well as long as it could.
People love free but they never really appreciate the value of it.

@Pandora shorter than 15 years and it goes back to the state?! I agree with you that ownership often increases how well someone takes care of a property, but not always. NYC has a ton of rental apartments that are well maintained buildings and people consider the apartment they live in theirs. My aunt and grandmother never owned property, but their apartments in Manhattan they made their own.

If the person is responsible for paying property taxes and any maintenance fees, then if they don’t pay they lose the house or condo, etc. I haven’t thought through if people can sell the properties, I’m thinking not, but you make me realize that there are many many different ways it could be done, and each one likely has some negative unforeseen consequences.

The reason behind the 15 years was to keep people from moving into a cheep home to sell it to make money and move somewhere else. It’s designed to build a community. There is no lack of jobs in NYC so it’s not like they would have to move to work somewhere else. I think the nonpayment of the mortgage wasn’t meant for those who may become ill and can’t work or if a job shut down or loss of employment. It think it was meant for those who chose not to pay because they are doing something else with the money. Like gambling or drugs. They wanted to keep the criminals out. I grew up in housing and knew a lot of people who maintained their homes as well, but it just takes a few to ruin a good thing.

@JLeslie Another thing cities can do is go back to job training programs. It use to be that if someone either lived on assistance, like food stamps or living in housing or just considered on the poverty level and did not have a diploma they could get some sort of job training that did not require for you to be very smart but could get you a decent job. Some training the city would provide and if a business hired you then they got a tax break for as long as you were employed and already knew they got a worker who was trained. Like being a teller, or a concierge, or bell boy. The courses were usually short and the person would first have to take a test to determine what jobs would be suitable. Point was that the business makes out three times. They don’t have to train and get a tax break and someone who already has a background check. And its not like they had to accept who ever was sent. The person still had to interview for the job.
And the city made out because they now have someone paying taxes and hopefully making enough to be off assistance. Not every job in the world that pays well needs a college degree but one of the problems is there is no leveling field for those who can’t afford college and get pidgeon hold in working jobs that pay crap.

@Pandora Cities and states might still do that, I really don’t know. When I was on unemployment because my company closed I was able to take some free courses. I took photoshop and publisher if I remember correctly. I could have become a nurse for free also, but I didn’t want to do it.

I remember Andrew Yang citing some statistics regarding factories closing and there was training for new jobs and I think he said only 30% of people actually started a new career. It was some sort of statistic that demonstrated how devastating those types of closures are. Plus, I think people argued welfare to work wasn’t successful, do you know why? I really don’t remember.

Training for a new job does work. What doesn’t work is people forgoing getting training because they think it beneath them because they worked for so long and moved up and the thought of getting less pay or having to learn a new trade is too much for them. I’ve known people like that. They only try for jobs they already know. They don’t want to challenge themselves or change in any way. Well, not every job is going to come back and one has to learn to be flexible if they want to survive. Then it, not the government that is failing them. They are failing themselves. But I don’t think in NYC they still have those programs.

@Pandora I think it probably partly has to do with age. If someone is already in their 50’s or 60’s it’s much more difficult. It can mean they finally get an opportunity to try something else that they have been curious to do, or it can mean they are being forced to do something they never wanted to do. You’re right, it often means lower pay, although something like nursing is very good pay.

At 50 you are already seeing light at the end of the tunnel if you were planning on retiring with a pension, and that really hurts when that’s ripped away. Most people I know who lose their jobs in their 50’s just bide time until Medicare if they can. Maybe they do little jobs here and there or their spouse is the only one working.

@JLeslie Age can be a factor but I’ve known military guys who retire who stay living in a small town with few job options who use to tell my husband before he retired that there were no jobs out there for retired military. Well before he retired he took all his accumulated days leave to look for work. He went to a job agency that got him temp jobs. At his first temp job he impressed them and they hired him at the end of his two weeks permanently. Then that job contract wasn’t renewed and he was going to be out of work again. So he sent his resume everywhere, and the same company hired him for a different position in another state. So we moved. Then after a few years they lost that contract but the company wanted to keep him on at a lower pay in another position. He accepted that as he sent his resume to more places and then got hired for another position somewhere else and we moved again. Both times it also meant me leaving my job but he usually earned more. And the first two times I had 4 different jobs. Each paying more than the last.

Call me old school, but I look at employment as something you do because you have too. Like living people shouldn’t look at it as a choice. You live or you die. You work or you starve and therefore die. And like living, work can always be changed. We don’t stop living because life throws us curveballs.Life doesn’t stay the same. I look at jobs the same way. Its an ends to a means. It is not who I am.

I changed a number of jobs over my life because I needed to make more money or it was too far for traveling or because of transportation problems or because I moved. I often had even had to try jobs I had no former experience in and had to learn new things and sometimes felt I may never get it right but I did. Some required me taking months of training courses but I did that too.

But going back to the guys who said there were no jobs. They were scared to put themselves out there and some thought they were too good for a part-time job or temp job because they thought it would send the message they were desperate to work and would have to settle for a low wage permanently. No such thing. It tells future employers that you are willing to work and you don’t think menial jobs are beneath you. Each job my husband and I went onto was a step up from the last. It is an ends to a means. Not everyone is going to get that dream job of traveling the world for the travel channel, or living the life and style of the rich and famous. I’m okay with that. My life is about my family and saving for retirement. If people are unwilling to put themselves out there then they should never complain about not finding employment.

$1500— $2000 per individual. Per month plus medicine and mentors.

@pandora My husband and I have done the same. We have moved for jobs, we even tried buying a business when my husband was laid off. I’ve worked in jobs that I didn’t really like to support his career, because he was the bread winner. When my husband was laid off (I think he was 49 years old) I begged him to relax a little and let’s travel while he works on his resume and starts networking. Just even for a month or two, relax a little. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t, because I guess he felt badly fit many different reasons, instead of good that we had save for so many years for just this sort of bad event. I still think he was wrong. Now, with covid we literally can’t travel. I guess we could domestically, but I’m still not doing it. I do agree though that persistence is how you get a job.

When my husband owned the business all the companies he interviewed with to try to get back to his career were concerned he owned the business. We had to sell it. He worked a few months at Lowe’s as a seasonal hire making $12 just to be doing something, and earning something, and maybe have an in in the company, and they wanted to promote him in the store, but once in that low paying job he wasn’t being taken seriously for a Director or VP job, even though that’s his qualifications.

So, your husband is retired military? They get very good pensions and benefits. My dad makes half his salary for the rest of his life, free medical care, can take free flights space A around the world, stays on base sometimes for vacationing (cheap) buys groceries and clothing a little cheaper on base if he goes to a base, not everyone lives near one in retirement. Sometimes military retirees don’t try very hard to get a job after retiring, partly because they can live on the lower amount. Most of my friends who retired from the military did work after retirement, but not all. A lot of them retired in their 40’s or very early 50’s, so still very young. My dad created his own used book businesses in his retirement. If it hadn’t worked it would not have mattered financially, he could still pay his bills. He was 56 I think when he retired. I think the biggest factor is not having to worry about healthcare.

@JLeslie Yes, my husband gets his retirement pay, but it would only be enough for month to month. Not enough to put anything aside for emergencies of any sort. Now granted if you have a house paid off before you retire than maybe you can put some aside for emergencies. The problem with a lot of those guys though were they offen got depressed after leaving the military and not finding the right job depressed them further. What most people don’t know is that death after retiring from the military is higher than the normal public and the chances increase without work.
What you are describing about your husband is a mindset. He owned his own business and now he has to work for someone else. There are no happy ever after guarantees in life. He shouldn’t care whether someone takes his advice seriously or not. All his bosses are like himself. They are employees, not owners. Now in your husbands case it sounds like you at least have money set aside for retirement. So he’s just working to keep busy and sane. But there are people who need to work to keep the lights on and still are choosey about the job they want. Those are the ones I’m talking about.

@Pandora To clarify, my husband was a VP at more than one corporation and then got laid off. When he didn’t find a job quickly he tried his hand at owning his own business (where he made less than half his old salary and it was a completely different line of work) and wanted to get back to corporate. He is made for corporate life. He likes the regimen, he likes being an employee. It was very hard to go back to corporate, there is still definitely the mindset that if you are out of corporate more than a year you are behind, and also the idea that once you have owned a business you won’t want to work for someone else.

He wound up getting a job as a Director, so a step down, making less then when he was at his top, and it’s in a much more expensive city. To me it’s not worth it, but he has expensive hobbies and won’t let himself enjoy himself unless he is making money, even if more money is going out. It’s completely illogical, but he feels better and that is important for now.

Military men often retire very young, and I think they aren’t ready for how it impacts people psychologically.

Being laid off is in some ways more devastating.