UK has a chronic shortage of houses, as in, if you count the people in the country and how many houses you need, that's a bigger number than what you've got.

Building in the UK is also hard. England, which is like 90% of the population, is very densely inhabited. Cities are sprawling, their road and transit infrastructure barely support their current size, never mind bigger population. Plus, with the housing bubble, people who barely could afford their homes in the first place feel understandably terrified of anything that drops these prices down.

What the UK did post-WWII and is proposing to do now feels quite bold, but also smart: build new cities. Milton Keynes, for example, was built from scratch. In fact Bletchley, of Bletchley Park fame and now a small suburb, used to be the train stop.

It was built from scratch with adequate infrastructure, parks, high and low density zones, schools and fire stations, on land which I can only imagine was much cheaper than the equivalent in London zone 7. It hugged an existing train line so was connected to the rest of the country "for free".

Is that a way forward? Bootstrapping whole towns, instead of trying to keep fighting market forces to squeeze more people into existing towns.

I'm not saying you force people to live there, or displace the homeless there. No, simply provide a cheaper decent place to live, and people will come.

I think anyone who has actually been hands on trying to improve the lives of the unhomed know that 1) it’s a gradient between “I get kicked out of x everyday and go back at night” and “I’m sleeping under a bridge” and 2) rarely is it the actual cost of the home that’s the problem. Often it’s mental health / substance abuse / lack of a support system. Heck I think there is enough movies/shows about how people fall through the cracks that if you really cared you could learn about the problems in a fun night at home watching Netflix.

So no hate to the author but this feels like pointless political posturing

I enjoyed reading it, even if it leaves a bitter taste by knowing that it is describing a very real feeling. Also I like how the author also relates the NIMBY problem to sabotaging public transportation initiatives.

I live in Zurich - the tightest rental market in the world (.7% availability) but don't really have a homeless problem for some reason. I have met a lot of people that have had to move to neighboring cities though.

I'd like to advertise deregulating housing construction as a very clear way to help solve desperate housing problems in many countries (such as in the USA). You can check out more about it here https://www.econlib.org/build-baby-build-now-under-construct...

I don't think housing will help the people with mental health issues and addiction problems.

Honestly I think sometimes building (compassionate, 21st century) mental health "asylums" and treatment centres would do more to end homelessness.

There’s a disturbing trend of people living im their car who have a job or more and who aren’t doing drugs or have a serious mental ilness aside from the anxiety from the lifestyle of living in their cars. Youtube is full of interviews of these people.

This isn't everywhere. I live in Nashville and we have SO MUCH housing being built. Just apartment building after apartment building after apartment building.

Until WFH is common, areas are condemned to affordable housing shortages or commuting nightmares. Yeah, some areas pony up for dedicated path public transit but that’s rare. There’s lots of land over there but the jobs are over here. And people don’t want houses like the 50’s and don’t seem to like high density housing with kids.

And nobody wants to see their real estate property decline in value…

Wonderful article. We need more of this.

It's universal problem everywhere where you pay with dollars and euros. The jobs are not where the housing is. Where the jobs exist the housing immediately becomes a turbo investment vehicle. Where there are no jobs the housing is not particularly cheap either. The solution usually is to inherit a real estate or two in desirable location. So we continue ignoring it or everyone are like "I have mine, fuck you"?

Is lack of enough homes the main reason for homelessness?

My country has enough homes (in principle, and there is pressure on the system), but we still have homeless people.

Maybe in the US it is about building houses, but at some point it isn't anymore. I once wrote this here: [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903859

For n decades now (the value of n depends on who you ask) most of the money circulating in the system is money made on money, or in general volatile money. In these setups, scarce resources become useful as a "safety net" in various pockets of the economy. Natural resources come under this category. Land too, comes under this category.

Ideally you want the only competition for housing land to be multiple humans wishing to live there. The homogenity of human wants and needs will ensure you don't get ridiculously unpredictable outcomes. You will also benefit from network effects.

However, BlackRocks use for land is completely different. So many things stop mattering when the land is being pieced up and the risk distributed to a million retirement accounts.

Over-financialisation hurts the intended use of scarce resources. Today, no human has the ability to consider it important owning independent personal access to scarce resources such as farmland and water bodies. Similarly, I predict, people will be forced to stop wanting personal housing land. When, is the question.

Would this be considered creative non-fiction?

Do you remember that teacher in school who would sometimes lash out at a poorly performing student?

This made me feel like I was watching a frustrated lash out from someone who cares.

Captures the author's feelings; but fails as a piece of persuasion.

A bit broad. I guess the broadness of satire that people enjoy probably is a measure of how close the revolution is?

City of San Diego added over 9000 units last year, homelessness increased 8-/

When a shiny new 2 bedroom apartment is priced at $4200/month, it isn't going to do ANYTHING to resolve homelessness.

Outlaw AirBnB! Outlaw empty "investment" properties. There are a lot of things that could actually help. Empowering the California real estate mafia won't do anything for anyone here except the developers.

The homeless in the US that you see living in tents and underpasses etc. are the mentally ill, and the chronically drug addicted or a combination of both. Those people aren't going to be helped by building new housing. They need treatment and probably will need to be forced into assisted living accommodations. We definitely need to build more housing in most cities, but most of the governments in these areas make it difficult to do so. Once the baby boomers start dying off, we should see more housing hitting the market...

how much does san francisco spend per homeless person per year om homeless services?

In a democratic society, it is natural that building new houses becomes incredibly hard once a bit more than 50% of voters are happy with their housing situation. In a way, it may be a sign of democratic backslide when housing is still built in large quantities then: capitalism (developers' profits) trumps democracy (people wishing to keep and increase value of their homes).

This is like a 4chan post.

From what I have seen there isn't a housing shortage as much as an "affordable housing" shortage.

Just my observation. Tons of overpriced apartments being built at 2x the price of the average renter.

Housing subsidies will be next. Another attempt to prop up the rampant capitalism by means of socialism.

Giving housing to the homeless means we change the homeless into neighbours.

And who the hell wants a poor person as a neighbour.

Sounds privileged.

Reading this comment thread was a fun way to start my day. Always funny to see people react to satire about them.

(2018)

It's insane. I'm seeing this even I'm straight up ghettos. No evictions/perfect credit/income 3X rent/first+last+deposit

All to live in a place I'd need to buy a gun for a security.

This is in a small Midwestern city. Someone ran down, but overall maybe only a little worse than other small cities I've lived.

I've been trying to find a place for over a year now. I don't have the credit, but have the income. My gf has the credit but not the income. We're basically pariahs.

This is not helpful, funny, or intelligent. It’s a child’s rant about the world.

At the end of the day, the reason more housing isn’t built is that the incentives are greater to not build it. You can build a high rise with shoebox apartments that have to be aggressively managed and make a profit. Or you can build a high rise with half the units, higher reoccurring revenue and less hassle and make 2x the immediate profit.

At the end of the day as long as there is demand for more expensive housing that’s what’s going to get built.

> I’m the kind of person who contributes to society by starting companies that leverage technology to build smart tea kettles that brew themselves while you sleep at night. I’m a fucking innovator.

Is there a reason that the press is always making scapegoats out of tech nerds? The vast majority of people are not employed in tech, and are part of the same society and have very similar self interests.

Truly tired of everything being a criticism of Silicon Valley, as if everyone else are saints.

I live just outside Minneapolis. There's an absolute glut right now of largely unoccupied apartments that have sprung up in the last couple years anywhere there was an open lot and many places there wasn't - tearing down a number of historic buildings in the name of cheaply built wooden framed apartments. Well over 100 new buildings in the last five years within a 10 mile radius. Most of them cost more per month to live in than my monthly home payment. I frankly don't understand why someone who could afford to live in them would.

The homelessness problem is also visibly the worst it's been in my lifetime.

I'm genuinely doubtful the problem is lack of housing alone. The person curled up under the bridge, the person screaming on the corner, they need more than another apartment they still can't afford added to the world. That doesn't help them.

No matter how many of these luxury apartment buildings you build, these people can't afford the rent. The owners of the buildings would seemingly rather see them sit at quarter occupancy than lower rents, and it's kind of understandable.

We're drowning in unaffordable housing and people are still homeless.

I know next to nothing about the US but France has 3 million unoccupied housings.

https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/7727384

> https://www.mcsweeneys.net/authors/homa-mojtabai

Sweetheart, I don’t expect you to pick up a hammer and some nails nevermind build a home.

Except build more homes ... or limit immigration. 10M British residents, 17% of the population, were born elsewhere. Up 4 million since 2018 when this was written. Whether you think that's good or not they need somewhere to live.

I never understood these posts as if the average homeowner has any power at all over zoning laws. You are just scapegoating the people who show up to townhalls and the hypothetical voter that will vote out politicians who lower property values.

In reality it's always the fault of the politician who refuses to make necessary change because it will hurt their personal career. This entire article reeks of christian self flagellation.

I think the article is satirizing a strawman.

Most of the people being ridiculed are not homeowners looking down their nose at the homeless, they are basically renting from the banks and chained to mortgages. They will become homeless themselves if the value of housing drops too far from what they borrowed.

It will also have ripple effects in the form of banks going under, retirement funds being depleted, and the economy as a whole tanking. If homes become cheaper too quickly the result will be a lot more homeless, not fewer.

In short, there are very valid non-selfish reasons why people, corporations and politicians don't want to make homes lose value too quickly. It's not malice against the homeless.

This is a systematic problem in many western nations and it doesn't have a simple solution.

How did homeless become homeless though?

1. They never had a home before so they kept living like that

2. They had a home before but then they couldn't afford it (or whatever other reason)

I doubt we have a lot of case 1 (born without a home). For case 2, I doubt building more homes work, because if you are homeless, that not only means that you can't afford buying a home, but you cannot afford renting one as well, and you are most likely jobless. I doubt building more homes are going to solve the issues. For case 2 you need more social housing and other support.

Sry lack of new houses doesn't seem like a cause for homelessness.

Of you can't afford a house in the big city, you move to a smaller one.

The problem is lack of a working welfare infrastructure. People become homeless because they're unlucky and once they're down, it's almost impossible to get back up.. it's a failure of state at so many levels. Real estate development is the least of them

Homelesness exists in the US because it's comfortable to be homeless in a rich society. It is not always a result of choice, but so is living in a home.

Still, I sincerely believe more people would choose to be homeless if they tried it, because there is nothing inherently bad in living in a tent if the climate allows it. It's just like tourism but with more amenities available due to urban infra + the stigma (that people mostly learned to ignore due to cultural conditioning of the 70s-today period).