One question

[HarleyDog]

Without bringing up Trump and Biden, Repubs and Dems. How does the United States end poverty within our borders? How do we end homelessness? Let's not blame, but what's your solution?


For me, We need to funnel our resources into that goal. There are great people out there who are being left behind. As a nation, we give so much money to other countries. We have to take care of our own before we take care of others. Can't buy shoes for the neighbor kid and let your kid go to school barefoot.

What are your opinions? Please let this make it further than post 3 before ignoring the rules or else you may be part of the problem.

[Mike M (the other one)]

This will not end well

[GMDino]

(09-02-2023, 12:18 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: Without bringing up Trump and Biden, Repubs and Dems. How does the United States end poverty within our borders? How do we end homelessness? Let's not blame, but what's your solution?


For me, We need to funnel our resources into that goal. There are great people out there who are being left behind. As a nation, we give so much money to other countries. We have to take care of our own before we take care of others. Can't buy shoes for the neighbor kid and let your kid go to school barefoot.

What are your opinions? Please let this make it further than post 3 before ignoring the rules or else you may be part of the problem.

I don't think you can "end" either.

I do think that reigning in corporate greed is one way.  We have an incredibly large gap in wages in this country.  Minimum wage has not kept up with inflation for decades.

Secondly, actually putting money and effort into the mental health problem.  Something we have avoided doing since Reagan.

Lastly, getting some sort of plan to reduce the number of homes bought by groups purely to create rentals.  IT's an overlooked aspect of how neighborhoods are being ruined and home prices are affected.

Jus a few off the top of my head this morning.

[BigPapaKain]

Take a fraction of the money we spend to private military contractors and redistribute it among the citizenry would be an excellent start.

Tax any religious entity that puts its nose into politics in way, shape, or form and put that money back into social safety nets.

Legalize and tax the ever loving **** out of every drug. Make narcan insanely expensive and wait for the drug epidemic to solve itself.

Arm every man, woman, and child over the age of 10 and wait for the gun violence problem to solve itself.

Yes, a lot of my suggestions have body counts. Don't care. I also will not be accepting questions.

[NATI BENGALS]

Taxes.

“For 2023, the maximum limit on earnings for withholding of Social Security (old-age, survivors, and disability insurance) tax is $160,200.00. The Social Security tax rate remains at 6.2 percent. The resulting maximum Social Security tax for 2023 is $9,932.40.”

The super wealthy are done paying social security tax after their first paycheck of the year. Everybody knows there is a massive concentration of wealth and earnings at the top. But for some reason the people making all the money get to just stop paying social security tax once they pass a set amount each year.

I may be talking out my ass. But from my understanding that is how it works. If I’m wrong please let me know.

Eliminating that cap sure seems like we wouldn’t be having the social security is going to run out problem.

Education.

From my perspective teaching is a low paying job, kids are shooting up schools, and they are a favorite target for one of the two major political parties in this country. Really doubt we are attracting the talent necessary to educate this country’s youth with the current perception and reality of the profession.

[Luvnit2]

(09-02-2023, 12:18 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: Without bringing up Trump and Biden, Repubs and Dems. How does the United States end poverty within our borders? How do we end homelessness? Let's not blame, but what's your solution?


For me, We need to funnel our resources into that goal. There are great people out there who are being left behind. As a nation, we give so much money to other countries. We have to take care of our own before we take care of others. Can't buy shoes for the neighbor kid and let your kid go to school barefoot.

What are your opinions? Please let this make it further than post 3 before ignoring the rules or else you may be part of the problem.

It is fair to save we have a major spending issues in our government and both sides have played a role. I see us spending a ton of money to support Ukraine for example while the federal government does little to help the middle class.

I would love to see our government downsize at the federal and state level. We waste so much money on things we get little or no return. I would like to see the government take a portion of the savings to pay down our national debt. I would like to see the government take a portion and give it to the lower income and middle class.
I love incentives versus just giving away free money. The lower class pay little to no federal income tax now, but incentivize them over the next 4 years to allow them to ear a bonus like 15% for any adult who can claim head of household on their gross wages of $40,000 or less. This would incentivize them to attempt to earn money in their current job or dd a second job as many of us did in our early years of trying to get ahead.

For those adults who claim head of household who make $40,000 to $80,000, give them a bonus of 10%. For those who make over $80,000 to$125,000 a 6% bonus. Last for anyone making $125,000 to $150,000 a 3% bonus.

I know it is pie in the sky, but find the waste in our budget, in some cases eliminate federal and state departments (they should be given a 3 month severance package, and they would be incentivized to find employment sooner than later versus living off unemployment money (i would this not be incentivized so no bonus money) to get back into the workforce.

Last and maybe the most important, we have to stop illegal immigrants flooding into our country with no money, no vaccinations and not legally permitted to work in the U.S. This is a drain on our economy as federal, state and cities are forking out massive dollars to take care of the illegal immigrants. This is money we should be using to help our homeless, our low and middle class. I hope everyone agrees illegal immigrants should never be a bigger priority than a YS citizen.

[Luvnit2]

(09-02-2023, 11:43 AM)GMDino Wrote: I don't think you can "end" either.

I do think that reigning in corporate greed is one way.  We have an incredibly large gap in wages in this country.  Minimum wage has not kept up with inflation for decades.

Secondly, actually putting money and effort into the mental health problem.  Something we have avoided doing since Reagan.

Lastly, getting some sort of plan to reduce the number of homes bought by groups purely to create rentals.  IT's an overlooked aspect of how neighborhoods are being ruined and home prices are affected.

Jus a few off the top of my head this morning.

Here is the federal wage issue. The current federal minimum wage law includes all minors, so a 14 year old could start at the same wage as a 18 year old supporting a family. I have no issue upgrading the federal minimum wage but only if they change the law to read adults 18 or older. 


https://com.ohio.gov/static/documents/2023MWPoster.pdf

Also, just a FYI state minimum laws use the idea above in some cases. Ohio has a state minimum law of over $10 for an adult and 16 and 17 year olds, but it is only $7.25 for a 14 and 15 year old who are paid under the federal minimum wage law. The issue I have with Ohio is having start 16 and 17 year olds at the same rate as adults who are sometimes primary wage earners or college students.

So the argument in Ohio the minimum wage is only $7.25 is not accurate, only used for 14 and 15 year olds.
I do agree, the federal minimum wage law needs to be revisited, but only if they exclude all minors 14 to 17 from federal law and allow the states to set their wage.

I know there are still some states that do use $7.25 as minimum wage for adults which is very surprising.
https://www.employerpass.com/state-minimum-wage-requirements-chart

[HarleyDog]

(09-02-2023, 11:43 AM)GMDino Wrote: I don't think you can "end" either.

I do think that reigning in corporate greed is one way.  We have an incredibly large gap in wages in this country.  Minimum wage has not kept up with inflation for decades.

Secondly, actually putting money and effort into the mental health problem.  Something we have avoided doing since Reagan.

Lastly, getting some sort of plan to reduce the number of homes bought by groups purely to create rentals.  IT's an overlooked aspect of how neighborhoods are being ruined and home prices are affected.

Jus a few off the top of my head this morning.

Mental health is a problem and a great reference toward the question. You caught me off guard with number of homes bought to create rentals. I see validity in your claim. I see it right here in my home town.

(09-02-2023, 12:05 PM)BigPapaKain Wrote: Take a fraction of the money we spend to private military contractors and redistribute it among the citizenry would be an excellent start.

Tax any religious entity that puts its nose into politics in way, shape, or form and put that money back into social safety nets.

Legalize and tax the ever loving **** out of every drug. Make narcan insanely expensive and wait for the drug epidemic to solve itself.

Arm every man, woman, and child over the age of 10 and wait for the gun violence problem to solve itself.

Yes, a lot of my suggestions have body counts. Don't care. I also will not be accepting questions.

Ok

(09-02-2023, 12:14 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: Taxes.

“For 2023, the maximum limit on earnings for withholding of Social Security (old-age, survivors, and disability insurance) tax is $160,200.00. The Social Security tax rate remains at 6.2 percent. The resulting maximum Social Security tax for 2023 is $9,932.40.”

The super wealthy are done paying social security tax after their first paycheck of the year. Everybody knows there is a massive concentration of wealth and earnings at the top. But for some reason the people making all the money get to just stop paying social security tax once they pass a set amount each year.

I may be talking out my ass. But from my understanding that is how it works. If I’m wrong please let me know.

Eliminating that cap sure seems like we wouldn’t be having the social security is going to run out problem.

Education.

From my perspective teaching is a low paying job, kids are shooting up schools, and they are a favorite target for one of the two major political parties in this country. Really doubt we are attracting the talent necessary to educate this country’s youth with the current perception and reality of the profession.

The rich have found ways to avoid a lot of their taxes. That’s not their fault because most play by the rules, and the rules favor the rich and kill middle class. They’re no different than you and I when it comes to handing money over to the government.

Teachers are not grossly underpaid like many think. Once, yes. Per Zip recruiter, the avg high school teacher makes 46k a year. Plus, I don’t think they pay state taxes. Or maybe it’s federal, I’m not sure. They also get 3 months off. I appreciate what they do, just saying they are not as bad off as they once was.

[NATI BENGALS]

I still think universal basic income is going to be necessary or else there will be an even bigger homelessness issue than what currently exists.

AI and robots will be taking a lot of jobs. I just don’t see how we magically replace those jobs that will permanently disappear while the population continues to increase.

[HarleyDog]

(09-02-2023, 01:15 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: I still think universal basic income is going to be necessary or else there will be an even bigger homelessness issue than what currently exists.

AI and robots will be taking a lot of jobs. I just don’t see how we magically replace those jobs that will permanently disappear while the population continues to increase.

This is a growing concern with AI. There are claims that jobs eliminated by AI will still be needed in some form to run and monitor AI. I don't believe it. I could honestly see the difference being 8-2 jobs lost vs. jobs gained. Not factual by any means. Just a guess. The market is flooded now with useless education degrees. It's going to get much worse. Computer programmers will not be in demand and I'd expect many high paying jobs in the tech fields will soon become low paying jobs due to the abundance of qualified candidates who just want to work.

[SunsetBengal]

(09-02-2023, 12:43 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: Here is the federal wage issue. The current federal minimum wage law includes all minors, so a 14 year old could start at the same wage as a 18 year old supporting a family. I have no issue upgrading the federal minimum wage but only if they change the law to read adults 18 or older. 


https://com.ohio.gov/static/documents/2023MWPoster.pdf

Also, just a FYI state minimum laws use the idea above in some cases. Ohio has a state minimum law of over $10 for an adult and 16 and 17 year olds, but it is only $7.25 for a 14 and 15 year old who are paid under the federal minimum wage law. The issue I have with Ohio is having start 16 and 17 year olds at the same rate as adults who are sometimes primary wage earners or college students.

So the argument in Ohio the minimum wage is only $7.25 is not accurate, only used for 14 and 15 year olds.
I do agree, the federal minimum wage law needs to be revisited, but only if they exclude all minors 14 to 17 from federal law and allow the states to set their wage.

I know there are still some states that do use $7.25 as minimum wage for adults which is very surprising.
https://www.employerpass.com/state-minimum-wage-requirements-chart

To the bolded, did you ever stop and think about how many of those 16-17 year olds are using most of their earnings to support siblings, due to their parents being no account?  It happens.

[Mike M (the other one)]

Ok very broad subject and no one has really tapped on the Homeless side. And i really don't know what to do there either, other that put them on busses and send them to sanctuary cites lol. Pass the buck!

So I'll try to address ways to help the Homeless first, then later try to address poverty, but they might have some overlapping since they are entwined in a way.

In the private sector, if there is a problem, they do research and find a way to solve the problem. With Government, the answer is throw money at it, and if that doesn't work, throw MORE money at it.

For me, i want 100% transparency on the penny in, penny out. I want to be able to see how these effers are spending my money and slam them with red flags when necessary.

Currently the FED (doesn't include State/City) pays approx 2 billion annually for empty buildings. Since they are hard to sell (regulations), why not start converting some (Locations/size) into mental/rehab institutions and housing for the homeless? There is also homeless people that just can't be helped, i don't know what to do with them, other than to over ride their rights in order for them to get help. Kinda a damned if you do, damned if you don't.

We also need to streamline a way in how we identify people that are struggling before they become homeless. Seriously, in order for people to get help they practically have to be broke.

Just to get Food Stamps:
To qualify for food stamps, your household can have no more than $2,000 in combined countable resources. Up to $4,650 of the fair market value of one car.

I can understand the countable resources part, but a car?? Most cars at that value aren't all that dependable.
If the main provider has lost their job, it can take up to 3-4 weeks before their first unemployment check will come (and at 50% pay and no bonuses for dependents til you are making over 1k per week, then you get $1 extra), that's if they don't find a job before that or lose everything (many in the poverty level live check to check and can't survive that long with out food).

Not all Homeless are mentally ill or drug abusers, some just simply can't afford the rent in the city they live in.

Which leads us to how can we address poverty and find affordable housing for everyone that wants it?


*edit forgot to add that we need Universal Healthcare for every USC in order for the mental health side to work.

[CJD]

(09-02-2023, 12:18 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: Without bringing up Trump and Biden, Repubs and Dems. How does the United States end poverty within our borders? How do we end homelessness? Let's not blame, but what's your solution?


For me, We need to funnel our resources into that goal. There are great people out there who are being left behind. As a nation, we give so much money to other countries. We have to take care of our own before we take care of others. Can't buy shoes for the neighbor kid and let your kid go to school barefoot.

What are your opinions? Please let this make it further than post 3 before ignoring the rules or else you may be part of the problem.

Step number 1 is nationalized healthcare. If you can't get treatment unless you have a full time job + disposable income, then there will inevitably be people who suffer from mental illnesses, physically crippling injuries and/or drug dependency that will lose everything and become homeless.

From there, you can start to address the non-healthcare related reasons for homelessness: broken homes and foster care creating people with no place to go once they turn 18, people unable to find work that pays enough to afford housing, 

These problems are much more difficult to solve, but affordable government sanctioned housing would be a start. If the market for housing is creating unattainable rents for people working minimum wage, the only way to create affordable housing is to subsidize the market. This could be done via means testing, or it could be done just via large blocks of low accommodation housing. This has obvious roadblocks, including people who believe housing like this lowers their property value and thus should only be allowed in the worst areas of any given city or state (NIMBY is a derogatory term for these people. It stands for Not-In-My-Back-Yard).

If this affordable housing is placed in an area that is too far from the city, then affordable public transportation is a must as well. Again, big problem, no easy solutions, but America has some of the worst public transit in the developed world. It would take a lot of local and state funded projects to really tackle this, as doing it federally would be virtually impossible to manage, but some guidelines or minimum requirements may be a good start on the federal level.

If affordable housing and affordable public transit were established, this would allow minimum wage/minimal training workers to have a place to live and a way to get to their job (and other places they may want to go between work and home).

Minimum wage increases would also help in both of these regards, as minimum wage has not kept up with inflation or productivity increases for literal decades.

"Broken families" are basically impossible to legislate, but societal shifts towards equality and acceptance would go a long way towards removing at least a portion of these occurrences. Coming out to your parents if you are LGBTQ+ risks being thrown out of your home, and battered women (or men in some cases) are also a cause of broken homes leading to homelessness. In some cases, a child could be thrown out of their home if they get pregnant as well or have an abortion, although these are probably on the lower end of the scale nowadays. By shifting societal views away from intolerance towards LGBTQ+ individuals and away from sexist/hateful relationship dynamics that lead to domestic abuse, you could realistically decrease occurrences of homelessness among those groups of people.

Finally, and this ties in with nationalized healthcare somewhat, but there simply aren't enough resources or understanding with how to manage mentally ill and addicted people. Recent studies indicate that roughly 30% of homeless people have mental health conditions, 38% of homeless people depend on Alcohol, and 26% depend on some other substance. Sobriety is a personal choice and forcing people to go through withdrawal has major psychological effects as well. This may be a chicken and egg situation. Are they homeless because of their addictions or are they addicted because they are depressed and looking to self medicate? Regardless, the resources are not available at the level they need to be to help those that are actually looking for help.

Homelessness is not something that you can solve overnight. It is going to take long, iterative, systemic changes to the way we house, transport and care for people across the entire population and, most importantly, it's going to take a lot of money. The money side is all about budgeting. There's plenty of fat in the federal budget, especially in the military sector, but we also need to revise how taxes are collected. There are way too many legal loopholes that prevent people (and corporations) from paying their fair share and this, along with a few other options, would be able to fund at least the beginning stages of this long, intense rebuild of our infrastructural issues. This is an infrastructure problem and healthcare problem combined, which makes it difficult to solve and, even in the process of solving it, you will see pushback if effects are not immediate (which they won't be). But, most importantly, the thing we, as Americans, are missing is the desire to actually solve the problem. Even California, supposedly a liberal beacon of light, have spent a lot of time trying to hide the problem, rather than solve it. Crackdowns on camping homeless people, crackdowns on visible homelessness and les of an investment on actually helping those people to get off the street and into better personal situations.

Basically, we need to replace every politician in America with people who actually care about solving the problem rather than appearing to solve it via obfuscation. 

Also, banning lobbying would help.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(09-02-2023, 03:13 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Which leads us to how can we address poverty and find affordable housing for everyone that wants it?

To make houses MORE affordable, why can't we get banks to offer 60-80-100 year loans at a fixed 1% interest? and to help them get settled in, no payments for the first 12 mos (optional ofc).  First time buyers get help (via down payment).

Banks will still get their money, and many people will actually be able to cover those monthly payments easily enough.

The gov doesn't really need to do much but set the laws for interest on those lengths. Banks will jump in line for it (didn't say they will like it, but if it's the gov max they will do it). 

yea yea i get it, people don't live that long, but you can name a dependent to inherit and they can take over or sell or even better, afford the life insurance to cover the balance of the loan in event of death.

Doing some math on a 
300k/60 ys/1% purchase, puts monthly payment at $554.26
300k/80 ys/1% purchase, puts monthly payment at $454.12
300k/100 ys/1% purchase, puts monthly payment at $395.59. 

https://michigansaves.org/calculator/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyZOUoMyMgQMVZhmtBh3v-QC7EAAYASAAEgKBz_D_BwE

This is the only calculator i could find that does more than 30 years.

To Prevent people from trying to mass buy with this plan, you can limit the number of a person's loans at 1 and has to be primary residence. With the only way to have more than 1 is to inherit it.

[CJD]

(09-02-2023, 04:16 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: To make houses MORE affordable, why can't we get banks to offer 60-80-100 year loans at a fixed 1% interest? and to help them get settled in, no payments for the first 12 mos (optional ofc).  First time buyers get help (via down payment).

Banks will still get their money, and many people will actually be able to cover those monthly payments easily enough.

The gov doesn't really need to do much but set the laws for interest on those lengths. Banks will jump in line for it (didn't say they will like it, but if it's the gov max they will do it). 

yea yea i get it, people don't live that long, but you can name a dependent to inherit and they can take over or sell or even better, afford the life insurance to cover the balance of the loan in event of death.

Doing some math on a 
300k/60 ys/1% purchase, puts monthly payment at $554.26
300k/80 ys/1% purchase, puts monthly payment at $454.12
300k/100 ys/1% purchase, puts monthly payment at $395.59. 

https://michigansaves.org/calculator/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyZOUoMyMgQMVZhmtBh3v-QC7EAAYASAAEgKBz_D_BwE

This is the only calculator i could find that does more than 30 years.

To Prevent people from trying to mass buy with this plan, you can limit the number of a person's loans at 1. With the only way to have more than 1 is to inherit it.

The reason 300k is currently the water mark for your typical "average home" is because a 300k home (with 10 to 20% down) over 30 years with ~3 to 4% interest comes out to about 1000 dollars per month, which is usually how much a typical family making an average household income can afford.

My concern with your plan is if they do this, then demand would rise, because more people have 554 dollars per month that people who have 1000 dollars per month (without supply increasing in kind), then the price of the home would just increase (be bid up) so that now the 60 year mortgage comes out to an average of 1000 dollars per month, which means the house went from 300k to 550k, costing the buyer hundreds of thousands of dollars without improving their monthly payment. 

[Mike M (the other one)]

(09-02-2023, 04:33 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: The reason 300k is currently the water mark for your typical "average home" is because a 300k home (with 10 to 20% down) over 30 years with ~3 to 4% interest comes out to about 1000 dollars per month, which is usually how much a typical family making an average household income can afford.

My concern with your plan is if they do this, then demand would rise, because more people have 554 dollars per month that people who have 1000 dollars per month (without supply increasing in kind), then the price of the home would just increase (be bid up) so that now the 60 year mortgage comes out to an average of 1000 dollars per month, which means the house went from 300k to 550k, costing the buyer hundreds of thousands of dollars without improving their monthly payment. 

Good point but there isn't simply isn't a perfect plan. 

OFC demand will go up, So what do you suggest as a counter?

[*pally*]

Until we fix the elections, everything else is moot. As long as politicians work for the donor class instead of, as they like to say, ordinary Americans, we're stuck.

Dark money has to be removed from politics.
Make every donation come from a human being, not a corporation.
Make every donation public.
Limit PAC spending to topics not candidates
Donations to a politician not used in a single election cycle must be returned to the donors. No more stockpiling millions which will even the ground a bit for opponents.
Set National standards for minimum state election laws...ie hours, absentee qualifications, early voting, ID, etc
Remove ALL politicians from redistricting. Gerrymandering, from both sides, is out of control
Mandated term limits for all elected positions.

once our legislators are cleaned up, we will have a real chance to fix some things.

The Dept of Defense wastes/loses more money than all other departments combined. Clean that up and put the money into healthcare and housing...2 things that when one lacks them, prevent people from entering the workforce.

wages have to go up to meet today's cost of living
fix the tax code, and eliminate all the loopholes, that allow rich people to avoid taxes. We really have to fix corporate tax codes to incentivize investment in their employees and products not simply profits
incentivize companies to narrow the pay gap between executives and workers.
allow stock options to executives only if workers receive them as well
stock buybacks that end up as stock options in executives' pockets have to be stopped somehow.
break up monopolies and conglomerates that have killed small business
Hedge Funds have been a destructive force in American business...their goal is to buy a company, drain every ounce of cash out of it, and dump its carcass on the American unemployment line. There has to be a way to regulate them
We have to improve public transportation systems throughout the country. If jobs are in a suburb and a worker has no way to get there and can't afford to live in that suburb, that's a problem.
somehow we have to overcome the NIMBY crowd and allow for entry-level housing to be built again. Until zoning laws are fixed, there is no reason for anyone to build affordable housing. Communities don't want them

In some cases, programs to help the poor, have to be blown up instead of band-aids on top of band-aids. Technology is behind times, coordination is behind times, regulations are piecemeal, applying for assistance is complicated, receiving assistance is complicated, and assistance is still geared towards needs from the past not what is needed today. Assistance is cut off too quickly, not allowing families to actually get on their feet first. One or two paychecks won't allow someone to accumulate money for a downpayment, security deposit, or to obtain transportation.

Addressing the root causes of poverty is a marathon and not a sprint. Constantly changing rules, regulations, and details as we do, fixes nothing. Lack of regional jobs, such as that affecting Appalachia isn't an easy fix. Inequities in education spending especially affect poorer areas leaving us with massive education gaps between rich and poor. Healthcare deserts leave many poor without any healthcare even if they could pay for it which most can't. A child who doesn't learn to read because he needs glasses but can't get them is set up for failure from the beginning

[CJD]

(09-02-2023, 04:41 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Good point but there isn't simply isn't a perfect plan. 

OFC demand will go up, So what do you suggest as a counter?

Well, first it's kind of two issues. You are talking about people buying homes, which is tangentially related to homelessness, but is far from the first wall to get over in this discussion.

Before we can talk about how to get more people to afford homes for purchase, we need to address getting them housing at all. I go into it in my post above yours about subsidized housing as a means of getting homeless people into affordable shelter that allows them to work, live life and, hopefully, begin to save money.

After that hurdle is crossed, we could tackle the housing market at large for purchasing homes. This is an issue of inflation and wages, which ties into corporate profits and tax collection. Simply put, people don't make enough money for the labor they are providing and that difference is being taken by nameless, faceless corporations that have institutionally supported barriers erected between them and accountability. Solving that problem is...I mean...that's a monumental task. If I had a solution for that, I'd probably be President right now.

In 2015, my brother bought a 3 bedroom home in Anderson, about 1300 square feet (not counting his basement), for about $110,000. His monthly mortgage is under 500 dollars per month. At the time, he was making about 50,000 dollars per year and he saved most of it.

I don't understand how that disappeared in 8 years. I'd have to investigate what is going on in that regard before I could properly assess what solution to implement.

My initial estimation is that it is likely lack of supply that is driving the prices up. So building more homes would be the place I'd likely start.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(09-02-2023, 04:56 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Well, first it's kind of two issues. You are talking about people buying homes, which is tangentially related to homelessness, but is far from the first wall to get over in this discussion.

Before we can talk about how to get more people to afford homes for purchase, we need to address getting them housing at all. I go into it in my post above yours about subsidized housing as a means of getting homeless people into affordable shelter that allows them to work, live life and, hopefully, begin to save money.

After that hurdle is crossed, we could tackle the housing market at large for purchasing homes. This is an issue of inflation and wages, which ties into corporate profits and tax collection. Simply put, people don't make enough money for the labor they are providing and that difference is being taken by nameless, faceless corporations that have institutionally supported barriers erected between them and accountability. Solving that problem is...I mean...that's a monumental task. If I had a solution for that, I'd probably be President right now.

In 2015, my brother bought a 3 bedroom home in Anderson, about 1300 square feet (not counting his basement), for about $110,000. His monthly mortgage is under 500 dollars per month. At the time, he was making about 50,000 dollars per year and he saved most of it.

I don't understand how that disappeared in 8 years. I'd have to investigate what is going on in that regard before I could properly assess what solution to implement.

My initial estimation is that it is likely lack of supply that is driving the prices up. So building more homes would be the place I'd likely start.

Actually the housing part isn't for the homeless directly, it's more for those in poverty and how to help them stabliize. 
if we can get as many as possible into affordable homes, and the demand is still strong for more then yea, start building more. 

It's all tricky and dynamic. Not a fan of gov oversight, but sometimes it's necessary to prevent abuse.

[Mike M (the other one)]

PS you might think those kinds of loans are crazy, but several countries already have them in use.
Japan has 99 and 100 year loans.
Canada has 60, 70 and 90.
UK is offering 50
Sweden is 50, 100 (and adding 105)

So it would be wise to check how those countries regulate them.