Homelessness was on the rise even before the pandemic

https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/homelessness-was-rise-even-pandemic

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic began, homelessness was increasing across the country.
As of January 2019, 568,000 people were experiencing homelessness, an increase of nearly 15,000 from 2018, according to the most recent point-in-time data from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.​

However, it is a little bit of a mixed bag:

The 2018-2019 increase did not happen uniformly, however - the number of people experiencing homelessness increased by more than 10 percent in six states but decreased by over 10 percent in nine states.​

While certainly the pandemic and associated economic shutdown must have exacerbated the problem, it more than likely is not the main cause that has been driving this.


There is a woman who lives in her car right outside my home.
One time I found the hose in the front yard had been disconnected, presumably so someone could get access to water.

I think it probably would be an exaggeration to say that the US is literally going to turn into a Third World country anytime soon, but this does make one wonder if this could be a sign of living standards going permanently down, that things are becoming more like a Third World. (First and Second World countries typically don't have lots of homelessness and beggars visible on the streets and public places)
The level of homelessness in the US has been going up year by year (almost every year) since the 2007 Recession. That's over 13 years ago. This seems to be part of a longer-term trend than anything temporary.

 

Right; and it was all clearly explained over 140 years ago by Henry George in Progress and Poverty. Briefly, the Law of Rent implies that the inevitable result of increasing technology, capital investment and population is lower wages and higher land rents (the latter fact is proved by the astronomical and rising value of land). As the landless must pay landowners full market value just for permission to work, shop, etc., the fact that their market wages fall and land rents rise means that more and more of them simply cannot afford it. In every single society in the history of the world where private landowning has been well established, the material condition of the landless has been indistinguishable from that of slaves, except to the extent that government has intervened to rescue the landless from enslavement by landowners. In the USA, state, local and federal governments are generally inclined to do this to a lesser and lesser extent.

 

Rapidly increasing population putting a strain on the already existing housing supply probably doesn't help either.

Of course there's lots of "land" out in parts of the country like Montana, but the climate there is very unpleasant, water supplies hard to find, and there's not much out there. Job opportunities pretty scant and minimal. Everyone is fighting to live in the areas immediately surrounding a handful of big cities.
(the maxim 99% of the population lives in 1% of the area)

Some people mistakenly assume it's large groups of people collecting together that creates jobs, but I don't believe it's as simple as that.

This may be getting really off-topic but I've studied the seasonal rainfall, temperature, agricultural conditions of all the regions in the US, and, in my opinion, it's not a coincidence that the North American continent was sparsely populated in older times. Due to geographic circumstance, the area of the US is not as naturally endowed as other parts of the world that traditionally supported big civilizations in ancient times.

 

No, population is not increasing rapidly, and the problem is land, not housing.

Right: land rent is the price of access to economic opportunity.

Opportunities attract people, and the people create more opportunities. There has to be something there to begin with, but it can sometimes be pretty minimal, as in Hong Kong.

 

What makes you think the issue is only land?
You do realize that construction of new homes cannot completely relieve the price increases resulting from population increase relative to the supply of housing?
Already existing housing is less expensive than the cost of constructing new homes.
Another member on this forum made me realize this perspective when he referred to buildings as a form of infrastructure capital in a country's economy. The cost (to the economy) is up front, but the benefits extend on and on, sometimes for decades and even centuries.
When a population increase drives up housing prices, those prices will continue to increase until it reaches a point where it becomes profitable to build new homes. The prices on the housing market still increase, despite homes being built for all.

 

Hong Kong had close trading access to China, yet had a free market economy. It sort of had a monopoly on that unique position. It was like a "gateway" to trade between the outside and China. (example labor intensive starting materials could be assembled and combined with higher technology in Hong Kong, before being sold. Or Hong Kong's free market system could better facilitate goods from China sold to outside countries)
Not only that, but a previously established port and already established business relationships from earlier British times (pre-communist).
However, over the last 20 years or so, Hong Kong's unique advantages have all but disappeared.

Hong Kong was not able to build itself up from nothing as an isolated city.
The point is, we should not say that what was there before was "pretty minimal".
If you're trying to describe something, Hong Kong was not a very good example of it.

 

Yet California which hosts legions of homeless people persists in promoting policies that drive up the number of people who cannot find affordable housing. Tragic really. If you aren't too picky about living in the hood or in a 80 year old house, you can buy a house in my city for less than the cost of many new vehicles.

 

California was an interesting example where there were many neighborhoods that became less desirable to live in, while at the same time home prices in those neighborhoods did not go down.

It would be like a vendor selling high-end delicious tasting ice cream bars on the beach, but then when summer arrives this vendor switches to a cheaper brand that doesn't taste that great, but at the same time there are more customers, so he doesn't have to lower his prices. He is still going to have long lines in front of his cart because there are many more people at the beach.

Many of these homes that formerly housed 2 working adults now housed 4 or 5 of them. In the early 1990s it wasn't uncommon to hear stories of police finding 40 people crammed into a single (average sized) house, in some neighborhoods.

 

No, absent the opportunities its institutions created, it was pretty minimal.

Wrong. Before the British established its institutions, HK was a fishing village. It had a good natural harbor, but that's all the natural advantages it started with.

 

The facts of economics.

Because land is in fixed supply. Right.

Because improvements depreciate while land appreciates. Duh.

Because the land value is increasing.

 

Lack of affordable housing is always driven by high land costs, and land value is nothing but the market's estimate of the net future subsidy to the landowner. Therefore, the only significant policy that drives up housing costs in CA is Proposition 13, because it forces the state and all local governments to give enormous, increasing, and unsustainable subsidies to landowners.

Even more tragic is that not one person in 1000 understands it.

If you want to live in a location that affords access to economic opportunity, such low prices can only happen in high-property-tax states.

 

That doesn't actually make owning property more affordable.
It shifts where the costs go.

What you're not paying in upfront price (or mortgage payments) will be paid on property taxes.

In some areas this can even create an economic disincentive, where the building costs are much higher relative to the cost of land. (Southern Illinois might be one example of this)

 

Yes it does, because it cuts out the mortgage interest cost.

No, because it reduces the total cost of taxes + land rent + interest.

But what you pay in property taxes you aren't paying in other taxes! And what you don't pay in up-front land cost, you ALSO don't pay in mortgage interest thereon.

True, if the property tax rate is too high, the land value is crushed, and the tax falls almost entirely on the improvements. Like Detroit. That is why the property tax should be abolished, and replaced with a tax on land value.

 

Question: But isn't it true if people are paying less in taxes they have more money to bid up the price of land?

Isn't the current price determined by the entire future cost of owning that property? So mortgage interest costs would have the same type of effect that property taxes would here.

But I think this discussion has drifted too far off-topic now.

 

Yes, but the taxes on land reduce the net subsidy to the landowner, and thus the amount they are willing to pay for it.

Exactly. But when you pay more property tax, it reduces the amount government has to take in other taxes, while when you pay mortgage interest, the lender just pockets something for nothing.

Think about the ultimate balance in the economy. Do you want an economy where government gets 30% in taxes that bear on producers, landowners take 20% for contributing nothing, mortgage lenders take 10% for contributing nothing, and producers get the 40% that is left? Or would you prefer an economy where government gets 20% (because it doesn't have to spend 10% trying to undo the social and economic damage caused by landowner privilege, like unemployment and homelessness), producers get 80%, and landowners and mortgage lenders have to find something productive to do?

 

Okay, well this thread discussion got derailed pretty fast. Hopefully we can get back to the original main topic.

 

Me giving you the accurate, relevant information and economic analysis that would enable you to correct your false beliefs if you were willing to do so (you're not) is not derailing the discussion.

 

"Off-topic". Never heard that one before.

 

Homelessness is on the increase in much of the First World. It's increased in line with our ever-increasing safety and ease. The reason it happens less in other societies, is that they never had the luxury of adopting self-indulgence as a lifestyle.

Hedonism, is your problem.

 

No, that's false. Homelessness is landlessness -- always -- and it is the cost of permission to use land that has been pricing more and more people out of the market for even rental housing. 70 years ago in the USA, life was both safer (especially from crime) and easier: a family could be supported, including buying a nice home and paying for medical care and public-college education, on the median wages of one adult. Today, families struggle to pay for those things on two median incomes because the subsidies to the privileged they are forced to pay for have increased so exorbitantly. In every First World country where homelessness is a significant issue, the subsidy to idle landowning has increased dramatically -- as proved, repeat, PROVED by the astronomical increases in land value -- and that is the only cause of homelessness.

Or, more honestly, "Shut up and get back on the treadmill!"

Still trying to exculpate the greedy, privileged, parasitic rich, I see....

 

It's one thing to recognize that there is a problem (and the extent of that problem). It's another thing to agree on the cause of that problem.
Let's try to stick to the former - the topic of recognizing the magnitude of the problem - in this thread discussion, please.

I fear if we get bogged down in an argument over exactly what the causes are, it will derail the discussion in this thread and obscure the original discussion about there even being a serious problem - which is not something everyone even recognizes or agrees with in the first place.

 

I don't think anyone denies that homelessness is a problem. People like crank just think it's only a problem for the homeless.

 

Was this the backup plan by the fake media if the Chinese bioweapon did not work? They already have a blueprint from the 80s.

Why so many homeless in deep blue states and cities? Seattle has a $15 minimum wage and there are still lots of bums.

 

That's what I long thought for some time. But then after spending years having discussions with many people in these type of forums, I realized there are many people who don't see it as a problem.

Many people don't see it as an economic problem.

 

With respect, what's the purpose of consensus on the existence of the problem? We all know homelessness is on the rise, and that it started well before 2020.