1y ago

Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds

www.cbsnews.com

A growing number of Americans are ending up homeless as soaring rents in recent years squeeze their budgets.

According to a Jan. 25 report from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, roughly 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023, up roughly 12% from the same time a year prior and 48% from 2015. That marks the largest single-year increase in the country's unhoused population on record, Harvard researchers said.

A Boring Dystopia @lemmy.world

return2ozma @lemmy.world

1y ago

Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds

www.cbsnews.com /news/rent-homelessness-harvard-report-center-for-housing-studies/

News @lemmy.world

return2ozma @lemmy.world

1y ago

Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds

www.cbsnews.com /news/rent-homelessness-harvard-report-center-for-housing-studies/

176 comments

But record low unemployment numbers guys! And wages made a tiny dent in decades of inflation!
- You're right I forgot green line go up!
  
  I just wish that helped more people than just the rich
  https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-americans-own-a-record-89percent-of-all-us-stocks.html
- Yea, I'm starting to have a hard time believing what they're telling us.
They should GET A JOB! And don't you COMMIES tell me that Wages won't cover a one room rental because that's a LIE! I BOUGHT my house 30 years ago working as a JANITOR! Kids today are just LAZY! GIVE me my Social Security you COMMIES!
- College only cost me $25 and a jug of corn liquor and when I got out, they immediately made me president of a metal fabrication company! What are these lazy millennials complaining about?
- It just seems like really sarcastic trolling to me.
i paid rent this month the exact same as last month and they emailed me after a week saying i owed them $35 more. just out of nowhere, just because. yes it's only 35 but also fuck off
- You forgot to tip
  
  The company sure didn't. They didn't even bother to lube up first from the sound of things.
  
  Just put the whole hog in
- 35 now, 35 more later, 35 more next year. Then you're eventually paying $500 more in rent and can't afford it anymore.
- My front office totally fucked up my rent. They put me on a different rate than I agreed to, and added on their own renters insurance which I opted out of by showing proof I already had renters insurance. My bill was like an extra $300 because of their fuckups.
  
  If it's still a fuck up if it's intentional?
- Review your contract. If you aren't month-to-month, tell them to pound sand.
And...no one (people I know) believes me when I tell them who the homeless are. Every one just holds onto the concept that they are just mentally-ill people who need to be in an institution. When I explain that any person's mental health decreases the longer they live without a home, a job, and a family for support. Homeless people end up turning to drugs because they can't stand the fact that their ability has decreased so much that a drug-induced hallucination is better than reality.
- A number of homeless are indeed are victims of our terrible socio-economic system. However I have heard many homeless outreach workers say the same thing "The ones who stay homeless are the ones who stay addicted". Addiction is a serious issue and the challenge of beating it is nothing we should dismiss, however it is clear some people end up homeless due to drugs and stay homeless due to a refusal to get clean. When your life is centered around just getting high, you won't care much about anything else. All the horrors of living on the street disappear once you get your fix, and some people are okay living like that.
  I guess I'm writing all this to say that homelessness is a very complex and nuanced issue. They aren't all victims, they aren't all criminals, they aren't all mentally ill, they aren't all addicts, and for some its the only life they've ever known.
  This is why the conversation around homelessness is so difficult. People just latch onto their idea of what being homeless is then build their argument from there, dismissing the remaining context of the concept.
  I highly suggest doing homeless outreach to broaden your perspective on the matter (look up a local Food Not Bombs group if you live in a city!). If that isn't something you'd like to do, there are plenty of videos on youtube that give you more insight into the homelessness experience. Obviously watch out for the videos that treat living on the streets as a spectacle or oddity, I absolutely hate these videos because they serve to shock and entertain, not educate.
  
  A lot of people on the streets have no one left to help them for a reason. They've burned every bridge with loved ones. Saying this as someone who's dealt with an addict on my wife's family. Thankfully she's not in the streets right now but she has been several times. We've helped her out in so many ways just to end up getting stolen from
Yah but they can own guns, sooo
- So if you don't have a home, you can just take one.
  If you're white and it's owned by a black family, it counts as Stand Your Ground in Florida. Probably.
- If owning guns and having no address isn't the ultimate freedom, then I don't know what is.
Y'all let me know when we're tired of the bullshit enough to get a "general strike" going. I'll bake the "cookies".
And here I am...just earning some nine hundred dollars a month u.u wish me luck!
- Bro, I quit my 9-5 to become homeless and hustle every waking second of my life. Hustle is life.
  
  Can't. Hustling is informal in my country and has no benefits :') the amount i get is like, triple the minimum wage but still feels like garbage :(
- good luck
Bidenomics!
- You cracked the case!
  It wasn't anything like coordinated rent increases from large groups of landlords using a pricing app, it wasn't a worldwide pandemic disrupting the market, it wasn't America keeping housing as an investment vehicle instead of a means of sheltering humans, it wasn't decades of wealthy investors buying housing to convert into rentals.
  Nope, all of that complexity can be tossed out the window because one single man is to blame: Joe Biden. All in his first term as president too!
  
  It’s amazing that rentals are going through the roof all around the world, there seems to be different reasons everywhere but the problem is the same. The underlying problem is probably capitalism underscored by neoliberalism which drives laws and policies to support short term, high growth returns.
  
  It wasn’t anything like coordinated rent increases from large groups of landlords using a pricing app
  Which Biden has no interest in doing anything about. Why isn't he using the bully pulpit to name and shame enemies of his administration?
  it wasn’t a worldwide pandemic disrupting the market,
  It's been years since you and the rest of Democrats gave a shit about COVID, so it's hypocritical to blame the ongoing pandemic.
  Perhaps if Biden didn't give up entirely on public health then the ongoing economic problems caused by COVID could be addressed, but instead we don't even talk about it like it's still a serious issue and ignore the ongoing wave of deaths. We are still having excess deaths far above the pre-pandemic period, but I bet you don't even wear a mask to the store. What a joke.
  it wasn’t America keeping housing as an investment vehicle instead of a means of sheltering humans, it wasn’t decades of wealthy investors buying housing to convert into rentals.
  Both problems are something Biden helped establish over his long tenure as a Senator.
  Nope, all of that complexity can be tossed out the window because one single man is to blame: Joe Biden.
  Liberals in every country do this thing where they use complexity as a way to mystify and obscure the consequences of their party's actions and inaction. Somehow the President is powerless and problems come from nowhere. No one is to blame, except maybe the red team.
  
  Buh those people take the risks without them there won't be any housing 🤡
  
  Hey Biden wants credit for the economy. He's out there claiming it as his.
- You say that like Trump’s biggest legislative accomplishment wasn’t a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans.
  
  That's not true, he also accelerated the decline of America and turned many of America's allies against us.
  Also he had that handsome hamburger party that one time. That was pretty funny, probably his favorite day of being president.
  
  Something tells me they don't like Trump, either.
  
  With a Republican controlled House and Senate, no less.
  Complete control of the government, carte blanche to enact yr policies ... All they can do is pass a tax cut.
  Republicans are the most ineffective political body in the world. More so than Democrats, who's only bid to relevancy is "I'm not them!" while simultaneously only passing Republican written legislation.
  So the cycle, take note, is Republicans get power because Democrats don't do shit for anyone on main Street, who've seen their living conditions fall to third world status (3rd world has cell phones too people, like 90% of humanity has a cell phone), bicker about social issues and imagined offensives then pass a tax cut and forgive debts to the people held by Big business. Supreme court shenanigans whenever possible. Democrats get elected with nice stories of going to Disney land. Get in, can't do anything they promised cuz reasons but they pass the Republican think tank written policies cuz gotta point at something. BUUUT no field trip for you, get back to work. Get booted out because now I'm 47, living in a Kia with my 2 dogs and hamster and I've never been to the Disneyverse. Get told the economy is doing better everyday. Every other day someone else I know ends up homeless.
  Rinse, repeat. The American way.
- Weird how people who are 'I'm so COMMUMIST!!' reserve their criticism for US politicians closer to the left and don't bother saying shit about Trump or the Republicans in congress.
  
  It's weird how you make things up to get mad at. The BLM uprisings were full of communists, did you forget about that? We were the ones who sided with the People's demand to defund the police, before liberals betrayed us by trying to frame that as reform the police.
  Your confusion comes from thinking liberals are close to the left. They are not. They are capitalist, imperialist, anti-communists.
  Also, I am not telling people how to vote. I am criticizing Biden. Am I allowed to do that, or is that blasphemy?
- This is why it's a bad idea to stick your name onto whatever is the current state of the economy.
  
  There's also the repulsive way they keep trying to gaslight us into thinking the economy is good.
- Well, at the moment, the other option is Trump. We all know we need better politicians in general, but are you suggesting things would be better with him?
  
  I have not told anyone how to vote in this thread. Y'all just crawled up my ass about it because I blasphemed.
  If you choose to vote for Biden despite hating him, I understand. But don't try to silence criticism.
  
  I fundamentally draw the line at voting for any candidate that funds genocide like joe. The two party system is broken.
  
  The other option is whoever we want. Wild how voting works.
  
  Us Vs. Them creates a system that never improves.
  3rd party and end the MIC
Secure and close the borders to relieve the pressure on housing demand and limit the amount of people with no means to support themselves from entering the country. If our country and economy is failing at providing for the people we already have we shouldn't be letting in any more.
- Or... solve the wealth hoarding issue at the top, instead of blaming poor people.
  
  No no it’s the immigrants!!! (please ignore the real estate funds buying up property and jacking up rents)
- Ah. The Russian trolls/bots have discovered lemmy. It was nice while it lasted.
  
  You've never seen lemmygrad or hexbear? And lemmygrads been around for years
- Wtf? You're the richest country in the world. It's not a problem of too little money, it's capitalism
- If our country and economy is failing at providing for the people we already have we shouldn't be letting in any more.
  Wait -- our country is supposed to be providing housing?
  I won't lie, I'm super into that. Normalizing rent across hundreds of millions of people would go a long way to stop bloodsucking leeches from buying property, price gouging residents to live there, and calling that a "job"
- How exactly are immigrants who can't support themselves able to pay rent and put pressure on housing demand?
  
  By adding crime into the fray
- Yes, Mexicans are to blame. Well done.
- They can't afford the rent either.

176 comments