Mortgage rates have reversed all of the decline that had pushed them to more than a 1-1/2-year low of 6.08% at the end of September after Fed began cutting interest rates.
And even if we did have a higher vacancy rate, that wouldn’t have any correlation to the homeless population, since I imagine many if not most of these vacant properties are occasionally used for vacations and whatnot (could probably figure that out from the data linked above), meaning the owner wouldn’t be interested in having it be set up for use by homeless people, and they’re probably in areas with a lower homeless population anyway.
The problem of housing for homeless people is completely separate from housing vacancy rates. People aren’t going homeless because there isn’t enough housing available, they’re going homeless because they can’t afford the housing that’s available. Making more housing available that homeless people can’t afford won’t solve anything, we need charities and government agencies to provide housing for free or very cheap.
We let them sit empty instead of making the logical decision to use them and help fix our housing shortage.
That’s not up to “us,” it’s up to homeowners. We can’t just snap our fingers and have all available housing available for use by homeless people, the owners wouldn’t be okay with that.
The closest we can get is to increase property taxes, which would discourage people from having second (or more) properties.
But like the statistics show, that isn’t the issue here. Housing vacancies are down, almost to record lows, which means there’s a supply problem. We can discuss what kind of supply we need (SFH vs multi-family), but the vacancy rate isn’t the problem here. We need more housing, and we need better social programs to help w/ homeless people, we don’t need to hit a 0% vacancy rate though.
We value people’s ability to make money off of human needs more than other people’s ability to obtain human needs, it’s as simple as that.
We perpetuate an immoral and unethical society so greedy people can indulge in greed. I’m sorry it doesn’t sicken you like it should, we’ve been trained to accept this unethical system.
We’re (likely) at record lows for housing vacancy rates (census.gov report from 2022), and the vacancy rate doesn’t seem to have meaningfully increased with higher mortgage rates (updated data for 2024 seems to be about the same as that report).
And even if we did have a higher vacancy rate, that wouldn’t have any correlation to the homeless population, since I imagine many if not most of these vacant properties are occasionally used for vacations and whatnot (could probably figure that out from the data linked above), meaning the owner wouldn’t be interested in having it be set up for use by homeless people, and they’re probably in areas with a lower homeless population anyway.
The problem of housing for homeless people is completely separate from housing vacancy rates. People aren’t going homeless because there isn’t enough housing available, they’re going homeless because they can’t afford the housing that’s available. Making more housing available that homeless people can’t afford won’t solve anything, we need charities and government agencies to provide housing for free or very cheap.
17 homes for every homeless person in the country.
We let them sit empty instead of making the logical decision to use them and help fix our housing shortage.
This will never get better until it is illegal for corporations to own homes
That’s not up to “us,” it’s up to homeowners. We can’t just snap our fingers and have all available housing available for use by homeless people, the owners wouldn’t be okay with that.
The closest we can get is to increase property taxes, which would discourage people from having second (or more) properties.
But like the statistics show, that isn’t the issue here. Housing vacancies are down, almost to record lows, which means there’s a supply problem. We can discuss what kind of supply we need (SFH vs multi-family), but the vacancy rate isn’t the problem here. We need more housing, and we need better social programs to help w/ homeless people, we don’t need to hit a 0% vacancy rate though.
We value people’s ability to make money off of human needs more than other people’s ability to obtain human needs, it’s as simple as that.
We perpetuate an immoral and unethical society so greedy people can indulge in greed. I’m sorry it doesn’t sicken you like it should, we’ve been trained to accept this unethical system.