Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds
Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds
Rents over the last two decades have risen much faster than employee pay, contributing to an escalating homelessness crisis in the U.S.
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.
You're viewing a single thread.
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.
RealPage needs to be dismantled and entire C-suite jailed. If Wall St isn't scared to death of making price fixing trusts then we are all in very deep shit.
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.
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.
Both parties are neolibs.
It's just a duopoly.
All of your critiques apply to both parties.
I'm left so I hate right.
I'm right so I hate left.
So boring.
Introduce ranked choice voting.
We could hate omnidirectionally.
Strangely more often it's "I'm left so I hate the US left" and they don't bother criticizing Republicans at all.
You want someone to help you do something for the good of everyone. Do you ask the giant selfish asshole or a rock for help? Republicans are the rock.
They're not asking or working with Democrats, they're painting them as worse than 'the rock' and telling people to abandon the party. Oddly it's the exact same thing foreign influence operations were doing on reddit in 2015, and Republicans in ~2006... discouraging young voters from voting at all. Huh, wonder who that helps.
Omnidirectional hate, I like that.
I hate everyone equally
Introduce ranked choice voting.
This!
We could hate omnidirectionally.
Not so much, this. Hate is bad, hate leads to destruction (Dark Side, etc).
We should ALL be asking our politicians about ranked choice voting. It's not even mentioned currently by anyone though.
There is no left.
If you are located in the United States, this is correct.
The left is a bogeyman spectre used to prevent change.
Introduce ranked choice voting.
Out of curiosity, why do people write things like that? There's 0% change of this happening. Are you delusional and propose this as actual solution or are you so disillusioned that at this point you don't even care about actual solutions and just want to play fantasy politics?
Yeah, why do people propose minor improvements to this rotten system. People should just be content with their lot in life! How dare they have hope?!
Changing the electoral system would be a minor improvement? So you're talking about some city level elections or do you actually think that changing how presidents and representatives are elected would only be a minor change?
On the scale of doing nothing to socialist revolution, this is a pretty minor change. But I'd love to hear some improvements that are not fantasies. Or do we just have to give up?
On a scale from doing nothing to revolution convincing the elite to willingly relax their absolute grip on power and let other people win elections is like an 8. It's not going to happen.
What are some improvements that are not fantasies? I would say the actually possible thing would be to get a slightly more progressive president that would push through some meaningful reforms despite Republicans bitching about it. Education reform, justice system reform, immigration reform could all be possible Of course this is not happening in the next 5 years if ever.
Supreme court reform is less possible but still achievable IMHO. Things like term limits and some real ethical oversight. Most people understand how corrupt it is and would support some changes. It would affect both parties equally so some bipartisan deal could be possible. Of course this is not getting enough tracking right now to move anywhere.
Any form of constitutional reform on the other hand is not possible and is pure political fiction.
It has already been introduced in various places. In those places there was someone, just as you are doing now, declaring it was impossible. Then it occurred.
Doom and gloom is easy, you see yourself win all the time because the conditions for victory are nothing happening. Hope is hard and full of heartbreak. I chose a hard outlook, but I can understand why you would choose an easy one.
I don't live in US so for it's not a matter of hope or gloom. It's just my opinion based on what I see happening there. I know a lot of Americans would like the entire Internet to cheer them and lie to give them some hope but I just don't see much sense in that. If you think it's achievable than do you, fight for it. I was just wandering if people really believe they can get it.
Do you think you make any sort of sense with this way of writing? You are slamming Biden because you don't know who is a actually responsible. It's greedy landlords and the corporate overlords that run housing.
Biden runs the country. Not the whole housing market. If anything he helped it with his administration relieving college debt and made it more affordable to many Americans that don't need to pay off debt.
You make zero points and I just throwing mud to make Trump the only choice.
Biden runs the country. Not the whole housing market.
He definitely could interfere with the housing market to a much higher degree. He could also make better use of the bully pulpit to attack greedy landlords and corporate housing by name.
He will not.
When Trump wins he will make everything worse and Biden is doing everything he can to make sure he loses.
You can what if all day long. And it's not fact. It's fantasy. So you don't make sense in two posts. Keep going. Your whole account can look like a lost soul in a cult.
A cult of what? I'm just criticizing Biden! You seem to think the president is powerless and nothing that has gone wrong is his fault.
Is there literally anything you would criticize him for?
Not to you. Because you are Trump's nuts and are a sad excuse for an American.
So you're hostile to outsiders and blindly support Blue Leader no matter what?
Remember, I never told anyone how to vote. If someone wants to vote for Biden that is their business and I completely understand it. You, on the other hand, attack anyone who even criticizes Biden.
Sounds like I'm not the one in a cult. Good luck Blue MAGA
No. I'm not going to engage with someone with their head so far up their keester they don't know how to discuss things to make sense. You never make any points other than pure speculation and are actively trying to muddy the water because you support Trump and don't want to admit it. Your whole account is soley to bolster votes for your cult.
So keep doing it. And I'll keep not caring. And neither will all the other people that are lurking and reading how little sense you make with what ifs and could haves.
I’m not going to engage with someone with their head so far up their keester they don’t know how to discuss things to make sense.
That statement/opinion is not intellectually honest.
You may disagree with the opinions she's expressing, but she's expressing them well, and they are worthy of debate/discussion.
He could also make better use of the bully pulpit to attack greedy landlords and corporate housing by name.
Biden: "You landlords are terrible and charge too much! Here are your names!"
Landlords: "Cool. How are you going to be able to stop us?"
Biden: "..."
Landlords: “Cool. How are you going to be able to stop us?”
He supposedly loves unions, right? How about he starts throwing his support behind tenant unions and rent strikes? How about he tells the millions of Democrats to take political and economic actions against landlords and real estate companies? "Here are your enemies and these are their companies, you know what to do."
I think you may be misunderstanding who has all the money and all the high-priced lawyers in this equation.
Bosses have money and high-priced lawyers, workers can beat them anyway. A strong tenant union can beat a landlord just the same.
Yeah, okay. The last time I lived in an apartment building, there were six tenants. If we had tried to form a union, we would have just been kicked out because we lived in a desirable area of L.A. and he could have charged new tenants more. Should we have added ourselves to the record number of homeless so this plan of yours can come to fruition? How about all the people in single-occupancy dwellings that are renting? Should they form a tenant union of one? Do you think that would work?
It's like you think every renter lives in a high-rise.
It's like you think the wider national union wouldn't bother to help a little group of six tenants. You're basically arguing we shouldn't bother with labor unions because not everyone works in a factory.
If your six neighbors joined a union to collectively bargain, it wouldn't be a union of six people! You'd just be one small part of the broader union, which has the resources to hire lawyers and pressure the landlord.
It's interesting to see the assumptions and projections you put onto me. All I've said (or implied snarkily) is that the housing and homelessness crisis that we're seeing in America is a multifaceted issue, and much larger than trying to simply blame one man.
For what it's worth, I have no love for Biden and think he could be doing a hell of a lot more from his position, as could the rest of the corporate Democrat party, as could literally any Republican with a spine, but unfortunately we're stuck with a party that won't act and a party whose only purpose is to block the other.
I still don't think you can distill the housing issue down to just 'Biden bad' though, so you should really do some introspection and see if your anger towards Biden might be blurring your viewpoint a little bit
Consider that, maybe, the assumptions and projections that you put on to me. When did I say Biden is to blame for everything? When did I actually distill the housing issue down to just 'Biden bad' except by glibly mocking their PR teams attempt to spin good economic news as "Bidenomics". Remember, they're the ones that made up that term. I was just referencing it.
When did I say Biden is to blame for everything?
I mean, sure, you didn't type that exact sentence but when you provided an itemized list of why Biden is to blame for each item in my original comment, it's not a huge leap of logic to think you blame Biden for these things.
I was just listing things Biden played a role in. Things he is partially to blame for, because he has not done everything he can to fight back.
Obviously he's not the king of America and can't just be blamed for everything, but I refuse to just say he's blameless because of that.
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.
Hamberder
bogos bimted
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.
The goal of the Democratic party is to make sure they exist alongside the Republican party.
Hello? Hello friend?
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?
Permanently Deleted
I hope that works out.
I fundamentally draw the line at voting for any candidate that funds genocide like joe. The two party system is broken.
The two party system is definitely broken. So, you’ll be voting for whom this year? None?
I'm not sure who yet, but I will be voting for a third-party candidate.
I hope that works out for all of us.
The other option is whoever we want. Wild how voting works.
Problem is absent major reforms in every state, that's not how voting works. Third parties playing spoilers in the first-past-the-post system has been documented and evidenced many times. Whichever bloc has greater unity or no appealing 3rd party candidates will win. So you could end up with Trump being elected with 35% for Biden, 25% for West, and 40% for Trump. Run-off or ranked choice could fix that but we don't have that.
Whichever bloc has greater unity
Ive got unity with the progressive candidate. Who also endorses that ranked choice we both want. Biden and Trump represent a conservative bloc.
That would be great but voting for them this round isn't a practical choice. We have to somehow get voting reforms then support the candidates we actually prefer. That would start at a local/state level.
Right, this round. Next round for sure.
Before there is comprehensive voting reform it won't work at all. It's more likely to get whatever candidate you least support elected.
everyone's waiting for voting reform to just happen for them. For the folks being elected with the current system that favors them to adopt it out of the goodness of their hearts.
Chicken and egg problem.
You can not get voter reform with a Democrat or Republican. They will not support legislation that make their own Party less powerful.
So you could end up with Trump being elected with 35% for Biden, 25% for West, and 40% for Trump.
And then the country would collapse. Do you actually think America would survive that?
How would the country collapse? Because Trump got elected and ruined it the rest of the way, or because the left/social liberal/Democrat vote was split between the D candidate and a 3rd party, like people keep suggesting we should do? Not sure what you mean.
the left/social liberal/Democrat vote was split between the D candidate and a 3rd party, like people keep suggesting we should do
Has anyone in this thread even done that? I know I haven't. I haven't told anyone how to vote.
Not sure what you mean.
The largest protests in American history happened under Trump. If he came back into power despite everything with such a small plurality, the citizenry would become ungovernable.
I'll just ignore the first part since you've obviously spent half the thread condemning Biden.
Anyway, so people should have been out there going wild protesting Al Gore and Hillary Clinton losing the popular vote, I guess. However, that's the way the system works, as bad as it is. I'm sure some people would protest but my example (which isn't even realistic since it ignores the electoral college) would be interpreted as Trump winning by 5%.
I’ll just ignore the first part since you’ve obviously spent half the thread condemning Biden.
This is why I hate liberals. We are not allowed to condemn the Blue Savior, he's making America great again, if you're against us you're with the enemy, etc. You are in a cult. There is literally nothing Biden can do that you would criticize.
Anyway, so people should have been out there going wild protesting Al Gore and Hillary Clinton losing the popular vote, I guess.
Al Gore betrayed the country by not fighting the election that was stolen by Bush. Fuck him and the weak liberals that let it happen.
I’m sure some people would protest but my example (which isn’t even realistic since it ignores the electoral college) would be interpreted as Trump winning by 5%.
And losing the popular vote by 10%
Considering the fact that he lost the popular vote the first time and has since become even more unpopular and divisive, and considering the fact that he actually might be a convicted criminal by the election, I think things would become extremely violent. You're overlooking how easily America could destabilize - we're already having some fucked up standoff between states from the border showdown. How much worse will it be in 10 months?
Okay, sure: Biden was shitty on the train worker labor union. Biden should tell Israel to wrap it up, stuff it and they have enough weapons already. Oh shit, I just got kicked out of my 'cult'.
Trump ALREADY lost the popular vote by 10% in real life. He actually won with 77,000 votes in 3 states and somehow this amazing revolution you're envisioning didn't materialize.
Trump ALREADY lost the popular vote by 10% in real life. He actually won with 77,000 votes in 3 states and somehow this amazing revolution you’re envisioning didn’t materialize.
No, he won with 46.1% of the popular vote. Even then, his tenure saw the largest protests in American history. That's not a coincidence.
Please don't put words in my mouth about revolution, though. That's not how revolutions happen. That's how reactionary protest coups happen that can cause countries to collapse. That's really not going to be good for anyone actually living in America.
Wild how voting doesn’t guarantee your preferred winner of the lot will actually win. We need ranked voting.
That applies to literally every candidate. Everyone gets one vote's worth of a say. If a lot of people dont want Trump or Biden, they dont have to win. But that pesky self fulfilling prophecy.
You want ranked choice, vote for the candidate that endorses it. I dont know how you ever expect it to happen otherwise.
Ahh yes. Eggs and chickens.
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’m not concerned with them. I’m engaging in conversation with you. Are you able to answer the question?
I literally did answer the question: I have not told anyone how to vote. That necessarily means I'm not suggesting Trump is better. 🙄
I’m not asking what you’re telling people. I’m asking what you think
I don't think Trump is better either, what the fuck?
What is your problem? Stop crawling up my ass.
I’m a little confused why you’re being so aggressive when I’m just asking clarifying questions about your comment.
Don’t you that think maybe Biden, who I’m not saying is a great guy, took office during a free fall and can’t be expected to take on the full blame for what was already bound to hit the ground?
yeah yeah you're Just Asking Questions 🙄
I think if Biden wants to take credit for the economy by inventing the term Bidenomics, then he gets to take credit for the failures too. Remember, his team were the ones that pushed Bidenomics when they wanted to pretend the economy was in good shape.
What I want is for Biden to acknowledge the problems that actually exist instead of trying to gaslight us into thinking everything is fine.
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?
'defund the police' and 'abolish the police' were very poorly slogans which scared off more people than they attracted.
US Liberals are a LOT closer to leftists than Republicans are... that's the entire point. Generally they support socialized healthcare, labor unions, worker protections, consumer protection, social safety nets, helping people in need, police reform and many other topics leftists support, while conservatives oppose every single one of those.
Criticize Biden all you want but if it helps get Trump elected, good job I guess.
‘defund the police’ and ‘abolish the police’ were very poorly slogans which scared off more people than they attracted.
I want my enemies to be scared.
Except it scared off the people who might have supported you as well.
Just causes hampered or killed by bad optics are legion thru history.
They would never support us. Get real.
You missed the point by a mile. Your slogan is supposed to attract people who would support the policy changes you want, not your 'enemies'. Saying 'abolish' and 'defund' didn't attract the centrists and moderates you'd need to enact changes, which is why 'reform' was actually a better choice.
I am uninterested in appealing to the white moderate.