Should we house the homeless?

930 points · 61 comments · view on lemmy.world

61 Comments

Broadfern@lemmy.world · 73 pts · 283d (1 reply)

The cruelty is part of the fun! Plus prison = free slave labor!

/s

ThePantser@sh.itjust.works · 26 pts · 283d

Providing housing and paying them a shit wage is slave labor too but you get the benefit of them paying their money back into the company store so it's cheaper.

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 61 pts · 283d (2 replies)

Obviously, the solution is US slavery

US prison workers produce $11bn worth of goods and services a year for pittance

chuckleslord@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 283d (1 reply)

And it only costs $80bn to do so!

PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml · 30 pts · 283d

One of the most obvious illustrations how capitalism socialise costs and privatises profits.

aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 56 pts · 283d (11 replies)
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mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 29 pts · 282d (2 replies)

Here’s a reminder that there are nearly 14,000,000 vacant houses in America, and less than 650,000 homeless people. The math comes out to ~22 vacant houses for every single homeless person. I’ll give you one guess which income bracket owns the vast majority of those vacant houses…

aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 282d (1 reply)
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papalonian@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 282d

Well duh, they're on the street because they're experiencing decision paralysis on what house to live in that day.

Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 282d (3 replies)

Phrase that differently or the wealthy will get the wrong idea.

aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 16 pts · 282d (2 replies)
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Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 282d

That wasn't what I...

You know what, that works too.

theolodis@feddit.org · 4 pts · 282d

I think this might have been about the "should not exist" party which could also mean "kill them all", in the billionaire's mind.

HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 11 pts · 283d (1 reply)

Alright, so let's kill 'em!

(Ambiguity is on purpose.)

BanMe@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 282d

They know goddamn well a big contingent is willing to if they had the opportunity, so they've gone to great lengths to avoid such possibilities.

This should intrigue people who like a challenge idk

1984@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 282d (1 reply)

Totally agree. What the fuck is a society that just cares about money and not people. Its not worth surviving.

ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online · 4 pts · 282d

The sad thing is that it has been like this for so damn long it isn't funny. And the people who like it this way will never go away.

blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works · 36 pts · 283d (4 replies)

It's "expensive" in the "right" way. The costs are paid by taxes, which are largely supplied by the 99%. The revenue, by contrast, is privatized, going to corporations owned by the 1%.

So it's only "expensive" for the masses, which lawmakers don't care about.

Flickerby@lemmy.zip · 15 pts · 283d (2 replies)

Not to mention the slave labor they gain out of it.

blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 282d

I was lumping that into "revenue"

HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 283d

👆 👆 These two guys/girls/dudes/men/women get it.

avidamoeba@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 282d

Just another way to extract surplus created by the 99%.

RedSnt@feddit.dk · 28 pts · 283d (2 replies)

How about house them in a way that take away their voting rights and use them as cheap labor? Member how prisoners were used to fight the Palisades fires in January?

theparadox@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 283d

How about house them in a way that take away their voting rights and use them as cheap labor? Member how prisoners were used to fight the Palisades fires in January?

Don't forget the expensive housing is provided by a for-profit prison system. It's expensive for taxpayers, but someone else is getting rich.

TwentyEight@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 282d
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Xerxos@lemmy.ml · 22 pts · 283d (1 reply)

It's not that expensive if you use them as slave labor and ignore their human rights... Well, still expensive for the tax payers, but who cares for those peasants? /s

HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 283d

How about organs? I'm about done with this liver and I could use a bigger penis.

Ava@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 14 pts · 282d

Well, there WAS that thing a couple of months ago where Kilmeade said the quiet part out loud, suggesting we should execute them.

Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club · 10 pts · 282d (1 reply)

It's an investment by the megacorps (with gov monies) into keeping the plebs in check, to not get any ideas around equity, social reform, tax increases, megacorp regulation (consumer prices/margins cap), higher wages, etc.

It's super effective.

The same infrastructure can also be recycled in event of a full-on fascist gov.

seejur@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 282d

Not only that. The housing is then maintained by taxpayers, who are not the rich strata. So it's another way to funnel money from the poor/middle class to the corporation owned by the rich.

NatakuNox@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 283d (1 reply)

Truth. The cheapest option is housing and mental health care.

Eq0@literature.cafe · 1 pts · 282d

In particular if you look at the long term (even just a couple of years): many homeless just need a little help to start climbing the ladder again. So housing and mental care would allow them to quickly become productive members of society. Prisons just lock them into a circle of poverty.

JamieDub86@piefed.social · 8 pts · 283d

....and do absolutely fuck all to make the world a better place.

TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 283d (2 replies)

UBI when?

Anonymouslyhere@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 282d
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Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club · 1 pts · 282d

technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 282d

If these people were at all reasonable or giving a shit about anybody else, they wouldn't be ayncaps.

Core_of_Arden@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 282d

We? How about "we" remove the rich, so that homelessness is only a frie and true choice if you want to be traveling?

The only people who'd like there to be homeless people are the rich and powerful.

pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 282d
HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 283d

You gotta feed those private prison shareholders!

ThePyroPython@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 282d
Dialectical_Specialist@quokk.au · 3 pts · 283d (2 replies)

I'm unfamiliar with this bal—Is it a country or an ism?

PyroNeurosis@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 283d (1 reply)

An '-ism'. Specifically anarcho-capitalism.

Dialectical_Specialist@quokk.au · 5 pts · 283d

I regret asking, but thank you for the clarification

boogiebored@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 282d
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 283d

Move them into "Sanctuary Districts".

rickdg@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 283d

Unfortunately we deport them to the lowest bidder with a prison.

Wilco@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 283d

It isn't even really about the privatization. They just want the ability to game the investment scam system.

DarkCloud@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 283d

Meybe dey dum s'all I sayin.

LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · -6 pts · 283d (10 replies)

Part of the debacle of giving homeless people free homes, would make everyone else wonder why TF we're working so hard for 90% of our net income to be sucked away by the housing industry just so we can keep a basic roof over our heads.

You mean IF I DIDN'T WORK AT ALL, the government would GIVE me a FREE house?? If that were the case, people would decide that laziness is more rewarding than hard honest work.

This is why the government doesn't give homes to homeless people. Although I read two days ago that in the USA there is a ratio of 27.4 empty houses per each homeless person.

But those houses must remain empty in the name of capitalism, for money-havers to do whatever they want with those houses. Anything but using it to house a needy, money-less person.

The fear of homelessness & starvation & suffering are what motivates everyone to keep working our asses off.

And after all that, any able-bodied people who still insist on sleeping & shitting on the streets & refusing to contribute to society & the economy, can be scooped up like kitty litter and dumped into for-profit prisons where they'll be assigned jobs.

Work & service to others, is the rent we all pay for living on this planet.

hamid@crazypeople.online · 6 pts · 283d

Moral hazards are bullshit

Faux@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 283d
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bitwolf@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 282d (1 reply)

Could this not be solved by requiring work placement and maintaining a job to keep the free home?

Theb eventually they will want to own the home and end up striving to buy one.

LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 282d

Probably some programs like that do exist.

orc_princess@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 283d (4 replies)
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LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 283d (3 replies)

orc_ pprincess@lemy.ml

You said before deleting:

I'm sure every homeless person could have a home if they just tried harder! This isn't the most inhumane, cruel system ever!

I'm literally homeless too (I live in a van in order to have freedom, autonomy, and owe nothing to landlords or mortgage companies), and I see the housing industry for what it is, it wants to drain nearly every dime out of everyone, exploiting everyone's basic human need for shelter. It's extortion and I have no desire to be a victim or slave to it.

orc_princess@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 283d (2 replies)

Yeah, I deleted because I originally misread/misinterpreted your comment as a defense for the system rather than criticism, being tired and all. Please dismiss what I said.

I wish you good luck and all the support you deserve and need to get out of this situation.

LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 282d (1 reply)

Ah yes thank you for understanding. I re-visited what I wrote & you're right, it can be interpreted two different ways, and you're right, I wrote it from a critical perspective, I despise what capitalism & the housing industry have done to us.

As far as me needing to escape my current living situation? I live in a brand new off-grid Mercedes Sprinter with solar panels & plumbing & refrigerator & convection oven. I can literally live anywhere I want without paying rent or mortgage, and I imagine most people would want to get out of THEIR situations to enjoy this type of freedom! I'm quite in bliss!

orc_princess@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 282d

Good on you! Wish you the best

MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 283d
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bubblybubbles@lemmy.ml · -14 pts · 283d (8 replies)

Don't worry though, totally-not-zionist "lefty" Mandani got elected, he'll tots take care of the homeless and defo not fall into this pattern!

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 283d (7 replies)

totally-not-zionist “lefty” Mandani

What?

Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 283d (1 reply)

They're a troll, this is a normal rage bait comment they make

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 283d

It's jibberish. Might as well be calling Trump a TERF or complaining that Andrew Cuomo isn't Italian.

Macchi_the_Slime@piefed.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 283d (4 replies)

I've been seeing a bunch of people saying that he's not really anti-Zionist because he says Israel has a right to exist "as a state with equal rights" rather than saying they don't have a right to exist and that he's not actually a Lefty because he isn't making like huge sweeping promises before even getting into office officially.

It honestly just sounds like more "Holier Than Thou, I'm The Better Leftist" LARP that the Online Left seems to love engaging in.

Edit: Oh and people taking him talking about the talks he's had with Jewish New Yorkers about the whole "Globalize Intifada" smear the wrong way. I guess some have taken it as him capitulating to the Zionists when I guess to me it sounds more like he's just saying that he understands that he had a different view on what those words meant than other people apparently did not that he's changing his views or anything.

orc_princess@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 283d (3 replies)

I'd personally be way more excited about Mamdani if he hadn't called Cuba and Venezuela dictatorships at a time when the US is ramping up aggression in the region. It really feels like helping manufacture consent and capitulating to the US empire. I hope he does a lot of good for y'all, but I personally don't trust him as a latina living in Latin America.

Macchi_the_Slime@piefed.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 283d (2 replies)

idk, from what I can find he only issued the statement calling them dictators after answering questions about those countries talking about the horrible things the US has done to them like the embargo on Cuba and the extrajudicial killings of Venezuelans Trump's been doing in which he didn't directly call them that.

I could definitely be reading too much into it, but it feels kinda like he's effectively saying "yeah, they're dictators because the US keeps interfering in their affairs"

orc_princess@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 282d (1 reply)

I get that, I hope you're right, but it's still a disappointing statement coming from a leftist. I have a hard time thinking he doesn't know about Cuban democracy, but even if that's the case, does he believe Cuba is less democratic than the US, where Bernie got screwed over by the DNC, where gerrymandering and overpolicing make some states red for perpetuity, etc?

I wanna be hopeful but AOC was a massive letdown so I'm skeptical. But if I'm mistaken I'll be relieved. We all deserve decent politicians and policies.

Macchi_the_Slime@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 282d

idk, it's hard to say at the end of the day what is real belief and what is playing politics. Personally with what I'm seeing if a right leaning think tank like the Manhattan Institute is mad about what you're saying about Cuba and Venezuela then you're probably on the right track even if you did call them "dictatorships" in a later statement.

I absolutely feel being burned. I've been very disappointed in some of my more progressive officials in government lately. But right now IMO he's given no real tangible reason I've seen beyond things that have been said to doubt him. Until that point I'm willing to believe that the no condemnation interview version is the "real belief" and the "they're dictators" statement is a placating bit of politics playing after having said the important part first.