America was great when Americans cared for each other and the New Deal, by Roosevelt and the Democrats, helped narrow the inequality between the rich and poor.

MAGAts don’t understand this.

      • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        Kinda… There’s not so much need to build, though, as there are currently 28 vacant homes for every one person experiencing homelessness in the U.S., many of which are owned not by individuals but by large corporations. The same corps that took advantage of the housing market collapses over the last several decades.

        Large corporations are sitting on ridiculous numbers of vacant homes rather than make them affordable for people who need them. Fixing that would help.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          Yeah, it’s kind of insane. They buy them for the value, but they only have value because there’s perceived scarcity, and there’s only perceived scarcity because they buy them. It’s an incestuous system that harms us all and creates nothing of value.

        • Pieisawesome@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 days ago

          Just because there are homes, doesn’t mean that the homes are in desirable locations.

          1k empty homes in Iowa doesn’t do any good for someone in New York

          • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Where do you think these tens of millions of vacant homes are? They are in every single city and suburb across the country. I’ll bet even Hawaii has homes sitting vacant. I know for a fact that there are almost 25,000 homes sitting vacant between downtown and the greater San Diego area, which happens to be 10,000 more than our entire county’s homeless population. The county of San Diego is larger than the smallest two or three states, BTW.

            • DrunkEngineer@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Ah yes, the Tankie-Nimby zombie myth that California already has enough homes if not for the evil capitalists hoarders at Blackrock. Note that 25,000 housing units is around 1% of the total housing supply in the SD metro area; i.e. about the number of empty homes we would expect just due to normal turnover and renovations.

              • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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                2 days ago

                Did you look at my link?

                These numbers are not referring to temporarily vacant homes that are in between buyers, but longer term vacancies, often held by investment firms. From the article:

                Vacant homes and buildings often succumb to the elements and deteriorate due to leaks, damage and general lack of maintenance before ever finding a buyer willing to pay their inflated prices. An abundance of vacant homes on the market are also attributed to rising rent and home prices.

                These homes can sit abandoned for years, causing neighbourhood blight and increased crime, in addition to removing opportunities from people who need housing.

                Yes, it’s an uncaring capitalist thing, and no, it’s not a NIMBY thing – quite the opposite. The neighbourhoods with these homes would be far better off with residents than simply letting these homes rot .

                • DrunkEngineer@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  Without even clicking I knew what the links would be, because they are the same ones that always get posted. And because this is a zombie myth, it doesn’t matter how many times they get debunked people still post them anyway. Your United Way “Study” is especially silly; for example it claims more than 25% of San Francisco housing units are vacant which is obviously not true.

                  • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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                    2 days ago

                    Okay, how about actually presenting data to support your argument rather than just ‘nuh-uh’ and vague aspersions?

          • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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            3 days ago

            There are solutions, and most vacant houses are in major cities, which is also where many homeless people already are.

            Detroit, for example, has large numbers of homeless people and also large numbers of these houses. Same with New York, large cities in California, etc.

            There are ways to solve this, but there’s no way these large corporations will participate in a solution out of the goodness of their heart.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Just because there are homes, doesn’t mean that the homes are in desirable locations.

            They’re desirable enough for large financial firms to hold as investment properties.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        He meant the programs in the OP. They don’t exist anymore, but when they did they weren’t open to everyone. See: redlining.