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Comment by joe_the_user | Hacker News Reader

So I see 553,742 people homeless at last estimate (2017, unfortunately). 11M would 20x this amount, an amount that seems catastrophic and unmanageable.

Moreover, this seems like a situation where an emergency event is treated like an ordinary, non-emergency situation. And the reason for this is apparently that America's system of governance is so polarized and dysfunctional that no entity either can or will put forward a broad plan to escape the situation.

https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless...

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> So I see 553,742 people homeless at last estimate (2017, unfortunately). 11M would 20x this amount, an amount that seems catastrophic and unmanageable.

Not people. Households. 11 million households. Different metric.

So, if you want to convert to people, you have to break that down into an equation where the ratio of households reflects their diversity: single, children, extended families, shared accommodation, collectives,... Plug 11 million into that equation and the output will be a magnitude of several orders of that.

The U.S Census data shows an average household in the U.S. having 2.63 persons between 2014-2018. So, a ballpark guestimate would be 28.93 million individuals.

However, this could still be way off: if evictions happen in highly populous areas, or coincides with areas where the demographics show large households, you'll get a much larger number. For instance, California has, on average 3.1 persons, whereas North Dakota only 2.1.

To put all of that into perspective: There are currently 37 million Canadians. So, basically, the problem probably entails a group as large as the entire Canadian population.

A “ballpark guestimate” with four significant digits? (Not to detract from your main point in any way.)

You're always welcome to do your own napkin math and share it!

In this case, 29 million seems reasonable. One factor was given as 11 million, after all, not 11.00 million. And don’t take my comment too seriously. It’s a minor nit, but one that frequently bugs me.

Oh! More then happy to answer. :-)

So, I was just shooting a dart at a target. Translate the target to a Cartesian plan and you can express the position of the dart as a tuple (x,y) with two real numbers.

However, you don't know the exact position of the bulls eye you're aiming at. At best, you're aiming for a bounded area representing an approximation. So, you're basically guestimating the distance between the position of the dart, and any other point within that area which might probably be what you're shooting for.

Maybe I'm close, maybe I'm less close. I could have rounded upwards to 29 million, but unless you know exactly what you're aiming for, it's not possible to establish how rounding impacts accuracy. We do know that rounding within an interval of 1 million likely won't skew the answer too much, so both numbers are acceptable.

So our error estimates should have error estimates of their own? ;-) More seriously, though, both numbers are acceptable, and quite like far from the truth, but yours gives off an aura of accuracy with little or no basis. That’s not a problem on hn, given a highly numerate audience, but in other settings it could be problematic.

Reminds me of a javelin throwing contest years ago, where results were measured in feet and inches. Given that an inch is 25.4 mm, a Norwegian paper did report the results with submillimeter accuracy.

Ha! Those are great arguments, and I totally agree! :-)

> America's system of governance is so polarized and dysfunctional that no entity either can or will put forward a broad plan to escape the situation

There is a federal eviction moratorium in effect on federally-subsidized and federally-backed housing [1]. Many states and cities have more-comprehensive moratoria in place [2].

I'll also note that CARES Act was almost 3x the size of the EU's recent package (over 7x if one ignores its loans) and 4 months earlier. The Republican's follow-up bill, half the size of the Democrats', is still larger than the EU's single package.

American government has plenty of faults. But inability to act in a crisis is not one of them.

[1] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/coronavirus/mortgage-and-hou...

[2] https://ny.curbed.com/2020/3/26/21192343/coronavirus-new-yor...

Here in the southern US we've already started up the process of evicting people. Richmond, VA (which always finds itself in the top 10 cities in the US with the highest eviction rates) is in full swing.

I know it's easy for a lot of us to forget about people outside NYC and LA but there are not many renter protections down here in general, let alone during an economic crisis/pandemic.

> I'll also note that CARES Act was almost 3x the size of the EU's recent package

The EU isn't a national government, their package is a lot more generous than any comparable US-centered supernational regional org.

As far as national governments go, the German package passed in April was about US$10,000 per capita, about 1/5 of GDP. CARES was about US$5,000 per capita, about 1/12 of GDP. Germany passed additional packages, for a total aid passed through through June of over $17,000 per capita, over 1/3 of GDP.

There is a federal eviction moratorium in effect on federally-subsidized and federally-backed housing [1]. Many states and cities have more-comprehensive moratoria in place.

As I said, the problem isn't the US isn't throwing money at the problem, the problem is that there isn't a cohesive plan being articulated for how to get out of this. We probably won't have millions of people driven from the homes, penniless and living on the streets now that moratorium you linked to has ended (it's end is in fact what prompted the OP, btw). But these measures look haphazard and temporary - and just looking haphazard is enough to create a sense of panic in people (good leadership both is organized and clear and appears organized and clear).

You're wrong in that European aid programs in total are larger but that's not the main point. The point is that Europe and all most industrialized nations have dealt with the situation as a crisis during which people will get help and be somewhat guaranteed safety and a crisis, which once it goes away, people can return to normal from. The messaging the US has been a spew of confusion - the "opening up" a month ago was disastrous both in terms of spreading the disease and in terms of casting US leaders in total as confused incompetent morons, and that won't make it easier for them to lead.

And leadership is key here. What people are told to do is as big a factor in spreading the virus or not as any particular measures. And that goes for the situation of landlords and tenants. As the article correctly points out, leadership is needed to protect landlords from themselves. The current situation gives the impression everyone is on their own. Even if some aid does arrive, congress makes a strong showing that no one should count on that aid and that doesn't cause people to behave well.

While I agree that this number is a catastrophe no matter how you look at it, it's unlikely 100% of those people would become homeless.

Some would find (more expensive) shorter-term rentals, others would move in with relatives, and a small percentage would find a landlord willing to sign a new lease with them.

If 95% of people find a place that still doubles the homeless population.

Also the process of moving in itself is ressource and cash intensive. Not to talk about the pressure and stress it entails mentally.

It is quite a lot of effort. I have moved through 4 countries since 2015.

The number of renter-occupied residential units in the US is estimated at 44 million - this would be one quarter of rental stock being empty.

I suspect _many_ would find new, cheaper rentals from cash-strapped landlords.

And thus the hermit crab shell exchange begins

https://youtu.be/f1dnocPQXDQ

I suspect _many_ would find new, cheaper rentals from cash-strapped landlords.

Just Devil's Advocate, but wouldn't that still be just shuffling the chairs on the Titanic?

You would think so--but I don't think the rental market is that elastic anymore. I'm in a college town, so take this with a grain of salt, your milage may vary, etc, but around here with the looming possibility of all the schools being online only in the fall, loads of houses are sitting unrented. In a naive model you would expect to see these houses rent fall in a bid to capture any sort of rent. However what we're seeing in many places here is the opposite--the rent is RISING. The owners behind these properties have non-elastic costs. They've purchased these properties as investments using borrowed money. The bank doesn't stop collecting their payments just because the house is empty. So they have a stable of properties and falling numbers of renters so they RAISE the rent to try and extract any value from the few renters they can capture to try and cover their debts.

It was happening with commercial properties before the COVID pandemic. I started noticing this because I was looking for warehouse space for personal woodworking projects and office space for my business (neither with any sort of urgency, so lots of browsing over time). I noticed that the stock increased every month, but the prices never budged. Then in the local business newspaper they started listing square footage of unrented business properties. Month after month it has increased with no visible signs of rent adjustment.

I suspect the only thing that will eventually cause rents to decrease property speculators defaulting on their loans, which will lead to bank foreclosures and sales. The banks will then hold on to the properties and keep listing them because they can afford to hold the properties and attempt to wait to receive a 'market rate' sale price. Once the banks can no longer afford to just sit on the properties and sell them for whatever they can get for them, then you'll start to see a cycle of falling rents. Until then I think you're going to see stagnant or even increasing rents.

You should also consider there is a "bottom" price for a rental property -- the damage accrued from general usage, and the risk of particularly bad renters, can mean that it's cheaper to leave it empty.

The risk of particularly bad renters is accentuated in areas with strong renter-favored laws -- it becomes difficult to get rid of the guy, and to recoup the cost of damage. COVID has made it particularly problematic; if you have a bad renter today, you can't evict in areas where courts have effectively stopped. So they don't pay rent, cause damage, accrue fines, and you can't remove them.

In addition, a bad renter can both devalue the property tremendously, as well as accrue an arbitrary number of HoA fines, which can wipe out whatever gains you made on the property. And in COVID-world, a good renter can suddenly turn bad, as soon as they lose their job, further increasing the risk -- and those bad renters are usually bad because they don't have money in the first place, so even if tried the courts, there's nothing to get back

How would people who can’t pay their rent pay for “(more expensive) shorter-term rentals”?

If that means grouping with other households, wouldn’t the better choice be to do that in one of the less expensive existing rentals?

Or, there's going to be 11M people who start squating and paying what they can. I'd be interested to see where the cops in America fall on this. It'll destroy cities and towns.

With DHS rolling into a city near you™ it looks like they aren't going to wait and see how local pd react

DHS has a limited capacity to do this, given present staffing, funding, responsibilities, and capabilities.

While DHS boasts an impressive headcount of 240,000 employees, the bulk are unlikely to be paramilitary goons of the sort seen in Portland and Seattle, where several dozen troops have had minimal effectiveness in projecting force more than a few metres from the federal courthouse.

Additional requisitions from a deeply divided Congress are unlikely. Where just a single city's police force numbers over 55 thousands (NYPD), the prospect that a few hundreds, or even thousands, of reassigned TSA screeners and border patrol might play landlord-support squad in 100s of cities throughout the US to an ever-growing public resistance is parlors thin.

You don't need to evict all people via DHS. Only enough that the rest has enough fear put in them to do it themselves.

DHS is already training up vigilante militia[1]. Don't underestimate what this administration is willing to do.

"attendees will participate in scenario-based training and exercises conducted in a safe and positive environment, including, but not limited to defensive tactics, firearms familiarization, and targeted arrests."

[1] https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/07/10/889726473/i-c-e-cit...

There's A LOT of people in America just waiting for their chance to go full-on Purge mode on minorities. This looks like what they've been waiting for all along.

> I'd be interested to see where the cops in America fall on this.

I think we can tell by now: more tear gas. Eventually some commander is going to authorise clearing a street with live ammunition.

(There are even claims that the shooting of Breonna Taylor was connected to gentrification, although the evidence seems tenuous and the claims extraordinary: https://www.salon.com/2020/07/06/breonna-taylor-lawsuit-clai... )

Cops aren't gonna spend the manpower evicting people unless the chief makes it a priority. The chief won't do that unless the politicians tell him to and the union gives a nod. The politicians won't do that if it's political suicide.

Remember when Baltimore PD went on strike and they basically just solved murders, kept tabs on drug trafficking and sat in their cruisers running their side businesses? That's the natural state of policing.

They don't care about a bar that always has brawls. They don't care about someone riding an ATV on the street. They don't care about some teenagers lighting a cardboard box full of feces on fire on the mayor's doorstep. They don't even care about writing tickets to generate revenue. They don't care about evicting people. But they care about keeping their jobs so if the chief says to care about those things they'll care.

Keeping that in mind, any communities that get "destroyed" are doing it at their own hand because the political to make those evictions happen needs to be so much greater than the will to make them not happen (landlords are less numerous than renters but more moneyed and politically active, it's hard to call) that there's enough impetus to still get it done at scale after being laundered through the politicians (who would rather not piss off the renters if they don't have to) and police management (who would rather not kill morale by sending their employees to do the politician's dirty work), losing momentum in both cases.

It will be made a priority. Landlords have money and donate to political campaigns. People who are being evicted do not.

Money matters far more then angry everyday people. Unless they start rioting and looting (which costs the rich money, so in a way, money still matters more).

Also, homeless people can't really vote a lot of the time, so as a politician, why care if a bunch of people are made homeless? They aren't gonna be able to vote you out.

Police are compelled to process evictions by the court. The chief has no say.

Police are compelled to do a lot of things they choose not to.

If there's one thing we learned this year, is that the police cannot be compelled to do anything.

From their source, the HUD Exchange, I found a more recent report.

> On a single night in 2019, roughly 568,000 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States.

> Nearly two-thirds (63%) were staying in sheltered locations—emergency shelters or transitional housing programs—and more than one-third (37%) were in unsheltered locations such as on the street, in abandoned buildings, or in other places not suitable for human habitation.

The 2019 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress - Part 1: Point-in-Time Estimates of Homelessness in the U.S. - https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/5948/2019-ahar-part-1-...

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Personally, having lived among the homeless in the U.S. (for a period of a few long years in my youth), half a million seem like a low estimate.

There are systemic, structural, and political/cultural reasons for the plight of the homeless, and much of their unnecessary suffering (their treatment by police, lack of healthcare, to count a couple aspects in addition to lack of affordable housing).

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