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Comment by roseway4 | Hacker News Reader

Study referred to in the article: https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/our-impact/our-studies/califor...

> High housing costs and low income left participants vulnerable to homelessness. In the six months prior to homelessness, the median monthly household income was $960. A high pro- portion had been rent burdened. Approximately one in five participants (19%) entered homelessness from an institution (such as a prison or prolonged jail stay); 49% from a housing situation in which participants didn’t have their name on a lease or mortgage (non-leaseholder), and 32% from a housing situation where they had their name on a lease or mortgage (leaseholder).

tl;dr Nimby housing policies (and regressive property taxation) have driven this crisis.

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I mostly agree with you. I would add also that it's a lack of social housing. We need to encourage municipalities to build good quality social housing like they have in Europe (specifically what I saw in Helsinki) we would need to be careful to not replicate the mistakes of housing projects in the 1970s

At the same time I also recognize there's a good chance it wouldn't work because Americans, as a rule don't give public infrastructure respect it deserves but instead would degrade or tear it down then bitch about the taxes it takes to maintain it.

I agree that some element of social housing is needed. Do you have any evidence to the assertion that this housing would not be respected by Americans?

That's a really good question. I'm probably not thinking of it the right way but I tend to lump together individual, private industry and governmental destruction of public property. I would start by looking at vandalism and property crime numbers, the difference in maintenance between US section 8 landlords and European social housing management. Another indicator could be how well we maintain roads and other infrastructure.

One difference I really notice between Scandinavians and Americans on the issue of public infrastructure is they tend to be more willing to pay higher taxes because they clearly understand the benefit they get. Just on roadways, I don't remember any potholes as we drove some 4000 km on our trip. We saw a handful graffiti tagging (only in Helsinki). We stayed in a hostel that I believe also doubled as social housing and it was clean, kept in good repair. the people were polite and the usual Scandinavian reserved. Don't get me started on the difference between US (Third World light) and European airports.

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