This false premise that "living alone" is some sort of social achievement needs to end.
small unit (<10) landlord here. fwiw: I explicitly forbid any sort of sublet/short term/airbnb type thing in my leases. think that is the rule vs exception around here. too much abuse potential and problems. so dont just blanket blame tenants. and each unit only can have so many, two plus a kid or two maybe.
will say that "cannot afford" does not really come up for me anymore. I will not rent <650 credit score, good savings, income ratio, recommendations, work etc. tenant protections are so strong and courts so backed up now its just wildly expensive to get rid of people. so after two bad experiences of taking a chance now I don't take chances on people would rather have a unit be empty for months then pay 1-2 years or more for a bad tenant. but you are wrong to blame tenants current situation is hard on all sides. painful to impossible to replace/expand old buildings, hard to make things cheaper, good tenants get screwed by bad ones just as good land lords do, bad landlords abuse things, everything is way more inefficient then it should be. everyone just does their best with the various perverse incentives.
This speaks to a fear of mine, which is that laws meant to protect tenants end up backfiring against tenants because they reduce the pool of landlords willing to rent to them. E.g. from the article:
> At the state level, Colorado lawmakers have proposed a bill to limit the reasons for which a landlord can evict a tenant.
(fwiw I am not blaming you -- you're not running a charity. Just pointing out the tension between what lawmakers are attempting and the cold reality of the situation.)
yes. really wish "game theory" was something more commonly (ever) in politicians dictionaries. Like not opposed to decent tenant protections at all! but worst words to hear are 4 years after some law "oh we didnt mean for THAT to happen!" like it was friggin obvious it would. think through incentives please!!! there are lots of very reasonable policy goals one could choose, course got my own opinions, but in a democracy can accept if after reasoned debate some other goal is picked. but what sucks is then doing policies that dont help at all vs making things more efficient all around.
- a really good fast dedicated "small claims" style judicial system for example. like for ip or corp law in delaware or whatever, if people can resolve matters quickly with quality and without lawyers big expense/risk reduction.
- or we got all this crazy 3d scan lidar stuff now right? been very impressed by what even old phones can do, got used iphone cuz cant afford new one and made basic floor plans and point cloud of my house, not perfect but neat. and apparently the real deal are amazing. $30k is too much for one but not actually that expensive at gov level. so imagine states have official neutral service, couple of inspectors each with a fast scan unit, paid for by very low rental tax. as completely normal standard required and no extra cost part of renting a unit and leaving a unit, they come by and just do a scan of the whole thing. everyone signs, takes like 5 minutes. now there is official before/after down to centimeter 3d of entire apartments held by the state. or be paid to come again as part of any dispute. no more debate about "that was already there" on either side, for anyone ever again. single inspector could do dozens or even hundreds per day in an area. would not solve everything but stuff like that would add up in terms of getting facts straight, at low cost.
- gov backed insurance for aid programs like section 8 so landlords get made whole for property damage and expenses from the poor, not just rent?
dunno. not a genius on this but would like more innovative approaches tried. but if its risky to rent then risky people wont get rented to, more deposit will be requested, or more consolidation. but incentives always will play out in the market.
>Just pointing out the tension between what lawmakers are attempting and the cold reality of the situation.)
right and define what is "tenant protection" too, like WHICH TENANTS POLITICIANS/ACTIVISTS!?!? because the tenant protections we have now meant it took me 6 months to evict someone yelling racial slurs at other good tenants! it's not always about money. that tenant was well protected from me, but what about the other tenants? racial slurs, domestic screaming fights but not violence are protected speech not like they can sue or have the police arrest them for it. eviction should be the answer lease says you won't ruin other people's enjoyment of their own property but proving stuff is hard. and law compounds. at least we don't live in two party consent state here but if you do and now it is illegal to record them saying slurs now what if no-cause isn't a thing?
anyway sorry for the rant. just wish things were better, wish bad landlords got stomped, wish bad tenants could abuse things less too tho.
Mean is a bit of a misleading number here since the distribution really is discrete - and there are a lot more 1 and 2 person homes today than before, which is contributing to the lower average.
Could this really just be showing that less people are marrying and having kids?
A further question would what is called a “household” (and how that has changed over time). Is a 4 room house with 4 renters room renter, 4 households or just one by the owner?
How does people owning multiple houses affect this number?
US census has a publication on how single-person households are skyrocketing.
No, it's not. Let's stop patronizing poor people.
I agree. I find the idea of living around other people absolutely detestable, but I do often wonder how much of this is cultural.