• lemmm5ter@discuss.online
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    25 days ago

    pretty sure you can’t end homelessness with $20b unless we’re talking about absolute homelessness or something…

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      pretty sure you can’t end homelessness with $20b

      The math is straightforward: Cost of a housing unit * number of unhoused people. Even assuming the extraordinarily inflated market rate for housing in 2024, $20B is more than enough to house 650k people.

      Now, will the institutional actors that produced homelessness stop existing? Will we see an end to predatory lenders, robo-signed foreclosures, police harassment and civil asset forfeiture of the working poor, and unregulated real estate scammers targeting our most vulnerable neighbors? Probably not.

      But we wouldn’t have so many billionaires running about squandering our national wealth on vanity projects like Twitter without billions to be fleeced from the public to begin with.

      • IMALlama@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        $20B is more than enough to house 650k people

        I got curious, so I whipped out my phone’s calculator. $20B/650k = $30,800, give or take. I truly don’t know if that’s enough to break the cycle of homelessness, but if it is that seems like a pretty low number. We spend 40x that number on the defense budget, which is totally a jobs program but it seems like fighting homelessness would also ultimately be a jobs program.

  • sumguyonline@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    There’s full time employees that are homeless. Go out to a bridge, find a homeless person, ask how many homeless people they know that are working 40hrs a week. An alarming number. Looking forward to the violent end to elon musk. His violent games, have very violent ends.

  • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    25 days ago

    So-called genius can’t fathom that in many cases the mental illness and drug addiction came from the homelessness.

  • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    I was homeless for 6 years because billionaires fucked with America’s housing market. I’m not even American.

    I was 15 years old when that happened. My teenage years got robbed by billionaires.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    26 days ago

    Where’s the mental health care then? Oh, slashed to ribbons by the department of government “efficiency”. Fancy that.

  • sarcasticsunrise@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    YES. Anyone reposting Kyle’s daily eviscerations on Lemmy is fine by me. Kyle’s consistency through my years of watching Secular Talk has always been admirable, especially in this age of soulless online grifters

  • vala@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    Homeless folks are generally no more violent than homed folks. Drug addiction and mental illness or not.

    • _bcron@midwest.social
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      25 days ago

      About a year ago a homeless woman had a miscarriage in my city and a couple local media outlets jumped on it, reporting that ‘police had found a dead fetus in an encampment’. Ya know, after she called 911 because she had a miscarriage. Really helped solidify my belief that a lot of people would rather just stigmatize them than do anything else

  • sepi@piefed.social
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    26 days ago

    Funny because elon is a drug addict who’s showing he has some affective disorder because his daddy didn’t love him and is a malignant narcissist.

  • teamevil@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    So I’ll bite …let’s say he’s right and they’re “not” homeless they’re suffering from mental illness, drug addiction or a combination of both WHILE being homess.

    Wouldn’t it make more sense to actually fucking help those in need especially now we know they’re struggling with homeless AND other incapacitating issues.

    Society should be judged on how they treat the weak, struggling members of society. They are not a burden but real people hurting, and we are all closer to homeless than we think.

    • Anti-Face Weapon@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      There is also a cynical neoliberal argument that one could make. By helping those homeless people, they are reintroduced to the economy. They will produce value, consume products, and not dedicate on the sidewalk. In other words it’s a good investment.

      • teamevil@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        So if I’m being honest, after reading Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, I see absolutely no need to ever embrace anything from the Chicago School of Economics or any bullshit Neoliberal ideology, it only serves to transfer wealth to private hands.

        Even when my objective and a Neoliberal objective inadvertently line up, they are not the good guys.

        • Anti-Face Weapon@lemmy.world
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          24 days ago

          I agree with you all the way. However, this is a very good talking point if you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t care about human decency or empathy

      • Kitathalla@lemy.lol
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        24 days ago

        I hate that I’d even have to entertain that as a reason, or spew it at those who just won’t care about any other argument.

  • ugjka@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    They are drug addicts and mentally ill because usa has no safety nets for such people

  • Lenny@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    I have anxiety and likely some deep seated depression that would rise up with a vengeance if I didn’t have a warm home and access to food. I also love drinking wine, and while I do have access to said home and fridge, this wine hobby is cute and socially acceptable.

    Make me homeless and I’d very much represent a mentally ill substance abusing human like Elmo is describing there. They’re not ‘them’; they’re just us in a different reality.

    • MaxPow3r11@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      If Elon suddenly became “homeless” he would have a sign begging for ketamine & screaming “put I never went to therapy on my tombstone”.