US homelessness up 12% to highest reported level as rents soar and coronavirus pandemic aid lapses

They aren't the only ones, though. The rich find more than enough write-offs.

How do you reckon we make that happen? Any hope, or are they as powerful as billionaires?

What? Churches are specifically exempt from ALL taxes in the US. I clouding income, property, and all others.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/02/10/sec-reportedly-probes-mormon-church-over-100-billion-investment-portfolio-allegedly-saved-for-second-coming-of-christ/

A simple Google search.

Literally 3 words.

There's an often cited figure that it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness. As best as I can find, that figure is taken from an interview in 2012 with Mark Johnson who was with the dept of housing and urban development at the time, he wasn't directly quoted in the interview, it wasn't an official statement from the department, and by his own admission it was a rough estimate, I'm also not clear if that's a global figure or specifically for the US, though I suspect it's for just the US.

The wealth of churches can be a bit hard to quantify, between cash, investments, real estate, artwork, etc. across multiple countries and various legal entities, but either organization is worth, at the low end, easily 10s of billions of dollars, and possibly hundreds (I tend to see estimates for the Mormons somewhere between $100-200 billion) and in the case of the Catholic Church, they are almost definitely sitting on some properties and artifacts that could only be valued as "priceless," if the Pope, hypothetically, decided to sell off the entirety of Vatican City, how would the value even be determined for that?

So if we assume that 20 billion estimate is good, either church could handle it pretty easily.

That figure is over a decade old at this point though and so likely outdated (if it ever was accurate at all, which is questionable at best,) I'm seeing other sources saying that the true price to end homelessness would be at least $300 billion at the low end.

Which, again, may possibly be within either or both church's ability to pay for out of pocket depending on how they use their assets, but even if it's not, they could certainly put a very good dent in the problem.

You could also quibble about what it means to end homelessness and the appropriate ways to go about doing so.

So in short, they could maybe do it, but at the very least they could certainly afford to do a lot more than they are.

Probably, especially these days, but the #GOP has to actually be come a minority party before that can happen.

It's not about faith. It's about corporations. Religious, commercial or government, none of them are working for us.

That's it I'm cutting any and all bootstraps I see. Menacingly approaches old riding boots

The disparity in wealth should grow instead of shrink.

As long as most people believe this, then that's what's going to happen.

Because interest payments make profit, and reducing people’s ability to not live paycheck to paycheck increases the workers dependency on the system.

universal health care? We don’t have enough money for that!

Universal healthcare would, ironically, save the government, businesses, and consumers money all at the same time.

Is Hamas/IDF genocide against each other some kind of meme that must be mentioned in every comment section now or is this just propaganda?

How else are they going to keep all those homeless people in check

What did you do the last four years that should make us vote for you again Biden?

"I'm not Trump"

Democrat voters cream their pants and run to the voting booth so Genocide Joe can have another 4 years

Considering the military budget is now up to 1.2 trillion a year and we pay for other country's wars, the government clearly exists to make warmongers wealthier.

Because the government has on multiple occasions during my lifetime refused to consider measures with over 90% popular support.

Because they do not serve us as it is written in the Constitution. They serve the wealthy, they bend and scrape and lick their boots, never hold them accountable to the law, and never. Ever. Act against their best interest in any scenario. And the wealthy benefit from the social safety net having a big hole above a pit trap their workers are afraid to fall into.

Oy. Arguing with nihilists is about as useful as pissing into a black hole. You'll just get your dick turned into spaghetti for the effort, so why bother?

That’s why we formed a government, to handle shit like this. A government of the people by the people for the people. it’s their fucking job.

While I'm not 100% about it, Prop 13 in California has some good effects.

People shouldn't be tax hiked out of their living quarters. I think most states should have something similar and limit it to only the property you reside in so that property taxes are predictable instead of the incalculable beast they are today in most areas.

Don’t forget, Biden never wanted to give Covid relief checks either, it was only the threat of Trump promising to do so that caused him to actually do it (in order to win in places like Georgia if I recall correctly). Then he shortchanged everyone on the actual amount he promised (I don’t care if when you read the fine print he was technically correct, that was not how the promise was pitched to voters).

Trump is far worse, but let’s not forget how pathetic the Democratic Party is at actually helping desperate people.

Sarcasm or not? Hard to tell

I could not comment as I do not know you, but many people choose nice things like bigger cars, new phone, alcohol and such over quality food. Some however are in a place that they are trapped and have no choice and for those people I have no advice other than to really make some noise and vote accordingly if you are in a country you can.

Worker and renters unions are a good place to start. Talk to your neighbors and coworkers. Join the IWW if you'd like some help

Yes some construction happens. It’s still profitable in some cases, especially when the target market is the richest segments of society.

But there could be so much more. They could build two houses on each of those plots of land, and maybe each house is only $250k but you’ve managed to get $500k of real estate out of the same plot of land which (as any good capitalist will tell you) is better than $400k of real estate.

But you can’t do that. Density restrictions. Zoning laws that are way too narrowly defined, ie bloated, and have long since surpassed the “Don’t boil horse carcasses next to a daycare” sort of scenario by which zoning laws are explained in our history books.

Instead of just protecting public health zoning’s now also protecting people’s views, protecting people’s lawns, protecting people’s resale value on their homes.

Like, oh your view of Mt Shasta got blocked by an apartment building? Gee that sucks but it also doesn’t suck that five hundred new apartments are on the market now, weakening the monopoly some local cartel has on pricing and slowing the rise of rent prices.

We have a sort of overton window in terms of how much construction is “a little” and how much is “a fuckton”. Living our lives in this kind of supply crackdown has calibrated our sense of how much construction is a fuckton.

Just imagine that construction you’re seeing … but twice as tall. Perfectly conceivable, even financially favorable to the people who would make it happen, but literally not allowed.

It’s probably more a tongue in cheek response to the “everything is fine” attitude they seem to have

Nah it's a counter to statements like this: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/28/us/politics/biden-speech-economy-chicago.html

I would be on the same page as you except Biden tried to take a victory lap on the economy. We're in the backlash of that right now. You can tell because they're scrambling to look like they're lowering prices on anything they can.

He didn’t do that, and he hasn’t corrected or even addressed it until campaign year.