There are over 15 million empty houses in America, over 5 million of those are in the 50 largest metropolitan areas of the US.
770,000 people were counted as houseless in 2024.
Sure not every house is in great condition, and not every house is in a major city - but there is surely enough that people could use to if not house everyone, at the very least make a huge dent in that figure. The issue is people cannot afford to buy them because housing is seen as an industry not a basic life need.
You know I see this figure a lot, but I wonder how many of these are actually liveable.
My grandfather’s old home is unoccupied, that’s because the roof entirely collapsed. The county refuses to remove it from the property taxes. Based on all available records it’s an unoccupied home, but it’s a total loss in reality.
Maybe, but a local credit union could create the money as a loan and it gets spent into the economy for a socially necessary purpose, which, counter-intuitively, does much more good than volunteers (setting aside the idea that paid workers are more reliable than volunteers). Technical solutions for all our problems already exist, finding them is not the issue, the issue is the political will to enact these ideas, which is just not there as a result of class war (which imo has also created the conditions that you can’t find enough people with the time & money to volunteer for this size task). My 2c.
No, it’s the consequences of capitalism.
There are over 15 million empty houses in America, over 5 million of those are in the 50 largest metropolitan areas of the US.
770,000 people were counted as houseless in 2024.
Sure not every house is in great condition, and not every house is in a major city - but there is surely enough that people could use to if not house everyone, at the very least make a huge dent in that figure. The issue is people cannot afford to buy them because housing is seen as an industry not a basic life need.
Precisely. This is extreme inequity. There are plenty of resources to go around.
The future was stolen.
You know I see this figure a lot, but I wonder how many of these are actually liveable.
My grandfather’s old home is unoccupied, that’s because the roof entirely collapsed. The county refuses to remove it from the property taxes. Based on all available records it’s an unoccupied home, but it’s a total loss in reality.
Who knows, but you only need 5.13% to be in good condition to house everyone.
Plus getting them all up to code is huge job creation, so it’s win-win.
Also many people would volunteer to help restore these places for people’s use if it was actually a legal option.
Maybe, but a local credit union could create the money as a loan and it gets spent into the economy for a socially necessary purpose, which, counter-intuitively, does much more good than volunteers (setting aside the idea that paid workers are more reliable than volunteers). Technical solutions for all our problems already exist, finding them is not the issue, the issue is the political will to enact these ideas, which is just not there as a result of class war (which imo has also created the conditions that you can’t find enough people with the time & money to volunteer for this size task). My 2c.
Oh yeah we certainly have that many homes ready to be occupied tomorrow