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.
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.
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.
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
Then that person shouldn’t be allowed to make any decisions regarding other people
And yet people like that do. Every single day. People like that are the dominant political force in this country.
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.
Yeah it gives me the ick too. But it’s a very good talking point to someone who cares more about shareholder value than human life.
I know someone with moderate substance abuse issues and diagnosed severe mental illness - basically as bad as it gets if left untreated. But she also lives independently and holds down a solid middle class desk job. How? She has rich parents who pay for treatment (individualized psychiatry) and care (housekeeping mostly), as well as an array of friends who help oversee her.
Homelessness is not necessary, even in the most desperate cases. It’s just a question of what we’re willing to pay and how much we’re willing to care.
Yeah, I’m addicted.
Addicted to the good old outdoors.
Ketamine pot, calling the mentally ill kettle black.
It would cost $20 billion to end homelessness in America.
Bullshit. Hope you guys don’t seriously believe this.
Edit: it really underscores the mentality of the community when a straightforward debunking of a false statement has a negative score, lol.
The billionaires of this country could spend 20B a year, every year of their lives, and never run out of money.
Politifact isn’t the end all of fact checking. 20B is in fact the widely cited figure for yearly housing costs if we just paid rent for all homeless people.
We could build social housing to cover the lower end of sector!
It ain’t never gonna happen but that’s purely ruling class decision.
What does it matter about the exact dollar amount? The top 3 wealthiest people in the US could provide housing, sanitation and food for every single homeless person in the US and still be multi-billionaires. It doesn’t matter if the cost of tackling homelessness is $20bn or $200bn, it’s still a fact that a handful of people hoarde enough wealth that they could actually pay to house every single homeless person, and still have millions (if not billions) left over.
Yes, this is a trite example and doesn’t address the systemic failures in healthcare and education that are a major factor in people becoming homeless. But the wealth the ultra-rich hoarde could help with that too.
What does it matter about the exact dollar amount?
If it’s an amount that exceeds the means of the person you’re complaining isn’t paying for it, it’s pretty relevant, don’t you think?
The top 3 wealthiest people in the US could provide housing, sanitation and food for every single homeless person in the US and still be multi-billionaires.
This is literally false. The combined total net worth of the three richest in the US (~$800 billion) is less than the US government spends on welfare EVERY YEAR (over $1 TRILLION), lol.
Hell, even that nonsensical $20 billion figure put forth was ANNUAL, not one-time, so even IF we used that figure for the sake of argument, and even IF you could wave a magic wand and convert all of Musk’s net worth straight into cash 1:1, it STILL would barely last 10 years. Then what?
You have no idea of the magnitude of the cost of solving this problem. Stop writing as if you know what you’re talking about when you obviously don’t.
You uhh aren’t doing yourself any favors trying to compare the entirety of welfare to a fraction of what welfare does and yes an annual 20B is affordable on a national level. Elon’s wealth jumped 170B just since November. He could absolutely afford 20B a year.
You uhh aren’t doing yourself any favors taking that already-debunked 20B figure seriously.
Elon’s wealth jumped 170B just since November.
And a couple of years ago, it shrank by $182 billion.
Stop treating net worth like it’s an amount of cash. It isn’t.
It’s absolutely cash. It’s cash when they want to use it, but not when we want to tax it or talk about using wealth differently in our country? Bullshit. It’s cash.
And you might be surprised to find out politifact is in fact not the arbiter of reality.
It’s cash when they want to use it
When you sell a possession, you can obtain cash in exchange for it. It’s not cash until then–up to that point, it’s only a price tag, a valuation.
And taking out a loan using a possession of yours as collateral isn’t income at all. Loans are not income–you need to pay loans back.
And you might be surprised to find out politifact is in fact not the arbiter of reality.
Until it debunks a claim made by the Other Team, right? That article goes into a lot of detail about how and why the claim is wrong/misleading.
That article goes into a lot of detail well beyond the original claim. Which is why it’s a strawman argument. And Elon used his stocks to buy Twitter. It’s cash.
Stop treating net worth like it’s an amount of cash. It isn’t.
It is literally equivalent amount of cash lol
It is not annual income, but it would support a decade of expenditure for 10 years though, ie enough time to solve the issue.
One billionaire is a price most of are willing to pay too lol
It is literally equivalent amount of cash lol
Cash can’t increase or decrease in quantity without any transaction having happened.
Lemmy dogpiles ad nauseum.
deleted by creator
In short, yes.
See this graph: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-stock-spacex-valuation-xai-neuralink-trump-charts-2024-12
deleted by creator
Funny. So less public health would do what exactly to benefit the homeless/insane?
Somehow I actually yearn for the days of robber barons. At least they found socially productive ways to build monuments to their own vanity. If Musk wants to spend $20 billion to build social housing in cities across the US, I’m not going to complain if he slaps his name on the buildings. At least Carnegie built libraries.
At least Carnegie built libraries.
Who pays for these libraries now?
These owners also build idiotic mansions then taxpayer has to figure how to maintain them.
These are not a win for working class.
It’s because the modern day wealth disparity has no equivalent in human history, at least to my knowledge. Maybe slavery - but they were at least valuable enough to shelter and feed.
Elon Musk shows in this just how much worse he is than robber barons.
I came to say something like this. wow that is it to have the musk centers for american dignity or something.
I cannot explain how disgustingly evil it is to witness the suffering of individuals, whether due to substance abuse, illness, or homelessness, and dismiss it as untruthful.
The numbers to fix homelessness may be controversial, with some sites saying it was 20 billion in 2010 and that’s just to provide vouchers for a year, and some fact checking sites saying it can cost $60 billion in a year.
The primary concern is the actions of a South African billionaire, whose net worth is $350 billion. Instead of recognizing the complexities of a significant social issue, he appears to dehumanize those affected and assigns blame, rather than offering assistance.
What a fucking evil take.
Those numbers all take into account existing housing assistance programs, which are used by mostly non-homeless people.
There are 250k homeless people in the US. For $20B, you could spend $80k per each person. Since many of the homeless are families, that’s enough to buy a small house for each family.
But you still have to keep paying into the existing programs, or more people will become homeless. Compared to a quarter million homeless people, there are 4.5M households using the existing programs.
80k per person gets them a small house? It’d be more than one family to a house and for people without families it would be overcrowded atleast in my area.
You’re assuming buying a house at consumer prices, not government prices. Government already owns a great deal of land, which is one of the most significant costs. Then it’s a matter of just building a modest home, which absolutely can be done for 80k. It would be very small by american gigantic house standards but it would be an actual house, which is infinitely better than no house
While the word is “homeless” the problem is generally not just “lacking a home”. It usually stems from things like inability to work due to severe disability or psychiatric illness, unofficial immigrants struggling to find employment, addiction, abandonment from family, not enough money to retire but unable to work etc.
Like don’t get me wrong giving everyone a home is great. But it won’t magically solve all the problems. And they might not be able to afford maintinance, property tax etc. Also if it’s homelessness due to lack of employment I question whether the 80k home will be anywhere useful for someone to find a job they qualify for, and if it will have any transportation links or anything
Fucking dumbass. 25% of them are kids. Dude is a fucking loser.
As a broad statement it’s dumb, but depending on the city addiction can be a major contribution to the cycle of “homelessness”, especially the more visible populations who have reached peak “fuck it” and have no more cares for societal values or laws… Even if 25% of them are kids, yeah some of those may be hooked on drugs at an early age or be affected by parental/guardian drug abuse.
But ok then… he’s still a billionaire who could definitely spare a good portion of his wealth to improve both situations (homelessness and addiction) but would rather just leverage it to make more and more wealth while pushing policies that actually make life for the average person worse.
At the same time, homelessness and addiction are very much NOT just a throw-money-at-it problem and fucking both would require systemic change over time.
For Elon socially, how much of his wealth is liquid enough to make a difference I don’t know, but I haven’t really heard of him doing ANYTHING particularly altruistic with his money and Id say the changes/logistics required to make this world a better place are probably still a lot more feasible than building a colony on fucking Mars…
He bought and tanked twitter for more than that. I’d say his wealth is more than liquid enough
Bought and tanked Twitter and totally wasn’t funded by people who wanted to see it dead.
Pretty sure that move made him more money than it cost him.
Facebook (and other “Meta” subsidiaries) censored, reddit censored, TikTok on the chopping block…seems like an effective way around the First Amendment, just hijack social media.
Wait, I can’t tell, is Elon talking about himself?
By his own definition, he is homeless, yeah.
deleted by creator
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
They are drug addicts and mentally ill because usa has no safety nets for such people
We were supposed to take care of these people after de-institutionalization. We didn’t.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/special/excerpt.html
We broke the promise and now it is their fault. What a bizarre world we live in.
Republican playbook. Cheat, be an asshole and don’t ever care for anyone else than yourself. Classy and on Brand
People with addiction and mental health issues don’t deserve help or a home then?
