#housing costs

[allthecanadianpolitics]

#submission #canpoli #housing costs #cbc news

[whatbigotspost]

I’m gonna make this its own post bs it’s not nice to keep rambling a tangent on someone else’s post but like. It’s just fully blowing my mind that my shitty $480/month apt in Indianapolis in 2006 is going for like $1500 now.

I always trot that very low rent figure out as a “back in my day” anecdote (where I live now in Austin) bc a similar place would probably go for $2000 here in 2024. And it’s so cuckoo today to hear someone say “my half of the rent in my first apartment was $240.” Like is she 60? Nope she’s not even 40 yet! It’s gotten that bad that fast!!! Haha!

But I didn’t even know the half of it. I’d never done the work to know 1) what those very shitty apts rent for now (and they still exist?!) and 2) what the rent would have been in 2024 if it just kept pace with NORMAL INFLATION ($734) which is already bad in its self.

I mean come on! $1500 is what we’ve got vs $734 which is what one would expect if you could control for the ever escalating greed or corporate profits and the ultra wealthy making a literal killing off of the basic human right of shelter.

To say it’s enraging to think about is my understatement of the week.

#anyway fuck capitalism #Housing costs #landlords are parasites #guillotine dreams

[intersectionalpraxis]

'amazing year for rich people'

the richest people in the world are getting even more richer mostly by hyper-exploiting people in many contexts and despite people struggling to survive and are being starved to their demise we have articles celebrating their wealth...

#feminist #social justice #current events #current news #abolish capitalism #fuck capitalism #taylor swift #celebrity culture #poverty #food poverty #affordable housing #housing costs #housing crisis #capitalism is evil #capitalism kills #capitalism #late stage capitalism

[lilithism1848]

#tweet #communism #anti capitalism #socialism #leftism #anarchy #best of tweets #send tweet #minimum wage #classism #xitter #economics #corporatism #capitalism #wage slavery #housing costs #tiktok #vine #tik toks #social media

[hoorayiread]

Evicted, A Book Review

Has a book ever made you so uncomfortable that you wound up reading faster? Because I read this book in about a week (last year I read 14 books. I'm not one of those Booktok people that reads 5 thousand-page novels a month).

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond is a non-fiction book published in 2016 about the affordable housing crisis. More specifically, it examines the lives of several poor families living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and tells their stories. This book examines how and why people become trapped in cycles of poverty and what constant eviction does to people physically, financially, and psychologically. It also suggests ways our wellfare system could be overhauled to alleviate this.

Time, care, and empathy was put into this research. Desmond made an effort to look at both white and Black families during his project, analyzing the racial discrimination and segregation that is still very much a part of everyday American life. The families in these stories had problems such as drug addictions, criminal records, and a history of poor choices (you know, the kinds of things Fox News likes to rant about), but still portrays them in a sympathetic light. There is one person in this book, Crystal, who was prone to erupting into fits of violence when under exreme stress due to a history of severe childhood trauma. She hurt people, but I still came away from this book firmly believing that she deserved a roof over her head.

One of the chapters that really sticks out in my mind is titled "Lobster on Food Stamps." It tells the story of a poor woman in a trailer park who spent her entire monthly allotment of food stamps on a single, indulgent seafood dinner for one. Stories like this are a very common talking point for political pundits that like to demonize poor people. But Evicted uses this woman's story to explain why this happens: when you are extremely poor, it is next to impossible to dig yourself out no matter how much you save and what choices you make. There is no way out. Genuinely. Indulging will make the pain go away, at least for today. It is, ultimately, a very human choice.

Evicted is a difficult read, emotionally. Every time I sat down to read this thing it was always "Oh, great, Arleen's getting kicked out of another place for some bullshit reason." This isn't a fun book, but it's important. I've also heard good things about Desmond's followup Poverty, by America.

Now, nonfiction can't be spoiled, so let me end this review with the last line of the book:

"No moral code or ethical principal, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become."

#evicted book #book review #read a book #nonfiction #matthew desmond #poverty by america #housing costs #housing is a human right

[kp777]

#homelessness #housing costs #home buying #rental costs

[movingtothefarm]

50 Years of Marriage and Mindfulness With Nena and Robert Thurman

Ms. Thurman had a small inheritance, and the couple bought nine acres on a hill here in Woodstock for $7,000, cleared the land and put up a few tents and a tepee. When the VW Microbus in which they had traveled through India died, it became a planter. Then Dr. Thurman had a commission to translate a Tibetan sutra. He saved $3,000 to build a house, Ms. Thurman said, “which was enough to either hire people and dig a cellar, or buy lumber — we decided to buy the lumber.”

They began with a post-and-beam cabin, sketched out by Dr. Thurman and added to in fits and starts by his children, other family members and graduate students pressed into service over the years. Visiting lamas urged them on. “A triumph of American do-how over know-how,” Ganden Thurman, now the executive director of Tibet House, likes to say. “My father is maybe not a master carpenter. His tendency is to solve problems with a liberal application of force.”

“Why do it right when you can do it yourself?” he likes to tease his father.

Robert Thurman will reply: “Why do it yourself when you can pay someone else to screw it up for you?” - source NYT

#home building #1960's #robert thurman #nena thurman #housing costs #self built

[cultml]

#housing costs

[cazort]

Affordable Housing Is A Problem, But Many People Who Complain About It Are Worsening The Problem

I notice that a lot of people complain about things like being unable to afford rent and housing, even with a full-time job, and I notice a pretty strong pattern: nearly all of these people both live alone, and live in one of the most expensive metro areas.

The frustrating thing to me is that a lot of people living in these areas aren’t even from these areas, so they are moving into them in the spite of the fact that they are overcrowded and expensive, and lack the housing to house all existing residents. This skews the market and is especially hard on lower-income people who are from the area and have strong ties there, because they cannot as easily move (and face the harshest consequences if they do move away), and they are most likely to get screwed as prices go up, facing a lose-lose scenario.

I find it especially frustrating to see people who are more-or-less middle-class to upper-middle-class, complaining about these areas being unaffordable, when they are a large part of the reason that these areas are unaffordable, and when they largely avoid the worst consequences of the increasing costs. I.e. what is a mere inconvenience to them is a crushing burden on lower-income people that destroys their whole community.

I’m not saying these people are solely or even primarily responsible for the problems. Younger people have less money, political power, and overall influence on society than older people, and much of the problem here is caused by bad zoning, selfish developers building more luxury housing instead of affordable housing, and other broken laws and tax policies. And even the upper-middle-class have dramatically less power than the ultra-rich.

But part of the problem is that young adults are still flocking to overpopulated cities in droves, and many of them are insisting on living on their own, often occupying spaces that might otherwise be split or shared by others, effectively monopolizing a scarce resource. A lot of these people, in part because they get more support from their parents (often things people take for granted, like a car their parents bought them, possibly the insurance on that car, possibly being on the parents’ health insurance, and of course their parents’ paying for their college education), pay a greater portion of their income for housing than local low-income people can afford to. These people’s cutoff for “affordable” is entirely different from what “affordable” means to a low-income person with roots in the area. What is “affordable” to a lot of these young people from upper-middle-class backgrounds might be contributing to rapid gentrification that is pushing out lower-income residents.

Some people even subsidize their living in cities through their own savings and/or payments from parents, in order to “get their foot in the door” in particular jobs or scenes. This is especially common in Washington DC’s political scene and various scenes in NYC, and it happens in other expensive cities too. You also see it in neighborhoods directly surrounding colleges and universities that attract a mostly upper-class student body. For example, the neighborhood around the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, which used to be very affordable, has become heavily gentrified, and a large part of this is the flood of wealthy Penn students and recent grads, many of whom are cost-insensitive and pay astronomical asking prices on apartments even if the apartments are pretty crappy, just because they want to live in the area.

And this drives up the cost of living for everyone, including for people who have stronger ties to the area, lower income, and both less ability to move and less ability to afford apartments or homes. In the case of cost-insensitive college students, it also rewards slumlords and selfish developers who essentially are siphoninng money out of the community; the sort of “animal house” / frat party lifestyle plays right into these people’s hands while screwing over everyone else who now needs to put up with the noise and nuisance of these houses, while also dealing with soaring rents.

I really sympathize with people who struggle to make ends meet and who struggle to find affordable housing. But it’s really frustrating to hear people complaining about this who are not only mostly creating their own problem (insisting on living alone after intentionally choosing to move to one of the most expensive metro areas) but who are also contributing to worsening the problem for others.

This may be an unpopular take, but if you are someone who has the means to move and live wherever you want, and you really want to make a difference when it comes to affordable housing, the only responsible choice is to choose to live in a region with a low cost of living and shop around for a market-rate apartment, being as cost-sensitive as the local residents are. Doing anything else means you are contributing to the problem you are complaining about.

#affordable housing #housing costs #housing prices #cost of living #gentrification

[princeshezi03]

Ranking The Most Affordable States For College Students

Tuition Fees

Tuition Fees

Tuition fees vary significantly across states and institutions. Public universities typically offer lower tuition rates for in-state residents, making them more affordable options for local students. However, even out-of-state tuition rates can vary widely, with some states offering reciprocity agreements or tuition waivers to neighboring states or specific demographics. ClickLink

#tuition fees #housing costs #Financial Aid Opportunities

[georgedearing]

“Among the builders surveyed, the average sales price of their single-family homes in 2022 was $644,750 and includes costs for construction, the finished lot, financing, overhead and general expenses, marketing, sales commission, and profit. Total construction costs for the ‘average’ single-family home included in the survey was $392,241.”

#realestate #housing #real estate #housing costs

[facts4u2know]

#housing costs

[marxman1]

In a stark expression of the mounting social crisis confronting the Australian working class, a growing number of people in paid employment are becoming homeless. Workers are increasingly being forced to sleep in their cars, camp in local parks, or couch surf, as a result of the widening chasm between wages and rent prices, and the profound shortage of public and social housing.

#workers struggles #wsws #socialist equality party #iysse #class war #capitalism #australian politics #australia #housing crisis #housing costs #homelessness #workers of the world unite #socialist revolution #socialism #communism #trotskyism #leon trotsky #marxism #karl marx #vladimir lenin

[progressivemillennial]

The path we are on as a country is not sustainable. Either there will be reforms enacted to help people live, or this country will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.

#politics #us politics #progressive #america #affordable housing #housing #housing crisis #housing costs #rent #homelessness #economy

[der-kkrieger]

Is It Expensive to Live in the FL Keys?

Beyond being a vacation destination, some are drawn to the idea of making the Florida Keys their home. However, the question of whether it's expensive to live in the Keys is a crucial consideration. Living in this tropical paradise comes with a unique set of financial dynamics.

The cost of living in the Florida Keys can be higher than the national average, primarily due to factors like housing, transportation, and the overall island lifestyle. The demand for housing, coupled with limited space, can result in higher real estate prices. Additionally, the reliance on imported goods and the need for hurricane-resistant construction contribute to the overall living expenses.

While the cost of living may be higher, many residents find the unique lifestyle, natural beauty, and sense of community in the Florida Keys to be well worth the investment. Those considering a move to the Keys should carefully evaluate their budget, explore housing options, and weigh the intangible benefits of living in this tropical haven.

#Florida #Florida Keys #Tropical Paradise #Housing Costs #Island Lifestyle #Unique Lifestyle #Natural Beauty #lifestyle #travel #journey #traveling #outdoors #aesthetics #mood #places #amazing #beautiful

[muninandhugin]

The housing crisis is real

#adverts #housing #housing crisis #housing costs #tiny house #tiny home #this is so fucking funny #jokes #funny #memes