
40M Americans are at risk of eviction without a stimulus bill - LinuxBender
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/07/economy/eviction-stimulus/index.html
======
jetpackjoe
I know "stimulus" is in the CNN title, but I really hate that term.

If the money is going towards rent and necessities, its not stimulus, its a
life-line.

~~~
roenxi
What gets me is surely, _surely_ there is some better solution here than
handing out money to everyone who has a problem.

How many assumptions can be clumped into one headline. Can't let rents drop
under market forces, can't let banks go bankrupt, landlords can't take a hit.
Only the taxpayer can bear these burdens.

This is the part that should really upset the free marketeers. The market
wants to change and CNN wants government to step in and promote stasis. Some
might call it stability.

I don't think people should be out on the street, but someone responsible has
to feel the pain for the mistakes here otherwise the root cause, whatever it
is, will not be fixed.

~~~
CarelessExpert
> Can't let rents drop under market forces, can't let banks go bankrupt,
> landlords can't take a hit.

Sure, that'd be fine (well, it probably wouldn't be, but I'll go with it for
the sake of argument) if we had months or years for the market to react.

But it doesn't work that fast.

By the time rents correct you'll have millions of homeless. But I guess that's
better because... reasons?

> I don't think people should be out on the street, but someone responsible
> has to feel the pain for the mistakes here otherwise the root cause,
> whatever it is, will not be fixed.

Huh?

The root cause is a once in a hundred year pandemic.

What other solution would you propose, other than a time machine?

~~~
roenxi
> if we had months or years for the market to react.

Markets are generally the fastest thing to react to any change in
circumstances. Rents in my area are already 60% of what they were pre-
coronavirus.

The Aspen Institute report is, on the face of it, silly. 40% of renters are
not going to be evicted. That would imply 40% of rental properties sitting
vacant and there is no way landlords would accept that outcome. Landlords
don't want (and probably can't afford) to have large amounts of housing stock
sitting empty.

> By the time rents correct you'll have millions of homeless. But I guess
> that's better because... reasons?

The world has changed. People need to reorganise their lifestyles to cope with
that change. It certainly isn't the governments job to try and maintain a
delusional clinging to lifestyles that don't work any more.

> What other solution would you propose, other than a time machine?

Fixing a root cause doesn't help the current crisis. If I have a step on a
nail then fixing the root cause (putting the nail away) doesn't change the
fact my foot hurts. It helps for the next one; there is no reason to think
this is a 1:100 year pandemic. It is probably a 1:20 or 1:30 year pandemic
conditional on modern air travel [0]. People will need to get used to this
sort of thing.

If you want long term solutions; loose construction requirements that promote
abundant housing, monetary/fiscal policy that promotes low debt loads and high
home ownership. If you want short term solutions; government guarantee of a
place in mass housing (not particularly pleasant conditions, but indoors, safe
& sanitary) + 3 meals a day. People shouldn't be starving on the street but
people need to fund their own lifestyles - not taxpayers.

If you want radical solutions; end the lockdowns and let people work.

[0] [https://ourworldindata.org/tourism](https://ourworldindata.org/tourism)

~~~
justin66
> If you want short term solutions; government guarantee of a place in mass
> housing (not particularly pleasant conditions, but indoors, safe & sanitary)
> + 3 meals a day. People shouldn't be starving on the street but people need
> to fund their own lifestyles - not taxpayers.

Be honest, what you're suggesting has nothing to do with cost effectiveness
for the taxpayer and everything to do with believing that people should be
made to suffer if the "market wants" (a phrase that you used above without any
apparent irony) them to suffer.

It's definitely not about saving the taxpayer money. The $600/month we're
debating in the United States is quite cheap compared to what you suggested.
As a brief exercise in costing out your solution, consider what the government
spends _per day_ putting a person up in a barracks, incarceration facility,
shelter, or literally anywhere at any time.

~~~
roenxi
> It's definitely not about saving the taxpayer money.

Nonsense. And two of your baseline costs (barracks and prisons) are silly
because the cost includes total control over the lives of the people in the
facility.

Take an annual cost of stimulus as $600/mo/person, and the cost of a homeless
shelter as $2,000/mo/person (and that is probably an overestimate). Article
says ~40M people at risk of eviction. That means a shelter plan would have to
absorb more than 14 million people (the population of a large city) without
rents collapsing to an affordable level. Even ignoring the fact that the
renters will be out trying to find profitable ways to contribute to society,
or looking for more rational living arrangements where they can afford it.
There is no way the shelter plan would end up costing more.

The major issues are logistical in nature. I can imagine good arguments that
it is a plan that can't be implemented if it actually turned out 10 million
people needed new homes - but until it becomes impossible to find alternative
shelters it is better to leave the landlords out of pocket. As a starting
point the original alternative of "something has gone wrong, lets pump
unearned money towards landlords" is worse.

> people should be made to suffer if the "market wants"

That is an attack that you cannot support. I've helpfully offered a bunch of
suggestions where nobody has to suffer. Moving home isn't so bad it counts as
suffering.

~~~
justin66
> And two of your baseline costs (barracks and prisons) are silly because the
> cost includes total control over the lives of the people in the facility.

Those were examples, but when I wrote _literally anywhere at any time_ I
meant, think of anyplace where the government puts people up and feeds them -
even just the cost of putting an employee up at a hotel and feeding them for a
day - and use that as your baseline. The government just cannot do this
cheaply, and changing the government so profoundly that this becomes their job
is a weird idea.

Creating a new form of housing for millions of displaced people instead of
simply preventing them from becoming displaced in the first place is
tremendously expensive, immoral, and disruptive. There's just no reason to do
it except sadism.

> I've helpfully offered a bunch of suggestions where nobody has to suffer.

You believe displacing millions of people rather than just giving them the
money they need to make rent is not going to involve suffering. That is not
"helpful," it is delusional.

> Moving home isn't so bad it counts as suffering.

The entire population does not consist of college kids away at school, or
whatever you're fantasizing about.

~~~
roenxi
> Those were examples, but when I wrote literally anywhere at any time I
> meant, think of anyplace where the government puts people up and feeds them
> - even just the cost of putting an employee up at a hotel and feeding them
> for a day - and use that as your baseline.

Hotel accommodation is also silly; that comes with daily sheet cleaning and
such. It'll save you some typing if you stick to relevant examples, is my
point. You've listed 4 so far, 3 of them aren't related to the cost of
providing basic shelter. Amenities are expensive.

> Creating a new form of housing for millions of displaced people instead of
> simply preventing them from becoming displaced in the first place is
> tremendously expensive, immoral, and disruptive.

Expecting taxpayers to swoop in and pay people's rent is also expensive,
immoral, and disruptive. Taxpayers shouldn't be funding something they have no
control over. And as I pointed out and I'm not sure you read, my option is
much cheaper than $600/month/person.

> You believe displacing millions of people rather than just giving them the
> money...

No I don't. I have an encyclopedic knowledge of things I believe and that
isn't something I ascribe to.

> The entire population does not consist of college kids away at school, or
> whatever you're fantasizing about.

That isn't relevant and you are representing that moving houses is an
insufferable hardship. It isn't. I moved house this year, and I'm not even
close to being a college student.

~~~
justin66
> It'll save you some typing if you stick to relevant examples, is my point.

It's telling that you haven't offered any counterexamples, which is
understandable, since the whole idea you've posited that government can do
this cost effectively is just totally absurd.

> Taxpayers shouldn't be funding something they have no control over.

Unsupported dogmatism, and of a silly variety: taxpayers do this all the time.

> And as I pointed out and I'm not sure you read, my option is much cheaper
> than $600/month/person.

You asserted it without offering any real support for it. Congrats.

> Expecting taxpayers to swoop in and pay people's rent is also expensive,
> immoral, and disruptive.

Your calculation about what's least disruptive is completely wrong, so nothing
else you say about this is making any sense.

> That isn't relevant and you are representing that moving houses is an
> insufferable hardship.

 _Becoming homeless_ is quite a hardship, and would be a widespread
consequence if anyone adopted your weird policy ideas.

~~~
roenxi
> ... you haven't offered any counterexamples...

I used $2,000/month/person sheltered for my back-of-the-envelope calculation.
What more do you want?

I'm not disagreeing, the issue is ~75% of your examples are bunk. You havn't
really thought about what you are saying.

------
Mvandenbergh
If you're being evicted, you have a problem. If 40m people are being evicted,
the landlord has a problem.

~~~
rbecker
Really a stimulus is just subsidizing inflated rents. And landlords are using
the threat of mass homelessness to coerce the government into that subsidy.

~~~
steffan
That's a simplistic view that doesn't take into account property prices; not
every landlord has owned property since the beginning of time, taking
advantage of price increases.

Imagine a retired teacher who decides to rent out a garage apartment to
supplement her pension - is she taking advantage of 'inflated rents' if the
rent amount barely covers a proportional amount of the mortgage?

Additionally, landlords have to pay 'inflated property taxes', 'inflated
utilities', and 'inflated garbage service' \- these aren't discretionary costs
for a property owner unless you advocate letting people stay in their
apartments, but without landlord contributions to water, heat, cooling,
garbage.

~~~
nsnick
Retired teachers in San Francisco who own property have either owned it since
the beginning of time, or have an incredibly rich spouse.

------
bzb4
Shouldn’t prices just go down according to basic market rules?

~~~
save_ferris
The issue is that millions are out of work, meaning they have no income and
therefore no way to pay rent. Landlords depend on rental income to meet their
expenses running the property, so they’re faced with either letting people
stay rent-free and losing income, or kicking people out so those who still
have jobs are able to come in.

Rents are coming down, but markets aren’t good at handling major financial
crises like this, and lower rents mean nothing to those who are unemployed and
can’t find work.

------
crims0n
Federal protections expired on July 24th, that means the courts are about to
be hit with 40M eviction cases at once? I can't even begin to imagine how long
it would take to process that through the system.

------
janesvilleseo
Off topic, but the lite version of CNN is a welcomed change. It was so easy to
read. No distractions or funky formatted text.

~~~
frockington1
Such a welcome change from the normal media site. The best part was not having
click bait headlines or ads on the side, made the article feel more authentic.

------
quattrofan
Call me cynical but the fact white voters less badly affected surely must be
in Republican calculations. Trump nonsense on mail-in voting is one thing but
if you've got no address in the first place...

~~~
throwaway0a5e
I think the level of political gamesmanship and "do anything to win" has long
surpassed that point.

I think the people making the decisions for the republican party care far more
about blue ballots than black skin. The fact that blue voters are darker on
average is just a coincidence to them.

~~~
mercer
Why yes, a history of overt racism in the republican party probably just
suddenly disappeared! This stuff by no means lasts a full lifetime or
propagates through generations!

~~~
throwaway0a5e
The other side is always going to have the most racists because the
manifestation of racism in politics is pushing public policy that is bad for
minorities and what is bad for people in general (of which minorities are a
subset) depends on what side you're on.

The racists on the left think that we need to pump minorities full of welfare
and government services in order to better subjugate them for their own
benefit. The non-racists on the left think welfare and whatnot will help those
people.

The racists on the right think that the minorities are a lost cause, dead
weight to society and that we shouldn't waste a penny on them. The non-racists
on the right think that we we got the government out of their business as much
as possible these people would be able to help themselves.

Whichever group of non-racists someone's world view aligns with you will have
a hard time spotting them on your own side because their racism just looks
like good policy and you will see many more on the other side because their
bad policy looks like racism.

The republicans probably do have more racists in their base because they're
the whiter party and for historical "convince the poor white man he's better
than the black man" reasons but IMO when it comes to actually pushing policy
the racist party is whichever one has more policy you think is bad.

~~~
mercer
> The racists on the left think that we need to pump minorities full of
> welfare and government services in order to better subjugate them for their
> own benefit.

I have never once in my life encountered this hypothetical racist leftist, and
a I've met a fair variety of racists. Why would you pick this topic as one to
be a whataboutist about, when it's really not that ambiguous in the current US
political climate.

~~~
throwaway0a5e
>I have never once in my life encountered this hypothetical racist leftist,

If you thought that easy access to welfare was bad for people then you'd have
met a hell of a lot of leftists who want "racist" policy.

My whole point is that one's evaluation of what is and isn't racist policy
(assuming one believes in systemic racism in the first place) is based on what
you consider good. Take a step back. Assume both parties believe that what
they want is good for people and then assess the situation.

I'm not denying that there's racist hicks in the republican base. There's some
racist hicks in the democratic base too (the stereotype of the waspy union
worker who votes a straight blue ticket didn't come from nowhere) though IMO
they're likely smaller in proportion of the party's base.

~~~
handol
> If you thought that easy access to welfare was bad for people then you'd
> have met a hell of a lot of leftists who want "racist" policy.

If you thought water was piss you'd have met a lot of people that like to
drink piss.

