silbasa 
Are there any estimates on how many of the homeless in America that would actually be able to live in a home? (Maintenance, running costs and so on.) They seem to be a very troubled group.
Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)
ᎶㄖҜㄩ 乃ㄥ卂匚Ҝ 
Zamasu
@silbasa
I’m not sure exactly, but I’ve heard we could buy a 4(+)-bedroom home for every homeless individual if all we did was cut our current military budget in half.
I’m not sure exactly, but I’ve heard we could buy a 4(+)-bedroom home for every homeless individual if all we did was cut our current military budget in half.
Zincy 
In Vino Veritas
We all subsidize lots of things we don’t see a direct benefit from.
I’d say the solution there would be to also give the lower and lower middle class big breaks as well, and close a lot of the top 10%’s tax loopholes while still persevering the SALT deductions.
There are still a large number of familes that aren’t living like kings and queens that benefit from the SALT deductions.
I try not to think in the “why am I paying…” mentality because of where it can lead. It gives creedence to those who would apply it to stuff like “I live in a wealthy state, why am I subsidizing welfare for those in poor states?”.
The tax code should not have winners and losers, it should be built around whatever helps the most people and does best for our economy.
Dustcan 
Dogs
Thanks, that article is pretty informative.
What I can understand is that SALT is a tax deduction. Raising the cap let’s you deduct more from your taxes. However, as with most things, the rich disproportionately benefit from this cap raise while the poor will see no change whatsoever ($10,000 is just under what you make in a year on minimum wage, total. No way minimum wage workers pay that much in taxes, so they sure don’t benefit). Middle class families are only slightly benefited from this.
So from what I can understand from the article, it’s bull. It’s another way for the rich to cheese out of paying taxes, again foisting the burden onto the lower classes. Another loophole where the “rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer”. I don’t like it, and the fact that it’s the Dems proposing it is disappointing but unsurprising.
According to the brief I linked earlier:
A chronically homeless person costs the tax payer an average of $35,578 per year. Costs on average are reduced by 49.5% when they are placed in supportive housing. Supportive housing costs on average $12,800, making the net savings roughly $4,800 per year.
Background Pony #8FB6
@silbasa
They’re homeless because they don’t have jobs and they can’t get a job because they’re homeless.
They’re homeless because they don’t have jobs and they can’t get a job because they’re homeless.
There have been plenty of experiments and trials of giving homeless people a home: the overwhelming majority go out and get jobs (to pay for amenities and luxury items) and become well adapted productive members of society.
Dustcan
Dogs
Also note that at any given time anywhere from 25-44% of homeless do have a job. They still just can’t afford a house.
An important thing to consider when the “lazy” argument is brought up.
silbasa
Question is how much would there be left of said home after a month? And can a person like this keep up with a home financially speaking? If not then it’s not just giving someone a home, you have to keep them on the dole indefinitely as well and take that into the calculation.
I don’t have any numbers on this for America but from the outside looking in there seems to be a fair number of crazy bag ladies and gentlemen about.
@Background Pony #8FB6
Some are absolutely. What I am curious about is how many are not able to do this.
Some are absolutely. What I am curious about is how many are not able to do this.
Background Pony #C9EE
@Zincy
That’s the kind of thinking that causes our tax code to balloon. The SALT deduction exists to subsidize higher income earners and the state governments they live in. It’s a regressive tax system that people support only because they think it helps them. The solution is to provide tax breaks for everyone else? Why not just lower taxes at that point.
That’s the kind of thinking that causes our tax code to balloon. The SALT deduction exists to subsidize higher income earners and the state governments they live in. It’s a regressive tax system that people support only because they think it helps them. The solution is to provide tax breaks for everyone else? Why not just lower taxes at that point.
If states want to provide additional benefits to their people they should tax the residents to pay for it. It makes no sense that other citizens have to subsidize those programs, this is made doubly worse when the beneficiaries are people already in the middle and high income tax bracket, it’s ridiculous when the person subsidizing it doesn’t even live in the state.
The tax code exists to fund the government and the programs the citizens have decided the government should handle. The SALT deduction is a regressive policy designed to benefit those who don’t need it.
Dustcan
Dogs
That’s a negative stereotype, and one used to demonize the homeless.
And can a person like this keep up with a home financially speaking? If not then it’s not just giving someone a home, you have to keep them on the dole indefinitely as well and take that into the calculation.
Even in this scenario it’s again actually cheaper for the tax payer than letting them stay on the streets.
It took me a while to wrap my head around it too, but by all indications even in the scenario where the homeless are completely subsidized it actually costs me less than if they stayed homeless. Like, studies show our choices are either pay less and people don’t suffer or pay more and people do suffer.
Dustcan
Dogs
Research shows that the homeless are about 4 times more likely to need a hospital visit. More often than not they cannot afford it (TBF, nobody can afford America’s hospital visits). So the tax payer gets the bill when the doctors ask the government to foot the bill.
It’s illegal to be poor. It may not be directly stated in any law but loitering laws, anti vagrancy laws, failure to pay fines etc disproportionately effect the homeless. So they get arrested and go to jail…on the tax payer’s dime. So technically, we are already paying for a roof over their head and food for them to eat. It’s just for expensive For-Profit Prisons instead of in Affordable Housing. Mull on that one for a minute.
Homeless have a higher substance abuse rate than the housed. And the costs of detoxification, when they are able to get in those programs, are again hoisted on the tax payer.
Homeless leave trash. I mean, they don’t have a garbage bin, where are they going to put their trash? So the city has to pay people to clean it the litter. Especially when this gets mixed with the above “criminalization of homelessness” where some cities are paying upwards of $20,000 for special garbage cans that the homeless can’t use. $20k could house almost 2 people for a full year, and instead some cities want to spend that to punish the poor.
Stuff like that. These are the things behind the curtain that is why it’s expensive for the tax payer for someone else to be homeless.
Ebalosus 
Build commie blocks!
I agree with everything you’ve said, and am an advocate of providing public housing to the homeless. The problem is however that too many people and politicians expect bricks-and-mortar to pull double-duty and also solve the homeless drug problem as well. When the “drug-free public housing” for them doesn’t get utilised, many so-called advocates turn around and basically blame the homeless people for not accepting their help, even though bricks-and-mortar aren’t really designed to solve drug abuse.
“B-But if we let them remain on drugs while living there, then all the drug dealers will hang around and make the area less safe!”
Again: how the fuck is that the [public] housing’s fault? Also, isn’t that the same argument for red-lining and denying mortgages to minorities?
YourPalContrail
high altitude cloud pone
Good answer, honestly I think you’re the most good faith person I’ve talked to so far on this forum
I just need to change your mind on Kyle Rittenhouse lol
silbasa
@Ebalosus
How do you solve drug use though? And if you have seen what drug users’ houses look like after a while you know how hopeless it can be to try to house them.
How do you solve drug use though? And if you have seen what drug users’ houses look like after a while you know how hopeless it can be to try to house them.
Having drug users and dealers hanging around in your neighborhood does indeed make it unsafe and crashes property values hard, seen that myself a few times. Whenever the county is about to build new public housing a civil war breaks out in the local papers over their placement.
Up here we put the worst of them in reinforced heated containers in the winter when it’s too cold to be outside with bolted down steel furniture they can’t trash. We can only contain the problem somewhat, not solve it. Extremely hard group to find workable solutions for.
Dustcan
Dogs
Therein lies the stink. It’s easy to focus on the immediate costs in changing something. But it’s difficult to explain the “hidden costs” in something you already have become used to.
Edit: Now that I think of it that’s basically the lesson Applejack had to learn in ‘Applejack’s “Day” Off’. Also, we’re on a site about ponies.
His trial itself has changed my view a lot. Particularly after the witnesses gave different testimony under oath than what they stated a year ago.
But even then that just changed my impression from “Kyle went to Kenosha to find trouble, then made some” to “Kyle went to Kenosha to find trouble, and found some”.
YourPalContrail
high altitude cloud pone
I mean I have made it abundantly clear that I don’t personally think he is a hero, but I don’t think he was looking for trouble; considering the first aid kit and the photos of him giving aid, cleaning graffiti, and defending the dealership.
Background Pony #1F81
I remember hearing a story years ago about a homeless man trying to rob a bank in Portland for $1…
then waiting outside for the police to arrest him just so he could get free healthcare at the police station and have somewhere warm for him to sleep for the night.
That puts a lot of things into perspective.
Background Pony #15B5
A car just plowed through the Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Reports of multiple injuries and gunfire. Mass casualty incident. Police scanner suggests the suspect drove through police barricade and opened fire. The suspects in Waukesha are three black males, one has been detained. At least two people have been confirmed dead so far.
Background Pony #8FB6
@lonewolf
But do you remember why they preferred to be homeless? A lot of shelters force people into rigid schedules that conflict with working hours, and put them at risk of having their only worldly possessions stolen or destroyed.
But do you remember why they preferred to be homeless? A lot of shelters force people into rigid schedules that conflict with working hours, and put them at risk of having their only worldly possessions stolen or destroyed.
Background Pony #8FB6
Background Pony #0101
Deletion reason: Rule #0
Background Pony #0101
@Background Pony #0101
*you’re (Fuck, I hate it whenever I make that stupid mistake.)
*you’re (Fuck, I hate it whenever I make that stupid mistake.)
Interested in advertising on Derpibooru? Click here for information!
Help fund the $15 daily operational cost of Derpibooru - support us financially!