Rents over the last two decades have risen much faster than employee pay, contributing to an escalating homelessness crisis in the U.S.

A growing number of Americans are ending up homeless as soaring rents in recent years squeeze their budgets.

According to a Jan. 25 report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, roughly 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023, up roughly 12% from the same time a year prior and 48% from 2015. That marks the largest single-year increase in the country’s unhoused population on record, Harvard researchers said.

  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
    310·
    10 months ago

    It’s like you think the wider national union wouldn’t bother to help a little group of six tenants. You’re basically arguing we shouldn’t bother with labor unions because not everyone works in a factory.

    If your six neighbors joined a union to collectively bargain, it wouldn’t be a union of six people! You’d just be one small part of the broader union, which has the resources to hire lawyers and pressure the landlord.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      31·
      10 months ago

      How could they help a group of six tenants?

      How could they work with single-occupancy renters?

      What would stop the landlord from just kicking those people out? Do you think people can just refuse to pay rent until their demands are met? Because it doesn’t work like that anywhere.

      You’re basically asking for people to be forcibly dragged out of their homes by cops and then becoming homeless.

      Finally- what have you done about this? Have you unionized any tenants anywhere? Have you risked getting kicked out of your own home? Otherwise, this sounds very much like “some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

          • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
            21·
            10 months ago

            What would stop the landlord from just kicking those people out?

            In California at least, laws.

            And in all the other states?

            I’ll move to each one of them and then report back to you on their laws. IANAL.

            OR, people in those States can push for laws in the same way that those in California did.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
              32·
              10 months ago

              Ah, I see, so if people are able to change laws, they won’t get kicked out and it’s Biden’s fault those laws aren’t changed. Got it.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  12·
                  10 months ago

                  Are you able to talk to people without being rude? Because I just won’t respond to you again if you’re going to talk to me this way.

                  • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
                    21·
                    10 months ago

                    Are you able to talk to people without being rude? Because I just won’t respond to you again if you’re going to talk to me this way.

                    I’ve been nothing but polite. Straightforward, but polite.

                    Be intellectually honest, and answer her questions, in the same way she pointed out to you that she answered your questions, after you challenged her for not answering your questions.

                    Or do you only ask questions and not answer them?

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
        47·
        10 months ago

        When the UAW negotiates for higher wages, that raises wages for everyone else even when they’re un-unionized. A rising tide lifts all boats. That’s how you help single-occupancy renters.

        It would also help if blue states would pass more tenant’s rights laws to keep landlords from evicting people, and Biden could use the bully pulpit to push those forward. You’re seemingly ignoring that we were talking about tenant unions with a national spotlight. Surely you realize that would be different, right? A shitty landlord would get national attention and be forced to bargain by public pressure, and Biden could help. Sure, some landlords would be basically untouchable (single-occupancy renters and such) but enough could be pressured to effect the market.

        All of this is besides the point! I said that Biden could support tenant unions to help fight homelessness and unaffordable rents. Do you disagree with this basic premise?

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
          22·
          10 months ago

          You have not answered any of my questions. I asked you multiple questions and you didn’t answer a single one. Not even the one where I asked you what you personally have done about unionizing renters.

          So I have no idea why you think I would answer your question.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
            37·
            10 months ago

            I did!

            How could they help a group of six tenants?

            How could they work with single-occupancy renters?

            When the UAW negotiates for higher wages, that raises wages for everyone else even when they’re un-unionized. A rising tide lifts all boats. That’s how you help single-occupancy renters.

            And then

            What would stop the landlord from just kicking those people out?

            It would also help if blue states would pass more tenant’s rights laws to keep landlords from evicting people, and Biden could use the bully pulpit to push those forward. You’re seemingly ignoring that we were talking about tenant unions with a national spotlight. Surely you realize that would be different, right? A shitty landlord would get national attention and be forced to bargain by public pressure, and Biden could help. Sure, some landlords would be basically untouchable (single-occupancy renters and such) but enough could be pressured to effect the market.

            And then

            Finally- what have you done about this?

            Now this one I didn’t answer this because it seemed irrelevant. I’m not the god damn president of the United States. That’s what we’re talking about. I don’t matter and trying to drag me in as if I am as responsible for the lack of tenant organizing as Joe Biden is absurd.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
              11·
              10 months ago

              I see. So the responsibility for this rests solely on Biden’s shoulders and you don’t have to do anything but talk about it on the internet. Convenient.