or some of us just don't believe it's the government's responsibility to house people.
Every functioning government on earth houses those who aren't capable of taking care of themselves. This isn't a new concept. Unless you also think people with severe physical & mental disabilities like autism and down syndrome should be left to rot on the street, you obviously support some kind of government assistance.
Even if you truly think the government
shouldn't have to support people with housing (housing first policies have been shown to be one of the most successful social policies in the world, allowing people to secure work and provide for themsleves) what do we do with all the people who simply cannot support themselves? Grind them into paste, criminalize and imprison them?
C'mon. Being realistic the government needs to fund social housing programs so people who fall through the cracks don't end up on the street costing us all
more money than just housing them, not to mention the ethical concerns.
Instead we've got a further decaying social safety net, where private developers are forced to pick up the slack in the form of hard working non-profits and we're debating whether it's attractive enough housing to exist.
Now do I think this is a problem that spans wider than housing? Obviously. Knowing many that work in social services, our system, education, support and others allow families and people to fail. Kids don't receive proper education, teens don't have access to mental health supports, and people who are making it by fall into homelessness and can't provide for their kids leading to another generation of people who can't provide for themselves. Our system fails people every step of the way, and the end result is a need to house people, which at least provides them with stability to potentially find a job, have somewhere to sleep, and keep their few belongings.
This is beyond the scope of this thread, but I do hope this development model is successful. It's quite interesting. They are a private REIT looking to build for profit affordable homes. I've reached out to them for more information and I will share what I hear, I'm also interested in potentially investing some money with them to put my money where my mouth is.