this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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Economics
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How do policies that would put downward pressure on rent make poor people poorer?
@CrimeDad @Coreidan I don't believe this, but I will give it a go in trying to steelman this argument.
If landlords and real estate developers see a sector specific decrease in returns then they would decrease the capital in the sector and thus decrease the housing units made available for rent.
This theory ignores the real world where developers opted-out of low-income housing in favor of luxury real estate that either remains vacant or unoccupied while the owner uses it as value storage
TIL what steelmanning is.
At the end of the day, I don't think the landlord problem will be fixed by adjusting incentives alone. They have to be combined with a massive project to build lots of publicly owned housing and the supporting infrastructure.
@CrimeDad can I introduce you to Singapore with 80% owned housing units by government
Are there some significant contradictions to their program? I'm not really familiar with Singapore or their housing policies, but it seems like they have a pretty low homelessness rate of 0.02%, which I suppose is a good sign. I know they have a very high population density, so maybe the high portion of government ownership helps with efficiency.
@CrimeDad the low homelessness is due to the highest rate of public housing outside of self-identified socialist countries. The first several decades public housing was primarily for relocated squatters and shanty inhabitants, but since the 1980s they've promoted it for middle class and upper middle class improving the public housing stock.