One of the most humane solutions is also the most economically efficient. Early intervention programs like rent/utility assistance are significantly cheaper in the long run than trying to rehabilitate people who have already lost everything and have a litany of health issues because of it. If conservatives really want to save money, they should be embracing "an ounce of prevention saves a pound of cure." Instead, they're stuck in wanting to SEE the desperation before even considering helping. Safety nets are major economic stimulus in the long run because it's much easier to attempt entrepeneurship if you aren't making a life and death gamble. But something tells me the currently wealthy know this and don't want competition popping up.

Then of course we also need to fix affordability issues, because unaffordable necessities put everyone at risk.

My point is that even if you mostly just care about efficient government and economic growth, you should still come to similar conclusions as "bleeding heart liberals." Conservatives don't come to those conclusions not by economic arguments, but because they fail to see the merit of collective problem solving. They want to have their own little castle with all their stuff that they can defend under penalty of death. We pretend the argument is about feasability and cost effectiveness, but the real issue is that they don't think that any proposal that would take anything from them or require giving is an option. That's why you see the economically destitute and ultra wealthy in an unholy alliance. Both of those groups are prone to wanting to circle the wagons and consider only the wellbeing of people in their little circle -- the poor out of desperation, and the wealthy out of possessiveness. Everyone not in their little circle is someone else's problem.

It's not a solution, but as someone who slept in her car in a college parking lot because her father got pissed at her being around his house while queer, it's better than we'd had. I was afraid I would get in trouble for sleeping like that. Mind you, the main reason I couldn't sleep that night was that it was really fucking cold and it's really hard to sleep in a car.

Housing first is the best solution, but we also need humane solutions for short term homelessness. The "I left in the middle of the night and need a few days to get my bearings because things could go any humber of ways" type stuff. Shelters are so intimidating and have a reputation for being hostile to those that need them.

My college had a food bank, and as I think of this, they really could've had a shelter for students as well. Just a few dorm rooms done simple with literature on resources where if you need to stay there a few days you can. Instead I wasn't allowed to sleep on a student's couch for more than two consecutive nights.

10 homes that are each 100 times larger than the average home.

FTFY

Don't call it a crisis, sell it as a new hip lifestyle on social media! #vanlife

College costs are ridiculous.

Student loans are extortionate.

The ROI on the investment is shitty. IOW you get an expensive degree for a job field that doesn’t pay enough to pay for the degree and living expenses.

There’s a big social media anti-college push. Don’t know whether that’s politically motivated/propaganda, just get rich being a tiktokker or something, or a combination of that and all of the above.

they can't afford it and a college education no longer guarantees you a good wage outside of very specialized and difficult fields of study. also fewer and fewer people are prepared for college, as our secondary and primary education systems have gotten worse.

in the 1990s you could major in English from a cheap state school and walk off to a 40K job. You maybe had 5-10K in college debt. in the 2020s you major in English from a top tier school and you're lucky to get a job that pays you 30K a year, if you can find one at all. Your debt is more like 20-40K. This is pretty much true of other majors as well, even basic technical ones.

Meanwhile the COL from the 90s has tripled or quadrupled. So your purchasing power is even effectively been dropped to like 1/6 of what it was in the 90s.

My no name company hires data entry workers for about 45K to start. We only hire people from top tier universities with specialized degrees, and we have an over abundance of applicants, that's why we can be so picky. Our mid tier employes have to have Masters degrees from top 10 uni and are only making 50-60K to start. if you went to a state university we throw your resume in the trash.

yeah this is their solution. not the 'least worst stopgap while we build student affordable housing', this is it.

They already do. Paid parking is a thing in pretty much every city in America. In many places, parking lots are wildly profitable. Each parking spot can often earn upwards of $50 per hour during surges.

Paid parking lots in Dallas average somewhere around $8 per hour. That’s with some people paying like $30 for three hours, or $60 for all-day parking. Assuming a ~50% occupancy (busy during the day, emptier overnight) will have a 100 spot lot taking home around $9600 per day.

That’s a number that many coffee shops and convenience stores could only dream of… And the lot doesn’t even need to worry about things like maintaining inventory or hiring cashiers. Their overhead costs are basically nonexistent. They just plop a sign with a QR code at the entrance for people with Apple/Google Pay, and have an automated card reader for the people who don’t have phones. A pair of minimum wage attendants can watch multiple lots in a few city blocks, golf carting between them every ~20 minutes as they make the rounds to scan license plates and make sure people are paid up. Maybe give the attendant who calls in the most tows an extra vacation day each quarter to keep them “motivated”.

Security cameras make limiting your security liability easy. Hell, in many cases tow truck companies will even pay the owner to be allowed to tow from their lots. Because the tow company makes money every single time they snag a car, so they’ll pay a percentage of that to be allowed to tow cars from their lots. So towing enforcement actually makes you money instead of being an expense.

They already do this? Where do you live with free parking?

A parking spot makes more than I do...

Honestly, a Japanese-style capsule hotel and net cafe would probably do very well in a university environment.

Granted, that's still charging people for homelessness, which doesn't help any of the underlying problems. It's just slightly less dystopian since it's cheap.

I mean yeah, the poverty line is unrealistically low. It’s tied to the average annual price of food, even though food is not a major expense in most impoverished households. Truly broke people are spending like five dollars a day on food, with beans, rice, lentils, bouillon, spices, and whatever else they happen to have available/find on sale in a 20 year old crockpot. Food is a negligible expense when you take the time to prep, and truly impoverished people don’t have a choice. They’re forced to prep, or else they’ll starve.

The other costs, like rent, car payments, utilities, etc., have all massively ballooned in comparison to the price of food. Rent only used to account for ~20% of expenses, but now it often accounts for over 50%… But since the poverty line is tied directly to food, it hasn’t adjusted to maintain a realistic measure of expenses.