Shelter is one of the few goods which a society necessarily needs. The alternatives (being homeless) are unacceptable. People give up food, electricity and healthcare before they give up shelter.
It's fine at a micro scale (oceanfront is expensive, but a few blocks away is affordable), but causes incredible problems at a macro scale as the bay area demonstrates (people not able to live within 50+ miles of their support networks). It is VERY hard to uproot an entire life and move to an area where cost of living is lower, especially when you are poor. People in poverty form informal local support networks (neighbors watching kids, friends that can loan you $5 to top up your phone), making it that much harder to move to a lower cost area.
Shelter is one of the few goods which a society necessarily needs. The alternatives (being homeless) are unacceptable. People give up food, electricity and healthcare before they give up shelter.
It's fine at a micro scale (oceanfront is expensive, but a few blocks away is affordable), but causes incredible problems at a macro scale as the bay area demonstrates (people not able to live within 50+ miles of their support networks). It is VERY hard to uproot an entire life and move to an area where cost of living is lower, especially when you are poor. People in poverty form informal local support networks (neighbors watching kids, friends that can loan you $5 to top up your phone), making it that much harder to move to a lower cost area.