[zpeti]

The title doesn’t make sense at all to me. If the statement was literally true, what would happen to the millions of minimum wage earners? They literally couldn’t afford rent and would be literally living on the street, or in shelters.

And I’m using the word literally literally.

You can make a case for some sort of relative poverty where they find hardship in renting which is absolutely true, but this clickbait title is just bullshit.

Unaffordable means you cannot pay. It doesn’t mean it’s hard to get by.

[II2II]

> Unaffordable means you cannot pay. It doesn’t mean it’s hard to get by.

That statement does not make sense in the case of housing. For most people, housing is their top priority. Not only is shelter a necessity in the survivalist sense, but there are cascading consequences for those who don't have housing. This ranges from it being extraordinarily difficult to secure and maintain employment to driving up the cost for other necessities such as food and clothing.

Put in other terms: if you have the choice between food and housing, your money goes towards housing. Technically speaking, food is more important since it is literally impossible to survive without it. Realistically speaking, food is still available from other sources (e.g. food banks). While there is a loss of dignity, there are fewer cascading consequences.

Even if a person can pay for their housing, I would argue that the word unaffordable still applies when they have to accept handouts for other necessities. I would also go a step further and suggest the unaffordable label applies when it impacts any socially imposed expense that will contribute to a downwards spiral that can lead to homelessness.

[roenxi]

Furthermore, since this article seems to be in support of raising the minimum wage, if there is literally no place to rent then raising the minimum wage doesn't do much. There is literally-literally no marginal housing stock available to rent.

It is like if a merchant has 4 saucepans and 5 people who want to buy a saucepan. It doesn't matter how much money the people have. They cannot all get a saucepan. The housing market is much more complicated by but $15/hr isn't going to fix that sort of problem; if it exists. Where would the extra housing stock for the workers come form?

[ChrisLTD]

Perhaps the title is using the colloquial definition of “unaffordable” rather than the literal? Colloquially, “unaffordable” often means it’s hard to pay for something, not that’s it’s impossible to pay for something.

[dilap]

They live with roomates or they live in vehicles. In the bay area there are tons of beat-up old vans and RVs with people living in them all over the place.