[jjav]

> But we are missing half the story if we don't consider the other end of the spectrum

No, not really. Theft is not the answer.

Consider laws restricting how many houses a person can own, or maybe an increasing property tax on each unit. These are good solutions.

Condoning theft has no other side to the story, it's always wrong.

[petre]

> Consider laws restricting how many houses a person can own, or maybe an increasing property tax on each unit. These are good solutions.

So they set up a company and buy the property using the company. Pressure is always the answer, whichever tactics are used.

I understand the issue in Mallorca after visiting Mabella. Also the locals don't have to live on a holiday island, but they can elect pressure the speculators and their clients. Somehow this doesn't happen in Greece.

[maeil]

Until such laws are instated -if they ever are - then "theft" is very much an answer .

I'm sure smarter people than me here can come up with a good number of examples where you would agree that "condoning theft" is a good thing. Such ethical problems are never black and white.

[m000]

> Consider laws restricting how many houses a person can own, or maybe an increasing property tax on each unit. These are good solutions.

Won't somebody please think of the investors? /s

[burnished]

Theft is a violation of property laws. If you recognize that property laws are in some senses arbitrary/designed to fit a purpose (which you seem to, since you are proposing changes to them) then I think you should also recognize that treating theft as a purely black and white topic does not make sense.

Not advocating for the burglary higher up the thread, still a shit thing to do so someone

[noduerme]

Based on your definition, theft of indigenous land would be fine since there were no property laws to violate.

Yet it was not fine.

That's because theft is a violation of universal moral laws. Everyone knows it is wrong. Justifying it is an immoral barbarism.

[Teever]

How do you feel about the freedom to roam that is codified in some areas?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

The concept of property rights is a bit more fluid than you think.

[sheepdestroyer]

"La propriété, c'est le vol." Proudhon : Property is theft.

It's not quite morally universal that a right to unlimited property exists.

[burnished]

I'm curious how you read that as an endorsement for that sort of behavior?

Your 'but indigenous peoples' reeks of point scoring behavior. If you wanted to explore that topic you'd be more specific. If you were engaging in good faith you might assume that I'm generally opposed to genocide. Taking an abstract point about theft and property laws to accuse me of endorsing genocide ('immoral barbarism') is not good behavior.

[noduerme]

I didn't read it as an endorsement of theft, but defining theft as malum prohibitum, contingent on a time, place and legal system, is a flawed argument. Laws can be wrong. But the fact that a bad law or an unjust system bans theft does not make theft ok. Lots of bad laws enable theft (e.g. those enacted as post-justification for land theft), which also doesn't make it ok. No bad law can sanctify what is morally and universally wrong, and no rebellion against a bad law can sanctify it either. When we say a law is bad we mean: There is a larger moral framework in which it is unjust. Therefore the same is true in resisting bad laws: Resistance can't justify morally repugnant behavior. That was the point I was trying to make.

I didn't pick indigenous land theft to score points, but only because it's the most obvious example of some type of unregulated theft still being universally recognizable as wrong - and it's frequently brought up by many of the same people who make the case that other types of theft are in the service of justice.

[kerkeslager]

> No, not really. Theft is not the answer.

Well HN's favored solution seems to be not caring that people are homeless until they start scaring rich people, at which point you lock them up in "mental health" institutions that are less about helping them and more about keeping them away from rich people.

My solution is not letting people own homes they don't live in, but that's going to crash a lot of rich people's investments, so we can't have that. Making sure the rich get richer is apparently more important than meeting citizens' basic needs.

So frankly, theft is the best answer currently available. I'd prefer they stole from the people actually causing the problem, the rich who buy up housing and make it unaffordable. But when they don't, maybe the middle class being stolen from shouldn't be so confused about why that's happening.

Ultimately I'm not sure why you don't have the same moral outrage about rich people buying up people's basic needs and holding them for ransom so they can get richer, as you do about poor people stealing to meet their basic needs.

[jjav]

> I'd prefer they stole from the people actually causing the problem, the rich who buy up housing and make it unaffordable.

If you actually want to protest the system this is what you should do.

Go occupy the vacant summer homes of rich politicians and CEOs.

[kerkeslager]

I think people angry about squatters are thinking that squatters are squatting for political reasons, because for people angry about squatters, this is a political issue.

For squatters, this isn't primarily a political issue, it's primarily a survival issue.

Squatting in the summer house of a CEO does solve your survival need for shelter, but it leaves a bunch of your other survival needs unmet because you're far away from, for example, grocery stores, and don't have the resources that the CEO has to have staff deliver and prepare your food. So I'd guess that's why squatters aren't targeting these properties.

The narrative that squatters are being disingenuous about their political beliefs because they squat the wrong homes is really just a tool to paint squatters as disingenuous political activists. The reality is that while squatters might hold political beliefs, few people would choose to squat if they had other housing options. It's not a secure housing situation. Most squatters are squatting out of necessity not political motivations.

[jjav]

> So I'd guess that's why squatters aren't targeting these properties.

The primary reason they won't target homes of the rich or well connected is because they can afford to be in areas with private security that will make any squatting attempts a complete non-starter.

Thus squatters can only harm the middle class homeowner who can't afford such protection measures.

[thegrim33]

> The reality is that while squatters might hold political beliefs, few people would choose to squat if they had other housing options

Here in Seattle, time and time again, studies are done which show the majority of homeless, when offered shelter, turn it down and prefer to live on the streets. Which seems to completely contradict your claim that they would make use of housing options.

Maybe Seattle homeless are different than your homeless. I don't know why that'd be the case. The same people with the same political ideologies blame the cause of it on the same things, in both places, at least.

https://komonews.com/news/project-seattle/many-homeless-peop...

https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-city-council-wants-d...

https://www.seattlepi.com/homeless_in_seattle/article/A-lot-...

[MrJohz]

Interestingly, they've found the opposite effect in a number of places in Europe, which suggests that the Seattle homeless population really are quite different, or that there's something odd in how these sorts of policies are being implemented in Seattle. I suspect the latter: you're talking about temporary shelter accommodation, but the policy of Housing First is to give homeless people permanent flats and houses of their own. I can understand why people would not be interested in the former but would accept the latter.

See for example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First https://thebetter.news/housing-first-finland-homelessness/

[kjkjadksj]

There’s also the fact that compared to Europe, you can do quite a bit of hard drugs in public in Seattle and not really have a cop go after you over it. This also precludes shelters, since accepting the offer of shelter probably means accepting withdraw symptoms as well since you aren’t allowed to do drugs there.

[petre]

Maybe the shelter comes with strings attached, like no booze on the premisses. This is a nonstarter for people living on the street where they can freely drink booze.

[dpig_]

"We offered housing to people with complex pyscho-social circumstances on the condition that they will stop having those circumstances. And yet they continued to have them - this was unacceptable."

[southerntofu]

At least here in France, the "housing" they offer is just a mattress in a huge room with no intimacy and dangerous people around. Most homeless people are skeptical at first, but after getting robbed/assaulted they certainly will refuse temporary housing for the rest of their life.

If the authorities really cared about the homeless, they would requisition empty dwellings and assign them individually so people have a proper home to rebuild their life.

[hollerith]

Why would you want the authorities to requisition dwellings when they could buy them instead?

What is it about this issue that makes so many people wish to treat landlords harshly?

[mrgoldenbrown]

Being offered one night in a shelter that won't let you and your wife sleep in the same room is not a good faith example of being offered housing. It's not at all surprising that people prefer living on the streets to sleeping in a crappy shelter.

[kerkeslager]

> > The reality is that while squatters might hold political beliefs, few people would choose to squat if they had other housing options

> Here in Seattle, time and time again, studies are done which show the majority of homeless, when offered shelter, turn it down and prefer to live on the streets. Which seems to completely contradict your claim that they would make use of housing options.

Shelters aren't homes.

Can they store their things there and reasonably expect they won't be stolen? Can they have pets? Can they have privacy?

Would you stay in a homeless shelter? I mean, come on. The fact that anyone at all says yes to staying in these places shows just how bad staying on the streets is.

[chipdart]

> Well HN's favored solution seems to be not caring that people are homeless (...)

I think you're not realizing that "homeless" and "okupas" are completely separate problems, and "okupas" in Spain are typically criminal organizations dedicated to pulling extortion schemes.

I'm talking about lawyer-types riding in BMWs which get a hold of indigents to invade a space, and proceed to demand "compensation" from property owners to "convince" said indigents to walk out.

This is not new or rare. It's a Spanish twist on the old protection rackets, and one which only exists because useful idiots convinced themselves that siding with organized crime networks is somehow benefiting society.