[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?

[kerkeslager]

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

Because landlords are buying up the resources other people need to live and price gouging them.

[diggan]

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

Compassion.

They see someone without a roof over their head, while at the same time seeing agencies/owners owning multiple properties just to enrich themselves.

It's not hard to understand why people are more compassionate towards the people with nothing, compared to how they see the people with a lot.

[hollerith]

Sure, but does it not occur to them that property owners might be performing an important function such that a policy that causes most of them to leave landlording might worsen the situation of homeless people and other poor people?

Suppose the government instituted a rule that applies to any game developer and in particular to the developer's office or whatever structure he likes to be inside when he is developing games or meeting with the other developers working on the same game. The rule says that if the game developer leaves his office and fails to hire a security guard to watch the property, then 72 hours after the game developer's departure, anyone (including career criminals) have a legal right to take over the office (even if the developer's office is his home). Wouldn't that curtail -- possibly severely -- the quantity and the quality of new games developed in whatever jurisdiction the rule applies to? Or at least raise the price of games (to cover the cost of the security guards and to compensate developers for the hassle) with the result that some of the consumers who used to be able to afford to buy video games are now priced out of the market?

[diggan]

> Sure, but does it not occur to them that property owners might be performing an important function such that a policy that causes most of them to leave landlording might worsen the situation of the homeless and other poor people?

Sure, but I think most people feel stronger about helping people at the bottom of society, rather than the ones closer to the top.

Worst case scenario for the homeless, they remain homeless and have lesser life expectancy. Worst case scenario for the landlord with vacant properties losing their vacant properties, less wealth in the future.

> Suppose the government instituted a rule that applies to any game developer and in particular to the [...]

Yes, that'd be a terrible policy. Same if it applied to property. So luckily, there is nothing like that in Spain that works like you described it, regarding properties.

[kerkeslager]

> Sure, but does it not occur to them that property owners might be performing an important function such that a policy that causes most of them to leave landlording might worsen the situation of homeless people and other poor people?

Yes, actually, that did occur to me, and when I put any thought into it at all I realized it made no sense whatsoever.

Owning things is not performing any function whatsoever. Landlords are leeches on society who remove much-needed resources and provide nothing.

Before you make the tired "but they provide homes" argument: no, builders provide homes.

Before you make the tired "but they make repairs" argument: that's a handyman, and a handyman generally does a better job and is not paid anywhere near as much as a landlord.

Before you make the tired "but not everyone can own homes" argument: the reason not everyone can buy homes is that our entire housing structure is based around making short-term home ownership and home ownership for cheaper than rent impossible. If you remove landlords from the equation, those incentives go away.

> Suppose the government instituted a rule that applies to any game developer and in particular to the developer's office or whatever structure he likes to be inside when he is developing games or meeting with the other developers working on the same game. The rule says that if the game developer leaves his office and fails to hire a security guard to watch the property, then 72 hours after the game developer's departure, anyone (including career criminals) have a legal right to take over the office (even if the developer's office is his home). Wouldn't that curtail -- possibly severely -- the quantity and the quality of new games developed in whatever jurisdiction the rule applies to? Or at least raise the price of games (to cover the cost of the security guards and to compensate developers for the hassle) with the result that some of the consumers who used to be able to afford to buy video games are now priced out of the market?

We have an actual reality we can talk about, we don't need bizarre hypothetical scenarios.

Nobody is saying that squatting is the solution we want. What I am saying is that if you refuse to address the actual problem, i.e. you refuse to get rid of landlords, then you can't be surprised when people whose disfranchisement you support decide to find solutions you don't like.

[jjav]

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

> Compassion.

I don't feel like that's the true motivation. Where is the compassion for the middle class worker who can just barely afford some house, just to have it stolen (see parallel threads in this discussion for accounts of that happening) then?

If it was actually compassion, we'd be advocating for the government to provide adequate services to all homeless, paid for by taxes with progressive taxation so the rich also pay into the solution.

> compared to how they see the people with a lot

As noted in parallel comments, the people with a lot are immune from having their property stolen/squatted because they can afford private security measures that make this impossible. The victims here can only be middle class property owners who can't afford private security to watch their property 24x7.

[kerkeslager]

> If it was actually compassion, we'd be advocating for the government to provide adequate services to all homeless, paid for by taxes with progressive taxation so the rich also pay into the solution.

I think that is the solution which pretty much everyone who has compassion for the squatters is advocating for. I'm comfortable saying that almost nobody thinks squatting is a good solution to this problem.

The problem is, providing adequate services to all homeless, paid for by taxes with progressive taxation so the rich also pay into the solution, has to happen first, before you get rid of squatting protections. Because otherwise you're just taking away the bad solution and leaving no solution, for the people most harmed by the current situation. And mysteriously once the squatting protections are gone and property owners' problem is solved, homelessness stops being a conversation until the next time it causes a problem for a rich person.

You're noticeably vague on what you think "adequate services" means. I refuse to be that vague. There is one, and only one, solution to homelessness: homes. Not shelters, homes. Not mental health services (though that would be good, too), homes. Homes: places where you can have privacy and security and pets and the right to decide who gets to enter the space. Services that do not result in homeless people being in homes are not adequate.

Until I see a real solution to homelessness implemented I'm really not interested in solving the problems homelessness causes for better-off people. Solve homelessness, and those problems will likely go away on their own; if not we can talk about it then. But until then, I'm quite okay with society dealing with the ugly consequences of its ugly failure to provide homes for its people.

[diggan]

> I don't feel like that's the true motivation. Where is the compassion for the middle class worker who can just barely afford some house, just to have it stolen (see parallel threads in this discussion for accounts of that happening) then?

If you have someone trying to break into the house you live and stay in, you don't call them "okupas", it's trespassing/breaking and entering. One quick police call and you'll get help to have them thrown out.

The squatting/"okupas" thing is about occupying otherwise vacant properties.

[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.