Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by kerkeslager 463 days ago
Solving homelessness is actually pretty easy. You just build a bunch of homes and give them to people. That's it. It would be a fraction of the US budget and any of the top 10 richest people in the US could solve it and still be in the top 20.

The problem isn't that it's hard, it's that solving homelessness would undermine a lot of systems that keep rich people rich and powerful people powerful. Fear of homelessness is one of the main reasons people are willing to work in substandard conditions for substandard pay. An artificial scarcity of homes is what keeps housing prices inflated and rent seeking profitable. Homelessness exists not because it's hard to solve, but because there's a strong will not to solve it.