[Newlaptop]

> housing that is income or means tested

Hasn't means tested social welfare basically been proven to be bad in every way, regardless of political or economic belief system used to analyze it?

There are lots of positive things that can be done to improve affordable housing - removing impediments to housing density like allowing multiple units on a lot, increasing building height limits, removing parking spot requirements, removing requirements for extra staircases, lowering property taxes, and removing bureaucratic approvals that are full of secret bribery and favortism.

But just stealing money from one set of people to give someone else below-market rent doesn't fix the systemic issues at all, and creates perverse incentives where people are locked into semi-poverty to keep their means tested housing.

Society is not made better by someone refusing a higher-paying job because it would mean they no longer qualified for their apartment.

[toomuchtodo]

If you think taxes are stealing, versus financial contribution for being allowed to capture value or maintain ownership of wealth (whether inherited or aggregated), middle ground is unlikely to be found. I like taxes, with them I buy civilization. Vienna is a public housing model shown to work [1].

[1] HN Search: vienna housing - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[nradov]

Taxes aren't theft. But there's an enormous difference between paying for things like law enforcement and public sanitation versus subsidizing housing in desirable areas for politically favored groups. And if we want certain people to be able to live in certain places then it would be more efficient to both give them cash handouts and remove restrictions on new construction instead of artificially distorting the housing market.