[dmix]

I'd be happy with just allowing more low/middle-market housing development which is what eventually seeds low income housing. I don't think anyone's calling for more slums but rapidly building houses and less aggressive urban planning is the only way to solve what is easily the #1 social problem here in Canada and many parts of the US/Europe and Australia.

"Slums" in the west are mostly just old apartments that used to be middle class or cheap buildings in less 'desirable' locations. They aren't people living in shacks.

In a housing shortage those old buildings which would normally decline in rent still cost $2000/m in many cities like Toronto due to lack of supply. And no developer can afford all the headaches just to build a new affordable low-rent buildings either.

[throw_m239339]

I have a better idea to solve the western "homeless crisis", tax your salary and capital gains much more to finance affordable public housing construction. That way, nobody dies in some hazardous shack you think should be allowed to be built by slum lords. Done.

Your "solutions" are so cynical you really want homeless people to die.

[dmix]

> tax your salary and capital gains much more to finance affordable public housing construction

I would have taken that position when I was younger so I won't be too critical. But IRL trusting centrists politicians to spend that money properly and actually build mass housing is mostly a pipe dream. They can't even build a single railroad in the country let alone hundreds of thousands of houses in the city proper.

Radicals rarely take government for long... and as long a capitalism is the only true wealth generator for the public I wouldn't gamble on the far-left being the party that achieves that rare feat (absent a dictatorship).

It's easier to just campaign for government to do less instead of more. Just let people build things they need. There's already massive pent up demand and private capital ready to build housing the second government lets them. It doesn't need risky advertising for more taxation.