"No more talking about the homeless"

[TrainChaser]

Sorry about that old article; I was looking for another one, couldn't find it, and didn't check the date.

Here are the national figures from 2017:  
Vacant residential properties (1 to 4 units):  nearly 1.4 million (1,367,793)   https://www.attomdata.com/news/risk/2017...re-report/

Homeless adults in same period:  553,742 .............. so the ratio is now only ~2.5 vacant homes for every adult homeless person.

Personally, I don't feel that putting the homeless in the vacant homes is the answer.  Somebody would still have to pay, and you know who they are... the working taxpayer.  The last figure I saw was that a single, elderly, homeless person could be put in a small Section 8 apartment, the tenant would have to pay $25/mo and the govt (read: taxpayer) would pay the balance.  Considering the huge number of homeless (and the above figure is really just an estimate) + the number of welfare people already getting this service, this solution seems awfully ridiculous.

If they could just START with providing a vacant patch of land (maybe with a dump station and centralized, non-hookup tap water) on a bus line where vans and RVs could park, it would provide the solution for thousands.  they could even have a common garden to add to the food supply.

Next would be allowing individually owned tiny homes, preferably with space for gardens, either individual or common.  With these, it isn't that the owners can't afford the space and the tiny homes on their own, but the local govts have made them ILLEGAL.  Again, follow the momey.

But politicians and bureaucrats refuse to do anything related to common sense, that will actually solve problems at low cost.  If they can't make money on it (taxes and personal payoffs), they aren't going to do it.  They just keep creating higher-cost problems.  What they don't seem to be considering is that many homeless people actually do have some income -- they just need to have a way to live within it.  I suspect that most vandwellers aren't looking for govt largesse, they just want to be able to make it on their own.