Do you believe that everyone deserves housing?

VintageBetter

VintageBetter

Member
Open discussion and not posted to argue.

I believe basic, semi-permanent housing, meaning a room plus access to a shower and a toilet, are a basic human right. Many states say "shelter" is good enough for the homeless, but they do not define shelter at all. It can mean anything from a tent to a giant warehouse filled with bunk beds and bed bugs. Shelter can mean there are no working showers.

What do you think? Do even the lowest of the low deserve to have the right to take a shower everyday and sleep in a bed, with walls and a roof?

Especially galling in our society is how prisoners have rights to all these things: roof, matress, food, showers, toilets. But the homeless do not.
 

I believe it is a human right to have affordable housing for every one.
Australia signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1973. It was ratified in 1975.
This stated, The right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions.

As with many of these proclamations, they look good on paper, but don't expect them to be put into practice
 

I never thought I would live to see a time in this area when people would have to live
in a tent. I believe everyone deserves to have a roof over their head, food, bathroom and be warm
in winter. If people have an addiction or mental health issue they should have access to health care.
Unfortunately none of those are available without a long wait if ever.
It is sad to see this situation in my country.
 
VintageBetter said:
Open discussion and not posted to argue.

I believe basic, semi-permanent housing, meaning a room plus access to a shower and a toilet, are a basic human right. Many states say "shelter" is good enough for the homeless, but they do not define shelter at all. It can mean anything from a tent to a giant warehouse filled with bunk beds and bed bugs. Shelter can mean there are no working showers.

What do you think? Do even the lowest of the low deserve to have the right to take a shower everyday and sleep in a bed, with walls and a roof?

Especially galling in our society is how prisoners have rights to all these things: roof, matress, food, showers, toilets. But the homeless do not.
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I completely agree.
 
rgp said:
I agree ........ so long as they can afford it. If not ......... get a job.

This country cannot afford to enable every one who chooses to take no responsibility for themselves and refuses to work.
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Of course there are those who through no fault of their own can't work or afford their own property and they deserve help... BUT, we can't afford to support all those who think that the world owes them a living without them having to lift a finger to provide for themselves.
 
I don't believe it's a "human right" at all. Sure I would like to see everyone have safe harbor, and would like to see those with more help those with less but you can't force participation.

Do I have an answer? Nope. It's much to complex of an issue for any simple solution.
 
VintageBetter said:
What do you think? Do even the lowest of the low deserve to have the right to take a shower everyday and sleep in a bed, with walls and a roof?
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A shower every day?

I can only draw from experiences of my younger days hopping boxcars

Wrote about it

an excerpt;

Houston
late 60s
A couple doors down was the Sally, or Salvation Army mission. There were rules there.
Had to be in at a certain time.
Had to check yer bag behind the counter.
Had to sit through a sermon to eat.
Had to go to bed at lights out.
Couldn’t keep your clothes on in bed, even though it was a good chance someone else would be wearing them in the morning.
Had to be out at a certain time.
But it was a step up from the under the bridge hotel.
Around the corner was the Bayou Theater….fifty cents and you can watch five old run movies…and stay out of the cold or heat when pushed out of the mission. You did have to put up with the clientele however, and a commentary throughout the show, ‘Hey that’s Robert Taylor!’…..’No s***’…..’shut the hell up!’

Then across the square was home sweet home.
The Standard Hotel.
$1.25 a night or $5 a week…a five day week.
It was a converted warehouse of a thousand partitioned ‘rooms’, 8 x 4 rooms. The cots had some sort of linen and thin blanket. Not sure what color anything was, because they all had their very own 20 watt light strung to the middle, hanging from who knows where.
It was enough to scatter a few hundred exoskeletal friends. I remember my first night, thought I had a brown comforter.
The end of each hall had a wash tub with sometimes warm water, along with a toilet..usually flushable…sometimes clogged…but always caressing a brown flaky crust.
But hey, you could stash your belongings.
I pulled my duffel bag from under my cot and tossed myself atop.
Staring at the ghost of a ceiling, I let my mind drift through the past.....
 
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In response to @Gary O' last post... I ran away from home age 16 after the latest beating.... with no clear idea of where I was going to end up.. and no real money except really enough for a train ticket. I got off where the ticket took me, and long story short ended up in the Salvation Army hostel in a city in Scotland..

They put me through a huge question and answer situ as to why I was there and why they should house me.. and I was ordered to sign on at the Social security office so they would pay for my lodgings.

The Hostel was for women only.. even mothers with children altho' when I was there there was only one women with a child, everyone else were lone women escaping something. ...mainly abusive men..

I was the youngest as was my friend who came along with me.. and tbh.. we didn't have to sit through any Bible thumping sermons at all.. not even on a Sunday much less before eating..

We were allowed to take as many baths as we wanted.. there was no showers..

Our bed was clean, in a tiny cubicle each .. with one small bedside cabinet..

We got 2 plain meals per day... which we had to queue up for .. but was very adequate at least for MY needs.. maybe not for some, but I had grown up half starved anyway, so anything on a plate filled me up..

there was also a large common sitting room area, quite stark and in need of decoration, but clean with carpet on the floor and old sofas..... with a television, and a record player and radio there .. not many people used it .. but we did sometimes..


The place was run by Salvation army officers. headed by a female Brigadier.. and woe betide anyone who had to face her for any transgression.. and all of the officer were aloof.. , but all in all it was an easy place to live, as long as we didn't bring any problems to their door.. and I will be forever grateful to them for allowing me a place to live as a youngster facing the streets as my only other option..
 
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C50 said:
I don't believe it's a "human right" at all. Sure I would like to see everyone have safe harbor, and would like to see those with more help those with less but you can't force participation.
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I'd like to add a little bit to this thought... you're absolutely right. I did a short stint with crisis counseling and while everyone *should* have that place to stay, shower, etc. it's incorrect to assume they all WANT it... so when you say "you can't force participation," that's exactly the problem.

I was always shocked at the number of homeless people who did not want to stay at a shelter. Did not want help. I've seen police officers offer to take people to a place to stay whether it was a shelter or other places offering a roof, food, and shower. More often than you'd believe, they simply wouldn't go. Human right or not, it's not so cut and dried as to think it's what they all want.
 
CallMeKate said:
while everyone *should* have that place to stay, shower, etc. it's incorrect to assume they all WANT it... so when you say "you can't force participation," that's exactly the problem.
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I've been told countless times by people I know that I'm kind & compassionate, and maybe I like to accept that. Yet, Kate, a surprising number of times I've come across that sort of independent "free-spiritedness", if we can call it that. No desire to work at a job (at least not for more than a few days, and maybe years ago), and no desire to be cared for any government system.

That's not a characterization that I presume fits all homeless people, but it does for some.
 
VintageBetter said:
Especially galling in our society is how prisoners have rights to all these things: roof, matress, food, showers, toilets. But the homeless do not.
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While working in the county jails, some of my co-workers wanted to limit the inmates access to toilet paper. Really??? My thought: we all gotta work here under the same roof, yuh sure ya want inmates to have less than clean hind quarters? The Captain squashed that idea.
 
Is this about a moral "right" or a legal "right"?

Morally it would be nice to think our society would provide the kind of housing the Op describes. That hasn't happened & is never likely to.

Legally is a whole other situation. To provide that taxes would have to be used. That would put quite a burden on this group.
U.S. households that paid no income tax 2022, by income level
Published by Statista Research Department, Nov 23, 2023
In total, about 59.9 percent of U.S. households paid income tax in 2022. The remaining 40.1 percent of households paid no individual income tax. In that same year, about 47.1 percent of U.S. households with an income between 40,000 and 50,000 U.S. dollars paid no individual income taxes.

Households paying no income tax by income level U.S. 2022 | Statista.
 
Knight said:
To provide that taxes would have to be used. That would put quite a burden on this group.
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Why do you presume that all taxes should be borne by households ie hourly workers?

"The top corporate tax rate in the U.S. fell from a high of 53% in 1942 to a maximum of 38% in 1993, which remained in effect until 2018, although corporations in the top bracket were taxed at a rate of 35% between 1993 and 2017.[31]

After the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, on December 20, 2017, the corporate tax rate changed to a flat 21%, starting January 1, 2018.[32]"


Not only have corp tax rates fallen, there are 1000's of pages of loopholes to be exploited as well.

"At least 55 of the largest corporations in America paid no federal corporate income taxes in their most recent fiscal year despite enjoying substantial pretax profits in the United States. This continues a decades-long trend of corporate tax avoidance by the biggest U.S. corporations, and it appears to be the product of long-standing tax breaks preserved or expanded by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) as well as the CARES Act tax breaks enacted in the spring of 2020."

Read it and weep
 

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