Rising rents and homeless seniorsšŸ˜

fuzzybuddy said:
The reason there are homeless seniors is that they can no longer afford their homes. Rents are increasing well beyond their ability to pay. And the rents are going up is that there is a shortage of housing. It's pure supply and demand. I think it's financially not beneficial for developers to build more housing. The profits from their rentals, they have now, are providing great returns. More housing and those profits disappear. Again, supply and demand. We can't order owners to keep rents low, but we could alter tax laws to make new housing more profitable.
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Personal opinion, but this is the complete opposite of how I think things should go. In the UK we have no-fault eviction. This has led to people being evicted from their homes (some of them have been in the property for ten years or more) simply because the landlord has been told the market rate for their property has increased. Pure capitalism would suggest they're doing nothing wrong.

It's a LACK of regulation that's the issue, imo. Tax second homes more, much more. Cap rent increases in a given year, and more protection for tenants.

We'll see how it plays out. Either way, if you don't know someone affected by this, you likely will in the coming years.
 

hollydolly said:
yes we read about it a lot and see it on Youtbe about the USA . Elderly..mainly women living in Camper vans and cars.... something that doesn't happen here in the UK simply because it's not allowed , not that there isn't homeless seniors....but definitely not on the scale of the USA
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Interesting post. In the US, with a population of over 330 million, we have less than 600,000 homeless. That's 0.18%, and that rate hasn't changed for the past several years. England, on the other hand, has over 200,000 homeless with a population of 67 million, which is a 0.3% rate. So am I misreading something or what?

Homeless in the UK

From the link:
Known as core homelessness, it includes rough sleeping, people living in sheds, garages and other unconventional buildings, sofa surfing, hostels and unsuitable temporary accommodation such as B&Bs.

On any given night, tens of thousands of families and individuals are experiencing the worst forms of homelessness across Great Britain. This includes more than 200,000 households in England alone.

For the last five years, ā€˜coreā€™ homelessness has been rising each year in England. Homelessness reached a peak in 2019, when the numbers of homeless households jumped from 207,600 in 2018 to over 219,000 at the end of 2019.

By the end of 2021, 227,000 households across Britain were experiencing core homelessness. (Source: Heriot Watt University research). If nothing changes, in 2023, 300,000 households could face the worst forms of homelessness. (Source: The Homelessness Monitor Great Britain, 2022)
 

VaughanJB said:
Personal opinion, but this is the complete opposite of how I think things should go. In the UK we have no-fault eviction. This has led to people being evicted from their homes (some of them have been in the property for ten years or more) simply because the landlord has been told the market rate for their property has increased. Pure capitalism would suggest they're doing nothing wrong.

It's a LACK of regulation that's the issue, imo. Tax second homes more, much more. Cap rent increases in a given year, and more protection for tenants.

We'll see how it plays out. Either way, if you don't know someone affected by this, you likely will in the coming years.
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End of no-fault evictions​


Under the new law, landlords would no longer be able to hand a section 21 notice to tenants at the end of a fixed term tenancy or during a periodic tenancy. This would mean that landlords can no longer remove tenants from their properties without cause unless their contract is finished. Tenants will be able to feel secure in their living situation without the worry of a surprise eviction.

Changes to landlord legislation in 2023
 
hollydolly said:

End of no-fault evictions​


Under the new law, landlords would no longer be able to hand a section 21 notice to tenants at the end of a fixed term tenancy or during a periodic tenancy. This would mean that landlords can no longer remove tenants from their properties without cause unless their contract is finished. Tenants will be able to feel secure in their living situation without the worry of a surprise eviction.

Changes to landlord legislation in 2023
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The government announced this wouldn't be going through. The very next day they announced banking bonuses would no longer be limited.
 
Buckeye said:
Interesting post. In the US, with a population of over 330 million, we have less than 600,000 homeless. That's 0.18%, and that rate hasn't changed for the past several years. England, on the other hand, has over 200,000 homeless with a population of 67 million, which is a 0.3% rate. So am I misreading something or what?

Homeless in the UK

From the link:
Known as core homelessness, it includes rough sleeping, people living in sheds, garages and other unconventional buildings, sofa surfing, hostels and unsuitable temporary accommodation such as B&Bs.

On any given night, tens of thousands of families and individuals are experiencing the worst forms of homelessness across Great Britain. This includes more than 200,000 households in England alone.

For the last five years, ā€˜coreā€™ homelessness has been rising each year in England. Homelessness reached a peak in 2019, when the numbers of homeless households jumped from 207,600 in 2018 to over 219,000 at the end of 2019.

By the end of 2021, 227,000 households across Britain were experiencing core homelessness. (Source: Heriot Watt University research). If nothing changes, in 2023, 300,000 households could face the worst forms of homelessness. (Source: The Homelessness Monitor Great Britain, 2022)
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Yes, you're missing something. Aged homeless people are treated - in law - differently from younger homeless. It's not one big pile of homeless, it's homeless, homeless with children, aged. etc. There are special state funded home programs for the elderly.
 
Subject has been repeatedly discussed several times. Below are related posts I've recently made. The actual bad guys are in Wall Street and their university Ivory Towers.

Will our downtowns be ghost towns in another twenty years?

Wall Street financial and real estate corporations and their puppet politicians with endless growth and development including population growth, though their dominant media will point fingers everywhere but at them.

The most serious issue in San Francisco is homelessness and crime, both aggravated by our huge rich to poor wealth gap. A gap that did not exist decades ago when I grew up until politicians embraced a global economy. Both issues that could readily be fixed were it not for entrenched politicians that are controlled by advocates to keep the sad status quo.

The prime reason we have essentially open borders and visa overstays. Visa overstays allows the world's rich to come here, buy our now way over-priced real estate, often pricing out our working class USA citizens, and set up with full documentation extended families no questions asked. At the other end, poor folks from throughout the planet storm through our borders that puts immense pressure on the limited supply of older less expensive housing that our own poor used to mostly live in.

Instead the only housing that is being built by real estate developers is expensive upper middle class housing that our lower and mid working classes are then forced to live in going into monstrous debt because they have no other choice. The immigrating ethnic poor just live densely with multiple families and persons living in homes and apartments meant for far fewer occupants. Our traditional poor just end up in slummy crime ridden areas of cities with many eventually becoming homeless because of too low incomes and an army of Wall Street sub leeches jacking rents up everywhere. Here in California what they have done buying up mobile home parks then jacking up rents, seniors and poor used to live in, is IMO criminal.

Were it not for immigrating poor putting pressure on low end housing most of our mid and lower working classes would choose to spend much less on housing like it used to be. See it is a game and we middle class peons are the stupid gullible prey while they are living the easy life off playing golf at Palm Beach and Palm Springs

How is the migrant crisis where you live?

Decades ago after the 1986 congressional immigration legislation, when California was increasingly overrun by illegal immigration, many pleaded for help from media and political powers in the dominant East to enforce and halt it. Instead they just laughed and made jokes. The primary thing that should have occurred was farm labor legislation to allow foreigners from the south to temporarily enter with controls but economic powers were too greedy allied with Wall Street corporations that also wanted cheap labor for their globalization cost competitive agendas. The result was small businesses and retail chains across the country were destroyed, replaced by all the corporations we now are stuck with. Over years the same excessive flood increasingly occurred in other border states and then the East.

The SFBA is absolutely saturated with immigrants that for a long time now also have the political power to keep it that way. In many areas looking at street signs in foreign languages and those people about on streets, one might think they were in a foreign country. That noted, unlike the way such is framed in the national media, there are still plenty of more conservative zones though a minority, that are scared with many fleeing the state.

There are powerful corporations, political groups, that control media, that understand most Americans don't agree with their open borders, visa overstay agendas, so do every thing they can to deflect and hide that reality by pointing blame elsewhere.

And this comment criticizes the Ivory Tower elites that pushed those multicultural and diversity philosophies that Wall Street follows:

How is the migrant crisis where you live?

Indeed. And citizens in countries across the Western nations are now fighting back against those Ivory Tower elites that pushed those multicultural and diversity philosophies at the behest of economic powers for the sake of their globalization agendas. Controlled legal immigration can be beneficial while excessive uncontrolled immigration brings a list of societal problems...

(More in this post at link.)
 
Buckeye said:
Here in the US we don't keep very good records based on age. Here's what I see in the UK:

The Aging Homeless Population

Homelessness among old people
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I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about.

Social housing here can have wait lists of 10 years or more (hence people are forced to private rentals). But the UK has special housing programs for those aged 55, and then another program for 60 or older. There are groups of homes/apartments that are kept out of the available pool just for people of those age groups. The wait time for those is much much shorter, because fewer qualify.

Not only are there such places, but they have other advantages that can include: Free heating, free washing facilities, free use of fully equipped kitchen, and a TV license fee of Ā£9 per year. They may also include a free "emergency" service, which translates to pull cords that summon the Police or if there is a fire. I could go on. The downside is that the apartments themselves tend to be small, and that's small by UK standards, not US!

It's not perfect, but it's better than youngsters get.
 
VaughanJB said:
I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about.

Social housing here can have wait lists of 10 years or more (hence people are forced to private rentals). But the UK has special housing programs for those aged 55, and then another program for 60 or older. There are groups of homes/apartments that are kept out of the available pool just for people of those age groups. The wait time for those is much much shorter, because fewer qualify.

Not only are there such places, but they have other advantages that can include: Free heating, free washing facilities, free use of fully equipped kitchen, and a TV license fee of Ā£9 per year. They may also include a free "emergency" service, which translates to pull cords that summon the Police or if there is a fire. I could go on. The downside is that the apartments themselves tend to be small, and that's small by UK standards, not US!

It's not perfect, but it's better than youngsters get.
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Wow...that's even news to me. I had no idea...
 
hollydolly said:
Wow...that's even news to me. I had no idea...
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It's all written in the duty of care local authorities have to provide. If you're homeless and aged, you shift up in the list. The places in question tend to be together - so you'll get a block of flats that contain people in their 60's, with no-one younger. This prevents an oldster being housed next to a crack house. Hopefully. :D
 
VaughanJB said:
It's all written in the duty of care local authorities have to provide. If you're homeless and aged, you shift up in the list. The places in question tend to be together - so you'll get a block of flats that contain people in their 60's, with no-one younger. This prevents an oldster being housed next to a crack house. Hopefully. :D
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it's funny you should be saying this because the other day I was watching a video of an older man, and artist , who became homeless after a broken down relationship.. and he was saying that his council...I seem to remember it was Hammersmith & Fulham .. but whoever .. that they just weren't interested in housing him..


 
VaughanJB said:
I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about.

Social housing here can have wait lists of 10 years or more (hence people are forced to private rentals). But the UK has special housing programs for those aged 55, and then another program for 60 or older. There are groups of homes/apartments that are kept out of the available pool just for people of those age groups. The wait time for those is much much shorter, because fewer qualify.

Not only are there such places, but they have other advantages that can include: Free heating, free washing facilities, free use of fully equipped kitchen, and a TV license fee of Ā£9 per year. They may also include a free "emergency" service, which translates to pull cords that summon the Police or if there is a fire. I could go on. The downside is that the apartments themselves tend to be small, and that's small by UK standards, not US!

It's not perfect, but it's better than youngsters get.
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Sounds great, yet the numbers are what they are.....
 
The senior apartments in my area that arenā€™t subsidized based on income, rent for about $2300 a month for a two bedroom and $1800 to $2000 for a one bedroom and most donā€™t have in unit laundries.

I posted a few days ago trying to decide whether to stay in my condo or get a senior apartment. For $2000 a month I can hire someone to do anything I canā€™t do myself!
 
Buckeye said:
Sounds great, yet the numbers are what they are.....
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Sure, nothing is perfect. It's important to not read my comment as though it's a silver bullet. Homelessness is a problem, a big problem, and it's getting bigger every day. I don't mean to suggest each and every aged homeless person can walk into social housing. I'm simply stating that it can be had.

I want to say something about the allocation of social housing in the UK. Emotion plays no part in it. People go to local authorities in tears, with tales of woe, but none of that will count at the end of the day. Local authorities are under a lot of pressure, and they work to the letter of the law. That's it. If you want to get housed, then you have to begin to study, in detail, what the law says, and how it is interpreted local to you. Crying, screaming, swearing, or even being super nice, won't help. They are essentially following a flow chart based on YES/NO criteria. Too few people understand this.

Local Authorities would much rather you go away. They simply don't have the time, and they don't have the housing stock. They will try and block you every step of the way, not because they hate you, but because of these pressures. Which is why knowing what the law is, and how it's applied, is very important. There is a point system assigned to claimants, and you should know - in detail - what those points are, how they are accrued, and what you can do to get more. When going to the Council, only concentrate on those aspects, because ultimately, that's all they're required to do. And trust me, they'll do what they're REQUIRED TO and no more than that.

But I digress, and this only applies in the UK.
 
Rich said:
I'm not really one for conspiracy theories but here goes... It's my opinion that much of this takes place in an effort to create a large, low income work force. It's the only way that so called civilized societies can compete with the growing third world economies. Honestly, if an American or British corporation has to pay a living wage and benefits to each worker how can they compete with third world countries that operate in the "Dickens" times? Low pay, no sick time, no benefits, and if you don't like it you can be replaced. I'm not able to think of another reason why a college education is so expensive in the U.S. It's a way to reserve university level education for the upper class.
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Rich,
You nailed it!
Why else would we be letting in 10s of thousands of illegals with their only contributions being disease, criminals, and some notion of better
lives off the backs of America's own sons and daughters who built this country.

Our kids are being shamelessly cheated by having to struggle.
Homeless is homeless.
It's a mental monster to deal with and still stay focused on learning.
Live in your car for a month and know what these young folks go through.

College is a political hook-up for many. Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, etc.
The rest are supposed to be the leadership we so desperately need.
Now more than ever.
All we get are bean counters, social workers, and no notion of the future.
The "GIMMIE!" culture.
A person needs work and goals to justify their lives for Pete's sake!

I am a post-war kid raised in the 50s, raised middle class.
Survived the 60s and worked all my life in service to others.
Now at 75, it's my turn (finally) to have some modest peace in my final years.
Also a Veteran still helping other Vets.

I am looking for a house to buy.
Fully qualified and funded, it is as tough as looking for a good rental.
There is actually ageist politics at play I am finding.

Vets don't seem to matter anymore either.
(I'm not a battle dog or problematic to anyone!)
But some of my guys are and they traded their souls for OUR freedom.
Guess who left us behind?

Dude, I am still contributing as much as any 50 year old.
Find me a Billionaire looking for housing investments and I will help them design safe
reasonably priced housing without all the hoops and bricks in the road for us that need
safe and consistent housing.
Not all that hard to do.

Thanks for this forum and have a great week-end.
Doc.
 
VaughanJB said:
Capitalism requires an underclass. What we have today is greed, avarice, and plain nastiness.
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Every economic 'ism' that's been attempted so far requires an underclass. Utopian socialism looks good on paper but for it to work, there can be no innate human greed. I wish we could live in a commune environment where everyone in the world contributed gifts and talents and shared the fruits of labor equitably. But we never will.

I think we're reverting to global feudalism regardless of which economic model individual nations started with in the 19th and 20th centuries and I believe it's intentional.
 
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@AnnieA, I'd like to believe if only the Earth's population was much less, under say 1 billion, there would be enough resources on this planet for most people and their governments to be relatively content. Also suspect within the vast Universe, other intelligent entities consider Earth to be a precious paradise for DNA organic life that I hope given wonders science and technology we homo sapiens can some day attain.
 
David777 said:
@AnnieA, I'd like to believe if only the Earth's population was much less, under say 1 billion, there would be enough resources on this planet for most people and their governments to be relatively content. Also suspect within the vast Universe, other intelligent entities consider Earth to be a precious paradise for DNA organic life that I hope given wonders science and technology we homo sapiens can some day attain.
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When in human history has there been global contentment regardless of population? That's why I used the descriptor 'innate' in front of human greed which includes the desire for power and domination in addition to material wealth.
 
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AnnieA said:
Every economic 'ism' that's been attempted so far requires an underclass. Utopian socialism looks good on paper but for it to work, there can be no innate human greed. I wish we could live in a commune environment where everyone in the world contributed gifts and talents and shared the fruits of labor equitably. But we never will.

I think we're reverting to global feudalism regardless of which economic model individual nations started with in the 19th and 20th centuries and I believe it's intentional.
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I have a nasty feeling about the way the world is turning. I think we're headed for some dark dark times. There are 70 countries right now that are on the verge of defaulting on their debt. And then you see whom that money is owed to. China have loaned $1.5tr to 150 countries. Some of those countries also have loans from the IMF. The UK's debt is 98% of GDP - and it's not one of the countries in trouble!

Then there are some other horrid ideas going around. It's headed in the very opposite direction to what you want, I'm afraid. I just want people to have some empathy, and to stop thinking of themselves. To stop assigning blame and sentencing people to an entire lifetime of poverty because they made a mistake or bad choice.

Damn, it's depressing.
 
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