Originally posted by Great King Rat That's all a bit simplistic.
A "house" has to have certain standards, for the safety of the inhabitants and the safety of those around it. Think of gas pipes and the like.
A "home" is first and foremost defined by the area. You can't just point to an area and call that your home. No-one wants to wake up one morning and see a construction resembl ...[text shortened]... they chose to be. Many are homeless because they couldn't quite take care of themselves.
I've watched video of police rousting people from the unapproved "homes" which happen to be cardboard boxes, placed in public areas.
A "house" has to have certain standards,
Who sets those standards, and by what right, so long as the housing doesn't present a danger to others? Watch "The Last Alaskans" and see that most of those cabins would not meet most building codes in the lower 48. On the other hand, those living in them are perfectly happy with their homes.
Originally posted by normbenign You bring up an interesting issue. Often people living in the Arctic have rather primitive housing, as do some living in crates in warmer climates. How do we define "homelessness"? Does a home have to meet some standard set by others? For hundreds of years, native Americans lived in tents and considered them home. Now many live in run down mobile homes. W ...[text shortened]... t is really homeless, and isn't what people choose to provide for themselves their own business?
The type of housing that is suitable and decent is always going to reflect the times (pointing to the use of tents by native Americans in the historic past is silly) and the environment (rural and urban environments are different, arctic and temperate and tropical climates provoke different requirements, etc). It is the duty of each community to devise its own responsible housing policies. The result is their shared responsibility. The concept of housing that is decent and affordable is not at all an unworkable one and many countries do very well for their populations. The US is not one of them.
What housing people choose to provide for themselves is an economic decision. At a social level, housing conditions reflect public policies. At the individual level, those in poverty are unable to obtain decent housing and settle for what they can get. To then point at the housing conditions of the poor and declare that this represents their choice is on the one hand an empty tautology and at the same time it is also plain sneering. Evidence of market failure in housing is plentiful. So too is evidence of a failure by government to meet the needs of its less affluent people. Abandoned by the market and by their governments, we can expect the poor to be badly housed. And we can expect the comfortably off to sneer and moralise at their expense - so much simpler than developing a more equitable society.
Originally posted by normbenign I've watched video of police rousting people from the unapproved "homes" which happen to be cardboard boxes, placed in public areas.
[b]A "house" has to have certain standards,
Who sets those standards, and by what right, so long as the housing doesn't present a danger to others? Watch "The Last Alaskans" and see that most of those cabins woul ...[text shortened]... s in the lower 48. On the other hand, those living in them are perfectly happy with their homes.[/b]
The law sets those standards, via standard legal mechanisms. There are certain laws that must be obeyed for a structure to legally count as a residence.
Kill the homeless? Really?
03 Oct '15 18:01
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