Over 11,000,000 homes lie empty across Europe – enough to house all of the continent's homeless twi - Polidicks

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;44023159]Sounds good. In the long run such a system could also benefit if the homeless group were to find jobs, and just rent the building at the normal price.[/QUOTE] Yeah, until those homes get absolutely wrecked.

[QUOTE=joost1120;44022673]Actually, they throw it away because they're products that might actually be perished and not safe to eat. Stuff like old bread is still given to the homeless. source: I work at a supermarket and am pretty much in charge of throwing shit away at the end of the day.[/QUOTE] Also because they are incompetent; [url]http://www.businessinsider.com/india-malnutrition-a-story-of-rotting-crops-and-rotten-bureaucracy-2012-7[/url] [editline]23rd February 2014[/editline] [img]http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4ff1bc8cecad044877000006-480/india-grain.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;44021709]I'll be the first one to say this without caring: Apartments and Project Duplexs are fucking stupid. Housing needs to be done with houses, and some minor property(at the very least a 3.5 meter by 5 meter back yard/front yard), this allows for someone to feel like they can at least live a semi-healthy life, and give a good upbringing to children they have brought into the world. Another method is to also provide that these yards must be catered for with some method of farming. I'd actually like to say that should be made law to a certain degree. Everyone should have a farm or garden of some sort in their backyard, or some method of food, product, or otherwise growth. If you have the land given to you, use it.[/QUOTE] Your post is ignorant and has rustled my jimmies I grew up in an apartment but had literally miles of fields five minutes away from me, just because someone lives in a flat doesn't mean they don't have any room for anything. This idea is also dumb because it would instantly complicate a city infrastructure, imagine turning every apartment in New York into a house? :v: Also houses are expensive as hell, I'd rather take a larger apartment than a house any day. And all of that aside, the US covers 9.83 million square kilometers (or 3.79 million square miles) thinking of Europe itself, my country covers 20,273 square kilometers (or 7,827 squares miles), Luxembourg covers 2,586 square kilometres (998 square miles). If we wanted to have your little suburb land we would run out of room :v:

[QUOTE] Also houses are expensive as hell, I'd rather take a larger apartment than a house any day.[/QUOTE] TOTALLY relative.

[QUOTE=Cutthecrap;44025861]TOTALLY relative.[/QUOTE] That's true. Houses where I live are noticeably more expensive than in the US, but there is a significant difference in quality as well. Either way, the idea of everyone having to own a house+some lawn everywhere is stupid beyond just the idea of cost.

They should just do what I did when I was homeless, find one of these empty houses and move in anyway

[QUOTE=Chaoss86;44026821]They should just do what I did when I was homeless, find one of these empty houses and move in anyway[/QUOTE] Congratulations, you have no respect for other people's property (AKA also a fundamental human right) The reason people like my parents are investing in second homes is because there is literally nothing else to invest in right now, and keeping money on a bank account is frustratingly bad. The intrest rates right now don't even cover inflation. See the catch 22 we're in? The government keeps telling us to spend spend spend, but we can't just start buying shit for the fun of it. So we try to find property to buy somewhere, something that has value that won't go away, and if we're lucky we rent it to someone. But anything is better than letting money go to waste on a bank account.

[QUOTE=SIRIUS;44023003]when is this whole "market recovery" going to happen, and how? [editline]24th February 2014[/editline] TBH I think food and housing should be a right[/QUOTE] That's cool, but people shouldn't be stripped of their assets like that for a couple of reasons, one of them being a lot of people would lose all/a lot of their money and could possibly become homeless, so really you're just feeding back into the problem.

It's fucking ridiculous here in Luxembourg, estate agents and other proprietors of real estate just keep the house empty in order to wait until the prices climb higher and then sell/rent them for ridiculous prices. It create a bubble of artificial estate prices and I do hope that it bursts someday because it's nigh impossible to get a decent flat around here for a normal price.

[QUOTE]See the catch 22 we're in? The government keeps telling us to spend spend spend, but we can't just start buying shit for the fun of it. So we try to find property to buy somewhere, something that has value that won't go away, and if we're lucky we rent it to someone. But anything is better than letting money go to waste on a bank account.[/QUOTE] Folks who have enough money to afford second homes usually don't stockpile their money in savings accounts at their local banks. I also want to add a supplemental link: [URL="http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-most-expensive-wasteland-1515270764"]http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-most-expensive-wasteland-1515270764[/URL] These people do more harm to the economy than squatters. Like Junker said, they create housing bubbles, displace renters, strain the infrastructure, etc.

[QUOTE=avincent;44023414]Yea I'm pretty sure the stench of homeless person would cost more than $100 a month to get rid of. No thanks.[/QUOTE] How is someone living in a house going to have the stench of a homeless person?

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;44024172]And get arrested as soon as the property owner finds out theirs squats in his or her property.[/QUOTE] Squatters do have certain rights in a lot of countries meaning that it can be a matter of months or years to evict them if they are taking care of the property and not doing damage.

[QUOTE=wooletang;44023113]Okay, so how about this: Government does not purchase the houses, instead it offers to pay a very small (50-100 dollars/month) amount of money to the homeowner in exchange for the homeless to live in it. These people then have a place to live, and they are required to keep the house in livable conditions. The owner is then able to get money from the property, but not as much as they would get if there were full-time tenants or purchasers living in it, but it gives them a way to make a family sleep indoors without having more shelters or something built.[/QUOTE] This is more or less the norm in most of Europe, but the government usually pays a bit more relative to the market rate than your example afaik, or just builds homes/flats. It's certainly inconvenient to not have enough money to pay rent - you don't get benefits for unlimited price/size appartments, so you can't choose out of all regions. If you're in the country legally you aren't forced to be homeless though, unless you absolutely want to live in a certain area. (Example: Some students at this university sleep in caravans close-by, I assume it's because there are close to no unoccupied flats anywhere nearby.) As the article states many of them are in (possibly derelict) holiday resorts, which would put them a) somewhere with terrible infrastructure and business and b) in an area with probably close to no homeless, in case there are any not-by-choice in the first place. Europe is really dense compared to the USA, but that doesn't mean there aren't places where houses are absolutely not needed or areas with really long commutes for almost any kind of job. I assume both of this is the case for most of the ones in question, they probably are somewhere no-one in their right mind would move if they didn't own a car. (Especially since if someone built a house because it was "a good investment" but chose the land it's on for price and not location it's probably really awful to actually live there.)

[QUOTE=wooletang;44023113]Okay, so how about this: Government does not purchase the houses, instead it offers to pay a very small (50-100 dollars/month) amount of money to the homeowner in exchange for the homeless to live in it. These people then have a place to live, and they are required to keep the house in livable conditions. The owner is then able to get money from the property, but not as much as they would get if there were full-time tenants or purchasers living in it, but it gives them a way to make a family sleep indoors without having more shelters or something built.[/QUOTE] 50-100 a month won't cover running costs. Hell 200 wouldn't for a house. You'd be looking at much higher rents to just cover costs really. Not to mention the problem with properties and the homeless is that there's a very high chance of the formerly homeless person not taking the right care of the property either which would require the owner sink in even more costs to renovate it later. And again, the problem you're facing is that most of those homes are holiday or weekend places essentially. They are far from everything.

[QUOTE=Laserbeams;44021601]Yeah. People spent money building these homes and expect something in return[/QUOTE] This. Calling greed right away isn't quite right. Nothing's for free.

Why not a basic upkeep program? Sort of like half way homes, except the homeless person is expected to vacate reasonably soon after someone steps in to buy the property? That way the home is maintained, and the homeless person doesn't need to pay rent. It sounds logical to me, everyone wins, nothing is just simply given away. Edit- Damn, someone got here first. Good idea, regardless.

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;44021889]Socialism and Capitalism swim in the same river in my eyes. Without good public health, you cannot have a population to consume products. Likewise most attempts at socialism or communism have tended to end with a government oligarchy.[/QUOTE] How dare you mix capitalism with socialism. Can't you see that capitalism is killing everyone? Personally, everything should be free because rights.