[Suchard]

Ok bro, when the revolution comes, you can round me up with all the social democrats and shoot me in the back of the head.

Social Democrats, unlike you, would not die to keep capitalism. In Spain, the death of Franco brought about a revolutionary change in what was a police state but no-one was shot in the back of the head. Reason and democracy prevailed thanks to Spanish socialists and King Juan Carlos who had been put in place to be a fascist monarch but chose otherwise. Franco turned in his grave literally. His putrid remains were dug up from his grave in the national war dead cemetery by the socialist government and given to his family to bury elsewhere.

[noemon]

Somehow they did not have any money for these big government spending programs. They have money for bailing out Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo and etc or this or that. But money for infrastructure and education and public health and so on? NO. They waited for a damn pandemic and massive problems before pulling out the bucks to get things working again. It goes to show it is ALL lack of political will.

Hating on socialism but when they realize it is spending on the nation's needs or it goes under? Magically the bucks show up. Get the damn Republicans out of the power seats....and the problems improve. Get the damn conservative element out of the power situation forever because they SUCK.

They found the will now and that is what is important, also Trump played his own role by focusing Democrat minds on what is important instead of what is convenient.

[Julian658]

Then the guy goes to a mental institute. I am just telling you how it is. You trash your home for no reason at all you get evicted even under Socialism.

I like that bro.

You won't get a bloody maid. But given we have a homeless crisis going on today within Capitalism I am surprised you care so much for the drug addicts on the streets today. Can I take it you will be homing them in your house? Besides, the people that you described as being on drugs with sever mental issues that they will destroy their own home for no reason at all are so small in numbers you have to be clutching at straws to even bring this up.

In America the homeless are growing in cities that are left wing. The American left wing tends to be a social justice warrior with a bleeding heart. So they give a lot of freebies to the homeless. So what is the end result? MOre homeless!!!! I rather like your tough approach! In America the tough approach is mostly practiced by the right.

[Suchard]

The way that society deals with mental illness and drug abuse is also very revealing about class differences:

The rich can pay for treatment and care. The poor get the police called on them.

Most Americans would disagree with you and accuse you of being a bleeding heart liberal but you are correct. Being in a minority does not mean you are mistaken.

[Rancid]

Social Democrats, unlike you, would not die to keep capitalism

When did I say I would die for capitalism?

I'm guessing you are in your early 20s. There's a certain hubris that's loaded into each of your posts.

[Pants-of-dog]

Nitpicking? Come on, I'm correcting you on the actual facts. It's a fact that the US has a public healthcare system.

I do agree with some of your points, though. But there are many nuances to consider, especially in healthcare. There's a fair amount of countries with mixed public and private healthcare systems (such as Germany and all those with a Bismarck model), but which overall work better than the US.

The issue with the US is that you have 4 systems coexisting at once: You have Medicare and Medicaid (2 different forms of national health insurance), you have the VA system (a NHS-style system for war veterans), you have a Bismarckian system (for the other insured workers) and you have something akin to free market too (for people who are willing to pay and those uninsured uncovered by Medicaid). And, on top of that, healthcare itself seems to be really expensive, since the US is usually the first adopter of new treatments. And thus, you end up with a healthcare spending that is equivalent to over 5 times the total spending on defense (half and half between private and public).

Honestly, if the US just picked one of the first 3 it would already be a massive improvement. The Bismarckian system (i.e. like Germany's) seems like the most logical and acceptable choice, and I don't think anyone would claim Germany's healthcare sucks. But even a NHS-style system would be an improvement in many ways, as long as a private option exists for people unwilling to wait to be attended for free exists.

My point was that the US is missing out on these programs because they have been tarred with the pejorative label of “socialist”.

And the study quoted in the article makes no reference to how much rent increases and creating condos would have forced out low income renters if there had not been rent control. It seems to assume there would have been zero.

It depends on the government I guess.

Not really no.

There are certain levels of quality that are industry standards depending on use.

So, you have industrial, residential, commercial, and institutional. Institutional buildings are generally higher quality for the reasons given above.

You could take the NYC disaster as an example of a public housing system that sucks in terms of maintenance and quality:

https://nypost.com/2018/07/02/nycha-rep ... 8-billion/

Please quote the relevant text. Thanks.

Also, how does the assignment of people to units work at your location in Canada? How do they deal with an excess demand?

I have no idea since I have not worked in housing since moving here.

Previously, I worked for Indigenous communities, who have been undergoing a housing crisis for decades now.

[wat0n]

My point was that the US is missing out on these programs because they have been tarred with the pejorative label of “socialist”.

Indeed, I agree with that. It's ridiculous that even the German or the Chilean systems would be labeled as "socialist"

And the study quoted in the article makes no reference to how much rent increases and creating condos would have forced out low income renters if there had not been rent control. It seems to assume there would have been zero.

You have to read further above, but it actually compares it to an estimate of how they would have developed had no rent control been applied. To quote from it:

Diamond, McQuade, and Qian (2018) (DMQ) examine the consequences of an expansion of rent control on renters, landlords, and the housing market that resulted from a unique 1994 local San Francisco ballot initiative. In 1979, San Francisco imposed rent control on all standing buildings with five or more apartments. Rent control in San Francisco consists of regulated rent increases, linked to the CPI, within a tenancy, but no price regulation between tenants. New construction was exempt from rent control, since legislators did not want to discourage new development. Smaller multi-family buildings were exempt from this 1979 law change since they were viewed as more “mom and pop” ventures, and did not have market power over rents.

This exemption was lifted by a 1994 San Francisco ballot initiative. Proponents of the initiative argued that small multi-family housing was now primarily owned by large businesses and should face the same rent control of large multi-family housing. Since the initial 1979 rent control law only impacted properties built from 1979 and earlier, the removal of the small multi-family exemption also only affected properties built 1979 and earlier. This led to a differential expansion in rent control in 1994 based on whether the small multi-family housing was built prior to or post 1980—a policy experiment where otherwise similar housing was treated differently by the law.

To examine rent control’s effects on tenant migration and neighborhood choices, DMQ examine panel data that provides address-level migration decisions and housing characteristics for the majority of adults living in San Francisco in the early 1990s. This allows them to define a treatment group of renters who lived in small multi-family apartment buildings built prior to 1980 and a control group of renters living in small multi-family housing built between 1980 and 1990. Their data allows them to follow each of these groups over time up until the present, regardless of where they migrate.

The control group would correspond to buildings built before 1980. The treated group (which were slapped with new rent controls) corresponds to comparable buildings built after 1980, which were not subject to rent control until 1994. The post-treatment period is after 1994, the pre-treatment period is before 1994.

You can check the paper out here:

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10. ... r.20181289

Not really no.

There are certain levels of quality that are industry standards depending on use.

So, you have industrial, residential, commercial, and institutional. Institutional buildings are generally higher quality for the reasons given above.

I mean, the maintenance effort does depend on the government at hand and how good of a landlord it is.

Please quote the relevant text. Thanks.

Already embroiled in a scandal after being forced to admit that as many as 820 public housing kids were poisoned by lead, the de Blasio administration on Monday was hit with the bill to fix everything else crumbling in the city’s housing projects — nearly $32 billion.

That’s almost double the $16.6 billion estimate from the New York City Housing Authority’s 2011 assessment of its 326 developments citywide, which are now 60 years old on average.

But in announcing the tab, NYCHA officials also admitted they are a little short of cash — some $24.9 billion short, to be precise.

“The clear implication is that not everything that NYCHA wants to do, ought to do — has a resource base to accomplish all of that,” said Stanley Brezenoff, who Mayor de Blasio brought in as interim chair of the embattled Housing Authority in April.

“We can’t escape the enormity of the number or the enormity of the unmet gap in the funding,” the longtime City Hall fixer said, adding: “It is a call to action, a call to prioritizing.”

The repair bill ballooned, he said, because older buildings need more maintenance, many of the projects identified in the 2011 assessment were never funded and labor costs ballooned because of the construction boom across the city.

The new assessment, completed in March, found that, among other outlays, NYCHA needs $5.6 billion to fix kitchens and bathrooms; $2.9 billion for apartment floors; $3.1 billion to repair mechanicals like boilers, pipes and radiators; and $1.5 billion to fix elevators.

...

There was a bit of good news: NYCHA officials said they now plan to have their roof replacements done by 2025, five years earlier than scheduled.

De Blasio dodged reporters Monday — opting for a non-confrontational call-in to NY1 before he headed off to a July 4 family vacation.

But the stakes for fixing New York’s crumbling public housing could not be higher.

More than 400,000 New Yorkers live in NYCHA’s 2,413 buildings and many have endured horrific conditions — like freezing temperatures because of boiler failures, roach and rodent infestations, and widespread mold problems.

The $32 billion shock came as questions mounted over City Hall’s failure to disclose that the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found 820 positive lead tests from children living in NYCHA homes between 2012 and 2016.

The children tested positive for amounts of lead above what the Centers for Disease Control considers safe, but below the level would require that the Health Department inspect the child’s home.

I wonder if a private landlord would be able to get away with something like that, to be honest.

I have no idea since I have not worked in housing since moving here.

Previously, I worked for Indigenous communities, who have been undergoing a housing crisis for decades now.

That's fair. I think it's relevant, because another issue deals with the fairness of such assignment.

[Pants-of-dog]

Indeed, I agree with that. It's ridiculous that even the German or the Chilean systems would be labeled as "socialist"

And continuing with the logic, young people today can see that these are not scary and extreme ideas, but instead seem to make economic sense.

And so they come to accept ideas that they have always thought of as socialist.

You have to read further above, but it actually compares it to an estimate of how they would have developed had no rent control been applied. To quote from it:

The control group would correspond to buildings built before 1980. The treated group (which were slapped with new rent controls) corresponds to comparable buildings built after 1980, which were not subject to rent control until 1994. The post-treatment period is after 1994, the pre-treatment period is before 1994.

You can check the paper out here:

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10. ... r.20181289

Thanks for the link to the actual paper.

Like many of these cases, the article is not perfectly honest about the findings of the study.

Apparently, these drawbacks are not actually measured. Instead, they are based on certain assumptions. This is why they are described as “likely”.

On the other hand, this same study finds clear and definite advantages to rent comtrol.

To examine rent control’s effects on tenant migration and neighborhood choices, we make use of new panel data which provide address-level migration decisions and housing characteristics for the majority of adults living in San Francisco in the early 1990s. This allows us to define our treatment group as renters who lived in small multi-family apartment buildings built prior to 1980 and our control group as renters living in small multi-family housing built between 1980 and 1990. Using our data, we can follow each of these groups over time up until the present, regardless of where they migrate.
We find that between five and ten years after the law change, the beneficiaries of rent control are, on average, 3.5 percentage points more likely to still remain at their 1994 address relative to the control group. Since only 18 percent of the con- trol group still remained at their 1994 address for this long, this estimate represents a 19.4 percent increase in not moving (3.5/18) relative to the control group. We further find that the beneficiaries are 4.5 percentage points more likely to remain in San Francisco relative to the control group, indicating that a large share of the renters who remained at their 1994 address due to rent control would have left San Francisco had they not been covered by rent control. This would likely be viewed as a desirable outcome by rent control advocates.
We next analyze treatment effect heterogeneity along a number of dimensions. We first find that our estimated effects are significantly stronger among older house- holds and among households that have already spent a number of years at their address prior to treatment. This is consistent with the idea that both of these popu- lations are less likely to experience personal shocks requiring them to change resi- dence and thus, are better able to take advantage of the potential savings offered by rent control.
We then examine whether the effects we estimate vary across racial groups. We do not directly observe race in our data, so we use an imputation procedure based on renters’ names and addresses.2 We find rent control has an especially large impact on preventing the displacement of racial minorities from San Francisco, suggesting that rent control helps to foster the racial diversity of San Francisco, at least among the initial cohort of renters covered by the law.
Finally, we analyze whether rent control enables tenants to live in neighborhoods with better amenities. One might expect neighborhoods with the largest increases in market prices and amenities would be ones where tenants would remain in their rent-controlled apartments the longest, since their outside options in the neighbor- hood would be especially expensive. However, for these same reasons, landlords in these high-rent, high-amenity neighborhoods would have large incentives to remove tenants.3 They then could either reset rents to market rates with a new tenant or rede- velop the building as condos or new construction, both of which are exempt from rent control. These landlord incentives would push rent control tenants out of the nicest neighborhoods. In fact, we find the landlords’ incentives appear to dominate. The average tenant treated by rent control lives in a census tract with worse observ- able amenities, as measured by the census tract’s median household income, share of the population with a college degree, median house value, and share unemployed.

The only definite and verified negative impact is that rent controlled properties are not in the richest neighborhoods, but that is not government intervention but simply rich people refusing to allow rent controlled housing in rich neighborhoods.

I mean, the maintenance effort does depend on the government at hand and how good of a landlord it is.

Well, you do not seem to disagree with the financial incentives that I laid out, so I assume that you agree that all other things being equal, governments would provide higher quality housing than private markets.


I wonder if a private landlord would be able to get away with something like that, to be honest.
[/quote]

You mean, having unsafe amounts of lead in the house? Yes, almost certainly.

That's fair. I think it's relevant, because another issue deals with the fairness of such assignment.

Capitalism decides that the highest bidder gets to live there and everyone else can be homeless.

If you think that is “fairer”, then this apparently subjective tangent is resolved.

[wat0n]

And continuing with the logic, young people today can see that these are not scary and extreme ideas, but instead seem to make economic sense.

And so they come to accept ideas that they have always thought of as socialist.

...But that are not.

Thanks for the link to the actual paper.

Like many of these cases, the article is not perfectly honest about the findings of the study.

Apparently, these drawbacks are not actually measured. Instead, they are based on certain assumptions. This is why they are described as “likely”.

On the other hand, this same study finds clear and definite advantages to rent comtrol.

To examine rent control’s effects on tenant migration and neighborhood choices, we make use of new panel data which provide address-level migration decisions and housing characteristics for the majority of adults living in San Francisco in the early 1990s. This allows us to define our treatment group as renters who lived in small multi-family apartment buildings built prior to 1980 and our control group as renters living in small multi-family housing built between 1980 and 1990. Using our data, we can follow each of these groups over time up until the present, regardless of where they migrate.
We find that between five and ten years after the law change, the beneficiaries of rent control are, on average, 3.5 percentage points more likely to still remain at their 1994 address relative to the control group. Since only 18 percent of the con- trol group still remained at their 1994 address for this long, this estimate represents a 19.4 percent increase in not moving (3.5/18) relative to the control group. We further find that the beneficiaries are 4.5 percentage points more likely to remain in San Francisco relative to the control group, indicating that a large share of the renters who remained at their 1994 address due to rent control would have left San Francisco had they not been covered by rent control. This would likely be viewed as a desirable outcome by rent control advocates.
We next analyze treatment effect heterogeneity along a number of dimensions. We first find that our estimated effects are significantly stronger among older house- holds and among households that have already spent a number of years at their address prior to treatment. This is consistent with the idea that both of these popu- lations are less likely to experience personal shocks requiring them to change resi- dence and thus, are better able to take advantage of the potential savings offered by rent control.
We then examine whether the effects we estimate vary across racial groups. We do not directly observe race in our data, so we use an imputation procedure based on renters’ names and addresses.2 We find rent control has an especially large impact on preventing the displacement of racial minorities from San Francisco, suggesting that rent control helps to foster the racial diversity of San Francisco, at least among the initial cohort of renters covered by the law.
Finally, we analyze whether rent control enables tenants to live in neighborhoods with better amenities. One might expect neighborhoods with the largest increases in market prices and amenities would be ones where tenants would remain in their rent-controlled apartments the longest, since their outside options in the neighbor- hood would be especially expensive. However, for these same reasons, landlords in these high-rent, high-amenity neighborhoods would have large incentives to remove tenants.3 They then could either reset rents to market rates with a new tenant or rede- velop the building as condos or new construction, both of which are exempt from rent control. These landlord incentives would push rent control tenants out of the nicest neighborhoods. In fact, we find the landlords’ incentives appear to dominate. The average tenant treated by rent control lives in a census tract with worse observ- able amenities, as measured by the census tract’s median household income, share of the population with a college degree, median house value, and share unemployed.

The only definite and verified negative impact is that rent controlled properties are not in the richest neighborhoods, but that is not government intervention but simply rich people refusing to allow rent controlled housing in rich neighborhoods.

That's a pretty interesting read of the paper. Don't you think that finding landlords of the rent controlled properties would tend to evict the tenants (by paying them off or through other means) to redevelop them and market them at higher rents (i.e. so the control doesn't quite apply) is a fairly relevant result?

That's particularly true when considering that someone born when this regulation went into effect would be 27 years old now.

Well, you do not seem to disagree with the financial incentives that I laid out, so I assume that you agree that all other things being equal, governments would provide higher quality housing than private markets.

What does "other things equal" mean in this case?

I would say that, quite possibly, enforcement of regulation is not equal between both. Particularly when the same institution is both the landlord and the regulator.

You mean, having unsafe amounts of lead in the house? Yes, almost certainly.

...Along with crumbling roofs, non-existent maintenance, heat that tends to go out of commission during winter cold snaps...

Capitalism decides that the highest bidder gets to live there and everyone else can be homeless.

If you think that is “fairer”, then this apparently subjective tangent is resolved.

Well, it's fairer than what? That's exactly the point. I'd say it's fairer than having the government redline them like before the Civil Rights Act in the US. It's fairer than giving controlled rents to the well-connected politically.

Just to provide a couple of examples. I don't think one should assume the government will automatically be fairer than the cold market mechanism.

[jimjam]

Here is a typical socialist in Portland, Maine free loading on government provided space

[B0ycey]

In America the homeless are growing in cities that are left wing. The American left wing tends to be a social justice warrior with a bleeding heart. So they give a lot of freebies to the homeless. So what is the end result? MOre homeless!! I rather like your tough approach! In America the tough approach is mostly practiced by the right.

It is funny you have an impression on the homeless, but have you ever spoken to them? I only ask because I was an envoy for Shelter (a UK charity) so I have. Most homeless people get onto drugs because they are homeless, not the other way round. Biggest cause of homelessness from my experience is family breakdown. Second reason debt arrears. Third reason and perhaps the harshest of all, private tenants evicts them and there are no social homes available at the time to rehouse them. Drugs, you know what, that NEVER came up.

Most homeless people do want a roof over their heads and will do anything for it. A FEW choose to remain homeless but what can you do. I saw NOBODY that would just destroy their home if they were provide one because they were mentally ill. So yes, anyone who is given a home and just destroys it should just be evicted because a home is your responsibility and there are people who would look after it in your place. So don't pigeon hole homeless people because you have no clue what you are talking about.

Housing should be a right given to everyone. If the private sector cannot build enough homes or worse makes the ones it has unaffordable, then we need to look back into history and see what works. Post WW2 there was a need to build homes so we built prefabs. Then we built social housing and then homelessness wasn't a pandemic like it is now. Then we stopped building social housing and homelessness becomes a pandemic again. That tells me the reason why we have a problem right there. Not enough homes for demand. Housing left to the free market doesn't work. It makes no sense for a landlord to increase his portfolio stock given he can charge more rent for high demand. So it is a moral duty for a government to focus on creating social housing projects actually.

[Julian658]

Here is a typical socialist in Portland, Maine free loading on government provided space

Yep, looks like a socialist. I do not blame him; if I was in the gutter I would be a socialist too. What do I have to lose?

Why is homelessness greater in cities that are controlled by the left?

[B0ycey]

Why is homelessness greater in cities that are controlled by the left?

Because they are desirable cities to live in. But the Democrats aren't on the left and just as reliant to their sponsors like the Republicans are. And as such they also haven't addressed the housing issues being homelessness remains an issue for them perhaps?

[Julian658]

It is funny you have an impression on the homeless, but have you ever spoken to them? I only ask because I was an envoy for Shelter (a UK charity) so I have. Most homeless people get onto drugs because they are homeless, not the other way round. Biggest cause of homelessness from my experience is family breakdown. Second reason debt arrears. Third reason and perhaps the harshest of all, private tenants evicts them and there are no social homes available at the time to rehouse them. Drugs, you know what, that NEVER came up.

Most homeless people do want a roof over their heads and will do anything for it. A FEW choose to remain homeless but what can you do. I saw NOBODY that would just destroy their home if they were provide one because they were mentally ill. So yes, anyone who is given a home and just destroys it should just be evicted because a home is your responsibility and there are people who would look after it in your place. So don't pigeon hole homeless people because you have no clue what you are talking about.

Housing should be a right given to everyone. If the private sector cannot build enough homes or worse makes the ones it has unaffordable, then we need to look back into history and see what works. Post WW2 there was a need to build homes so we built prefabs. Then we built social housing and then homelessness wasn't a pandemic like it is now. Then we stopped building social housing and homelessness becomes a pandemic again. That tells me the reason why we have a problem right there. Not enough homes for demand. Housing left to the free market doesn't work. It makes no sense for a landlord to increase his portfolio stock given he can charge more rent for high demand. So it is a moral duty for a government to focus on creating social housing projects actually.

Last time I was in San Francisco to visit my son I came in contact with the homeless. We were walking downtown to a restaurant and were approached by them every 1-2 minutes asking for money. Within a short time I witnessed public urination. We had to be careful as there was human poop all over the sidewalk. The homeless that approached us were aggressive and belligerent.

Yes, the most common cause of homelessness is the breakdown of the family. In my case I would never allow a family member to be homeless and I am certain my family would not allow me going homeless.

Why is the family broken? You can thank the left for that as they don’t give a shit about family values which in America is a conservative thing. You could try and warehouse these people and that would only save a minority.

My approach is different. Don’t make it so easy to be homeless. Stop providing so much and their numbers will dwindle. Do not allow them on the street. Round them up every night and put them in detention centers in the country side.

I am certain some are legit homeless and would selectively help them. Those that are drug addicts and bums would get nothing.

[Julian658]

Because they are desirable cities to live in. But the Democrats aren't on the left and just as reliant to their sponsors like the Republicans are. And as such they also haven't addressed the housing issues being homelessness remains an issue for them perhaps?

Those cities have been under the control of left wing democrats for many decades. They are known as bleeding hearts and have slowly destroyed the character of those cities by tolerating the problem. They are creating a dystopian world.

[B0ycey]

Those cities have been under the control of left wing democrats for many decades. They are known as bleeding hearts and have slowly destroy the character of those cities by tolerating the problem. They are creating a dystopian world.

And yet everyone still wants to live in California and not Alabama? Funny that.

American politics is a funny debate for me. Democrats would be on the right of the Conservative party in the UK. I don't see them supporting Social policies and Sanders, perhaps the only left leaning Senator is actually an Independent in any case. But we have to believe the the Democrats are a Socialist party. Ehhhh no! They are as Capitalist as the Republicans and perhaps marginally better than them in terms of social justice. If California in particular hasn't addressed the housing crisis, it is perhaps because their sponsors have interest with real-estate in California. Same is true for New York. That is why nothing gets done in America. That is why there is a wealth divide. You have a two party system that are basically the same party run by the same lobbyists so you get the same out come every single election. The only difference between the two parties is one is run by loonies and the other by career politicians. Don't look at the Democrats and think that is Socialism - or even Social Democracy. If there is failings in blue states, that comes down to Capitalism AGAIN!

[Godstud]

Those cities have been under the control of left wing democrats for many decades. They are known as bleeding hearts and have slowly destroy the character of those cities by tolerating the problem. They are creating a dystopian world.

That's about the stupidest thing you've posted in a long time.

You have no clue what "left" even means. It's the Bogey-Man, to you.

Some of the BEST places to live are "lefty" controlled places. You might cite homelessness, but most of those Democrat run cities also have the highest standards of living, and still better than the alternatives.

Dystopian world? Coming from you and your twisted ideology, that's rich.

[Julian658]

That's about the stupidest thing you've posted in a long time.

You have no clue what "left" even means. It's the Bogey-Man, to you.

Some of the BEST places to live are "lefty" controlled places. You might cite homelessness, but most of those Democrat run cities also have the highest standards of living, and still better than the alternatives.

Dystopian world? Coming from you and your twisted ideology, that's rich.

Great place to live because of the weather. Great place to live if you have money.

[jimjam]

Yep, looks like a socialist

Actually he is a capitalist …. don't you remember ANYTHING I have tried to teach you? Socialism is for the rich and capitalism is for the poor .

Why is homelessness greater in cities that are controlled by the left?

This "left/right" shit is for simpletons. I prefer thinking for myself. Have a happy day in La-La land my friend .

[Julian658]

Actually he is a capitalist …. don't you remember ANYTHING I have tried to teach you? Socialism is for the rich and capitalism is for the poor :?: .

You have said NOTHING. You posted a photo of a homeless person and have repeated ;eft wing platitudes.

This "left/right" shit is for simpletons. I prefer thinking for myself. Have a happy day in La-La land my friend .

I am a libertarian on the center and you look like a left winger dude. Wear your badge with honor.

The point I am trying to make is simple. If people like you provide everything for the homeless, then homelessness becomes a career choice for many that are on the fence. The more you offer the more they come.