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Homeless and Empty Homes -- an American Travesty

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posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 02:27 PM
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Travesty indeed. 19 million empty homes? No wonder the construction industry fell apart. Oh well we don't need a middle class anyway we can all be servants. Six empty homes for every homeless person? To bad homeless person you should have made better choices or you could have bought one of those houses.... sorry slobs!

Huffington Post



About 3.5 million US residents (about 1% of the population), including 1.35 million children, have been homeless for a significant period of time. Over 37,000 homeless individuals (including 16,000 children) stay in shelters in New York every night. This information was gathered by the Urban Institute, but actual numbers might be higher.


2010... so probably 4 million now and 20+million empty houses? That 4 million people are just too dumb and lazy to get real jobs.



Fox Business estimates, there are 18.9 million vacant homes across the country.


Burn them in a fire i dont want to see any socialism in this country.

Whats next Obama houses? I don't think so.



I'm not advocating giving houses away -- such a move would create a host of political and fiscal problems -- but government should be working toward a solution to match up the empty homes with those who need a roof to live under.

A homeless population equivalent to the size of Los Angeles is unacceptable, and with over five times as many empty houses, we have not only a moral obligation but also an economic imperative to come up with a creative way to fix this travesty.


No they need to work harder with less pay. I'm sick of all the handouts and entitlements in this country. If we have 100 million unemployed or under employed people in this country its because they didn't take the right college courses!

I'm sick of this lazy generation and their entitlement's! We can't all be winners, now sit at the little kids table and don't speak unless spoken too.



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 02:37 PM
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reply to post by onequestion
 


It's the same thing here in Montreal. It makes the news each times: the mafia constructs countless condos and development, but the price is too high since they have low competition, and boom, you got homelessness at the same time as you get empty homes.

Builders want too much, they don't get real.



edit on 2-2-2014 by swanne because: (no reason given)



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 02:38 PM
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reply to post by swanne
 


Oh im not surprised at all.

This is the new social norm. We cant advance our ideas just our technology. The oligarchs have to much power.



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 02:43 PM
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reply to post by onequestion
 


Society in general is good. It's a bunch of a few crazy people who mess it up (example: Hitler, Zedong). Paradoxically it's a bunch of a few crazy people who change the world forever (example: Tesla, Gandhi).



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 02:44 PM
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reply to post by onequestion
 


If I owned / repo'd 1 million houses @ $1000 per year property taxes... well 1 Billion. So, what the hell's really going on here ?

Thanks for the thread S/F - I really am clueless.



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 02:49 PM
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reply to post by Bazart
 


I don't know, care to go a little deeper into what your asking because now im interested?



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 02:55 PM
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reply to post by onequestion
 



No they need to work harder with less pay. I'm sick of all the handouts and entitlements in this country. If we have 100 million unemployed or under employed people in this country its because they didn't take the right college courses!

I'm sick of this lazy generation and their entitlement's! We can't all be winners, now sit at the little kids table and don't speak unless spoken too.


You are looking at this issue from behind a wall and can't see beyond it. (redacted:did not get the OP at first)

The banking sector manipulated the market, which boosted it into a giant bubble, leveraged by lending and financial institutions. They then bottomed out the market, got a government bailout to save themselves while foreclosing on millions of homes.

So these people would have had homes if not for this long charade. Yes there is greed and laziness that contributed to individual circumstances, but far more by the architects of the scam.

If you look 10 year difference, calculate the wealth of the people who operated the scam with impunity, and the people who lost their homes who are now homeless, it was merely a redistribution of wealth.

Giving those people public housing would only add insult to injury. Since more government funds would provide these people with something they should never have lost in the first place.
edit on 2-2-2014 by boncho because: (no reason given)


Some people are starting to get the picture:


(Reuters) - The U.S. government on Tuesday filed two civil lawsuits against Bank of America that accuse the bank of investor fraud in its sale of $850 million of residential mortgage-backed securities.

The lawsuits are the latest legal headache for the second-largest U.S. bank, which has already agreed to pay in excess of $45 billion to settle disputes stemming from the 2008 financial crisis.


www.reuters.com...

Where are the criminal charges though I wonder? And the restitution to the victims…


Bank of America’s mortgage servicing unit systematically lied to homeowners, fraudulently denied loan modifications, and paid their staff bonuses for deliberately pushing people into foreclosure: Yes, these allegations were suspected by any homeowner who ever had to deal with the bank to try to get a loan modification – but now they come from six former employees and one contractor, whose sworn statements were added last week to a civil lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts.


www.salon.com...
edit on 2-2-2014 by boncho because: (no reason given)

edit on 2-2-2014 by boncho because: (no reason given)



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 02:57 PM
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reply to post by boncho
 


Oh im being sarcastic boncho i agree with you.

They are a scam on this level,

They ended up with billions of dollars in liquidity from the bailouts and billions of dollars in hard assets with the houses.

SCAM SCAM SCAM



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 03:01 PM
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reply to post by onequestion
 


Sorry I didn't pick up on the sarcasm. And I should have since I'm a sarcastic twit.



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 03:03 PM
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reply to post by boncho
 


Its ok its text. I just wanted to clarify so you didnt think i was actually that ignorant.



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 03:03 PM
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onequestion
reply to post by Bazart
 


I don't know, care to go a little deeper into what your asking because now im interested?


Well ,I mean that ( from my POV ) taking over more houses than I know what do with would be a disaster !

An unoccupied house soon develops problems that are bad for resale ... and that's without people pulling out the wiring and AC units.

Left on their own - houses fall apart pretty quick , the way they're built ( and financed ) these days.

If I had a thousand houses that need $ 10K each to resale , then - there goes the profit . Better to keep the people in the house ( and write off ' losses ' ) ... hell , why pay a maintenance company.

It just doesn't add uo logically at the bottom line for me . But , I don't know what bankers' do , really . Maybe they fractionally reserved that last house payment , and turned it into a million - dollar prospect ?



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 03:05 PM
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reply to post by onequestion
 


Your sarcasm was more than apparent. And still there are those listeners of Beck and Rush that will subscribe to your sarcasm as reality.

The neo-conservatives have successfully realized their grand design for America in the PNAC. Next up....another war! And the poor will sign up in droves to escape their poverty; while the war profiteers will fill there accounts even more.
The neo-conservatives are as clever as they are evil.

www.informationclearinghouse.info...
edit on 2-2-2014 by olaru12 because: (no reason given)



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 03:30 PM
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reply to post by onequestion
 

This is proof that we are more than capable of producing a housing surplus. There is no reason whatsoever that anyone should be homeless in this country.



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 03:32 PM
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Or you can do what I do! Move in and fix it up! No one even notices if you grab one! Be normal about it and turn the power on! Power company never asks anyway! Say Hello to the people and you get 1-2 years free rent! Just fix it up!

Most are just dumps anyway, ask around and take one off someones back. Most of them have had their windows closed for so long the House is Sick anyways! And some would rather see it rot to the ground before they let someone have it anyways!

How can anyone ever be homeless? You do not need a house to call Home, sometimes just calling a place Home is Home.

Peace



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 03:58 PM
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From what I understand a lot of these homes are in poor neighborhoods. Whole tracts of them exist. Once they were all foreclosed on, the utilities were turned off to the whole neighborhood. The streetlights water and power are off.

People do "move in" but it isn't to fix it up. Since theres no heat or light they build fires in the middle of the living room floor, tear out the walls to remove the copper piping and wire to sell to get more dope which they do to candle light. Since they are afraid of being robbed (or busted) they break windows or cut holes in the wall to come and go from so the cops can't catch them inside.

They are addicts and trespassing. Oh, and no longer "homeless".

These once homes are reduced to garbage pits of destruction and only when they stink too much from the feces built up in the tub and shower stalls do they abandon it and find another.

Nobody else wants to actually move in and fix up these houses, the utility company refuses to turn on power to the whole neighborhood just for a few homes. The police don't regular patrol this no mans land, only responding to calls for help like 911.

Just this one report I watched of a suburb… I wish I had the link.



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 04:01 PM
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reply to post by intrptr
 


This is true where i lived in Pennsylvania homes were selling for less then 10k.

I live in an area thats not poor where every other house is empty and they are mansions on beautiful pieces of property.



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 04:10 PM
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Not to sure putting homeless people in homes with no heat or running water is such a good idea. These houses are empty because people could not pay their bills so I doubt they paid the utility bill either.
The real shame is that so many people have spare rooms in their heated homes that are not being used. There are inherent problems with that to. I donate to a local shelter for vets and a local food pantry but an individual can only do so much. Maybe someday a better solution will be found.



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 04:19 PM
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A friend of mine went homeless this summer, along with her single mom and brother who lived in the same house. Apparently the official reason they were evicted was because my friend owned pitbull which she kept in the house and played with in the backyard. Apparently a select neighbor reported the dog to police claiming the dog was an endangerment to others and was vicious ( I don't know, I wasn't present during the supposed incidents, although I have known this dog even before my friend owned it... as it was a dog owned by another former friend of mine also. The dog never seemed inclined to behave aggressively or violently to my knowledge of being around the dog.

My friend and her family lived one unit among a strand of similar housing units, they were all individual full sized houses with garages, but were not apartments or duplexes. Every housing unit on the road was owned by the same renters.

The conspiracy they claim is that rent has gone up on the housing units, and since her mother was not keeping up with the bills efficiently, the renters conspired to use the dog as an excuse against them to get them to become evicted, so that a new tenant could replace them, a tenant who would pay the increased rent for the renter's profits more efficiently.

My friend's mother had a decent job (decent in terms of the standards and opportunities of the city we live in). It didn't pay 25 dollars an hour but at least it paid around almost 10. Which is more than what a lot of residents of this city will ever be offered in usual circumstances. It's hard to pay rent and live on what average people get paid. The average wages are insufficient to cover expenses and at the same time not be at risk easily from losing things quicker than you can say Friday. (I haven't lived too many places, I'm just speaking for how it is for many in the location where my friend and I live)

Needless to say, even though she is a friend her story does, yet doesn't make sense. I understand how much a dog can mean to someone, but is it worth keeping if it will cause your whole family to become evicted? I think it is more likely that her mother was just not properly paying her bills, which is believable. But I can also understand the conspiracy to evict because of the dog factor.. creating false info/lies to have justifiable cause to evict for profit reasons. A factor I am unsure of is if my friend and her family were on fixed income housing, which if they were, which is likely, this would further add to the conspiracy.

Sitting on the fence regarding the truth of the story. My gut feeling tells me there is there's more to it that was left unsaid. But then again,maybe not. My friend has a big mouth; in this case not meant in a disrespectful way, this means she has a habit that would have her inadvertently blurt out the truth about any matter no matter the repercussions or how bad it would sound to anyone or how it would come out regardless of anything, even if it involved her own friends or family. It's one of her personality traits. So although she may leave out information, she wouldn't cover up events that are true because her personality is incapable of such a filter.

Moral of the story: some people become homeless sometimes (many times) due to bad choices, but also potentially conspiracies for companies and renters to make more profit. So let's rent this housing unit to someone who is more wealthy than the former tenant, so we can get more.Who doesn't want more right?
edit on 2/2/2014 by unb3k44n7 because: (no reason given)

edit on 2/2/2014 by unb3k44n7 because: (no reason given)



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 04:26 PM
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reply to post by onequestion
 


Let me say up front, in America the supposedly richest country in the world people shouldn't be homeless. That said look at this in a logical manner.

1. A builder goes to a lender and borrows money to build (say) a dozen homes.
2. The lender makes the loan based on assets from depositors.
3. Builder builds and sells the homes one at a time paying back the lender (and depositors.)
4. The home buyer (usually) takes out a loan from a lender who again uses depositors money.
5. Homeowner defaults on loan, lender and depositors in jeopardy of monetary loss.
6. Lender repo's property with hope of regaining depositors capital by selling it again.

So I guess the question about this is it right that someone who has no claim on another's property be able to just appropriate it? That doesn't sound right to me. I have zero love of the banks but confiscating others property because we want to or even believe we need to without paying an equitable return is wrong IMO.

Maybe since so many love big government the gov should cut half the Pentagon budget and buy these houses and distribute them based on a lottery or something. That's if people are OK with taxing people who work and pay for their homes so they can give free homes to the homeless.



posted on Feb, 2 2014 @ 04:27 PM
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reply to post by Bassago
 


So the bank gets double the value of the home?

Buy sell, take, resell, take, resell.

Its perpetual.



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