Section 8 housing, it feeds the unhoused population
Section 8 housing has been a bipartisan failure; It has subsequently been worsening over the years, serving fewer and fewer people as the need only grows. Even in my personal experience this program has been nothing but a failure, The simple fact is people wait years to get section 8 housing vouchers. as it turns out landlords don't want to deal with it so a lot would rather not take them. therefore, the supply of housing available for section 8 is so limited and so low that the majority of the time when people do get housing vouchers, they often expire before they can be used. This is a fact 90% of working people know. The fact of low supply extremely high demand and nobody willing to exchange the voucher for housing. Has done nothing but exacerbate the unhoused population in the country, if you're applying for section 8 housing, it means you're desperate and if it's taking up to 7 years in some cases probably more, where do these people go? To the Streat, not sesame street either; more likely the corner down the street from where they used to live or in a tent community.
In my personal experience I've never had to deal with section 8 housing as an adult. Because they would have never given it to me to begin with, I was a white, single man with no kids. According to everyone this makes me privileged, but in reality, it exacerbated my problems as a poor working class individual. They would rather see me in a car than a section 8 housing. Now that hasn't changed the fact that I do know quite a few of my female friends that have tried to get section 8, even my wife. I have one friend she applied for section 8 housing 3 or 4 years ago, she has yet to hear back from them. She has no home, she lives in a dank unfinished basement of a 1930s house of family member, because she has nowhere else to go. When I met with my wife she had applied to section 8 housing in Wisconsin in 2009, I met her in 2016 in Minnesota. After meeting her a few months into dating, we got an apartment and that's when she was approved for section 8 housing in Wisconsin. So, I ask you how is this system helping anyone?
Even if you expanded the amount of properties available for section 8 housing that doesn't fix the side that makes you wait 8, 9, 10 years or the fact that landlords make more money not renting to section 8 people than they would otherwise. By simply creating more rental properties we as a country are feeding the economy of eviction, you are feeding the economy of people never owning a home.
America does not need more landlords, more rental property; we need more homes. Younger generations do not need to be competing with older generations over the same starter homes, as it turns out older generations now have trouble with stairs, weird how age works like that. So, they tend to go towards smaller homes otherwise known as starter homes, homes that don't have stairs or second floors and are usually 2-3 bedrooms. Exactly where people my age would want to start a family and continue steps into the middle class. Up zoning allows for a short-term solution, building more rental units; doesn't help people take steps into the middle class. It simply feeds an economy of eviction and paying corporations. A lot of the times private equity affiliated corporations. So, what’s the solution? If section 8 is a complete failure? Quite frankly I believe the solution is to rapidly deploy as many houses as possible, not rental properties across the country is possible. The easiest way to do that in our modern edge, with our modern technology is via 3D printed houses. They can cost as little as $100,000 or upwards of 500,000 for crazy complex buildings. They offer grater disaster resistance in comparison to traditional housing, meaning repair after a major storm or wildfire would be much less saving FEMA millions.
The one downside to rapidly developing housing is it would devalue the existing supply, that's really only something people who already own a home care about or the bank, as well the type of people who can afford to just up and move in the worst economy possible, to a new district to run for Congress in some cases. These type of people, a lot of them HAVE BEEN sitting on the stage with me, They have no worries about low income people. They have no worries about housing because they can get themselves houses. They are in the middle class. They are above all of us, 90% of this district is a working-class people or rural farmers; we work to survive hand to mouth, half the DFL Democrats won't understand that. All you'll get from DFL Democrat Candidates for district 6 is a section 8 voucher that nobody can use, and then when you're out on the street the Republicans will lock you in a gulag.
For us to solve this problem there's going to be pain, but it's not going to be for low income people, the workers that make the world go around. It's going to be for the people that already have a home, which don't care that people are homeless. That are one mistake away from living in the streets themselves, They are going to feel the pain, it's not going to be physical pain. It's just going to be a devaluation of their property because we need hundreds and hundreds of thousands of units in every state in America. simply creating rental properties doesn't solve the problem. Simply up zoning doesn't solve the problem. Simply expanding section 8 doesn't solve the problem, these are all stopgap solutions not long-term ones.
To fix the problem we must stop talking about building rental property; we must actually start talking about rapidly developing homes for families.
