Would socialised housing and food work?

[jackg]

I'm getting annoyed at these discussions that are like "socialism drives nothing", "the best way to get anywhere is to not have a backup plan" and "socialism stagnates an economy". In truth would it work?

Building an accommodation schema such as what university halls have whereby there are a series of studio apartments avaliable for people to move into, would that system work for stopping homeless people being out on the streets continuously? If we say each studio would probably cost about £20,000 to produce then it probably wouldn't be too hard to get something going... A strategy like this would cost around 1.4 trillion for everyone, but not everyone would need to use it. 250000 people are homeless for example and it'd only cost around 5 billion to house them.

It seems a lot of time people don't reflect on the fact that the only people that make money and do well for themselves in this world are those with lots of extra money to spare and many backup plans. Most of the people that are for capitalism just want to see $100bn in their account some day from what I can see but if someone's a hardcore capitalist then let me know the point I'm missing...

[alani123]

There's already an abundance of programs (both government and non-government) that offer meals at no cost for those receiving them. Such programs are already working alongside the existing free market and I would argue that this is sufficient evidence to support that it's possible to offer "socialized" meals without disrupting free market principles.

The whole concept of democratic (market) socialism is that society should create social security for the most vulnerable while maintaining the possibility to chose for everyone. With such fundamental support available, people would be able to be assisted out of poverty with decent living standards if there ever was such a need. The U.S. has implemented some social aspects to the government budget and through time I'd argue that they've been increasing also.

This might fall in deaf ears for some in this forum, but the fact that European countries have successfully been running socialized housing and related incentives and assistance programs for decades is proof that these programs can be effective in reducing homelessness, hunger, crime etc. And that's not something done by ex-soviet nations. It's tactics employied by the biggest countries in Europe like Germany, France and Germany. It's worth comparing these countries to states without social programs. To the U.S.'s credit though, overall homelessness is low.

Also of note is the fact that we've advanced enough as a society that we recognize people dying from hunger is to be avoided. No matter how capitalist a state is, people still organize either with the government or not to prevent hunger. Housing is a bigger issue and not covered. It's not as necessary to survive but it's still recognized as an important need.

The thing is, socialized housing a food CAN work. But a government can't and shouldn't be providing top quality housing and food at no cost to the receiver. Think of it like this, when you were a college student, you might have been greatly inconvenienced by having to look for apartments. That's why many European countries are providing free housing units solely for students. Because getting profit out of the equation benefits the purpose of studying most, save time for the students and removes only this part of the population as potential bidders in apartments (they'd be the lowest bidders anyway). It's the extent at which socialized programs offer benefits that matters. There's a fine line between socialism and a mixed economy. But the latter works and European countries are proof that it does.

But the head of the debate isn't food or housing lately... It's education and medicine, which is a whole other discussion.

[El duderino_]

In Belgium there are some very good social services providing help for homeless .... Also very good services for people with low income... called OCMW (the Public Centre for Social Welfare), they provide houses or apartments at rent on very low prices, also gas, El etc taken care of if i'm correct. Of-course many people don't like it cause its mostly payed by tax payers etc, I think such programs will always have their positive as negatives and always there will be someone complaining.

Actually OCMW Belgium is for

Be needy,

The first condition for obtaining help is of course needy. Assistance from the OCMW can and may only be granted if the person himself has insufficient resources to lead a decent life. In addition, the applicant must have exhausted all other possible sources of income, both domestic and foreign social support.

Specific conditions,

The other conditions depend on the type of aid.

To receive a living wage, the following conditions apply:

-Be a resident of the municipality where "OCMW" assistance is requested;
-Be of age or assimilated;
-Be Belgian, or registered in the register of aliens, stateless person or refugee;
-Are available for the labor market except for health reasons or for fairness.

Illegal residents are only entitled to urgent medical assistance.

To receive help, you must first register at the reception. Then an appointment is made with a social worker to start the social survey to see if you meet the required conditions.

In the event of a dispute, an appeal is possible with the labor court.

http://www.jette.irisnet.be/nl/ocmw/het-ocmw/wie-heeft-recht-op-steun
Small piece of Belgian policy ...

[squatz1]

I mean I think that there is an issue with going about the problem this way. As all your plan is is proposing throwing money at a problem and praying that it will change because we assume that money can fix every problem. I'm pretty sure that someone like Bill Gates has proved that you can't just throw money at charitable causes to fix them, it requires true change -- not just money.

If you want to fix something like housing, you need a partnership between developers and those in government. Government shouldn't be in the business of building housing for people, nor should they be administering it. Government is wasteful, and it's not going to be worth it to do this. In the US (in certain states I'm pretty sure) we have section 8 housing, which is housing partially paid for by the government but administered (and owned) by those in the private sector.

If we incentize building and housing of people who are low income, I feel like that's a much better and cheaper solution then allowing for the government to just house people without any true fix in housing.

[jackg]

In Belgium there are some very good social services providing help for homeless .... Also very good services for people with low income... called OCMW (the Public Centre for Social Welfare), they provide houses or apartments at rent on very low prices, also gas, El etc taken care of if i'm correct. Of-course many people don't like it cause its mostly payed by tax payers etc, I think such programs will always have their positive as negatives and always there will be someone complaining.

It does often seem like we're trying to put more effort and protection in places such as prisons than we are in doing what we ought to for the homeless. Quite a lot of homeless people just try to get arrested in the UK to not have to deal with being homeless. I think it costs about £40000 to hold someone in custody for a year, where it would cost the governemgn about £5-6k to keep one person going for a year with essentials and a little extra.

I mean I think that there is an issue with going about the problem this way. As all your plan is is proposing throwing money at a problem and praying that it will change because we assume that money can fix every problem. I'm pretty sure that someone like Bill Gates has proved that you can't just throw money at charitable causes to fix them, it requires true change -- not just money.

The government already builds housing anyway, it'd just be expanding those contracts...
Once a major problem gets resolved, i reckon other issues will make themselves notice. At the moment we have no idea as to how many people don't have any shelter so any efforts are generally pretty hard to track.