United States | News & Politics

2026 readers

390 users here now

Welcome to !usa@midwest.social, where you can share and converse about the different things happening all over/about the United States.

If you’re interested in participating, please subscribe.

Rules

Be respectful and civil. No racism/bigotry/hateful speech.

Post anything related to the United States.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

simsymbiote@midwest.social

Type1@midwest.social

116

Surviving on $1,800 a Month in Social Security, She Died Looking for a Place to Live (capitalandmain.com)

submitted 2 days ago by Garibaldee@lemm.ee to c/usa@midwest.social

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 11 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] mercphilby 31 points 2 days ago (1 children)

All places around here require 3x the rent. So that means she could have 600/m for rent. I can’t even imagine finding a single room for 600 nowadays.

Lots to look forward too! Hopefully I kick the bucket in a board room.

[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago

Well, kick someone's bucket

[–] formergijoe@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago

"$1800?! That's way too much!" president Elon Musk probably

[–] ladicius@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Are there really unoccupied empty houses standing around all over the country?

[–] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

[+] huginn@feddit.it -7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Not really, no.

In some remote places yes, and there are a small number of ultra expensive mansions that sit as 5th+ properties but by and large there is not enough housing for everyone.

The vacant houses additionally include ones that are condemned, ones that have been sold but haven't been moved into yet, and ones that have been moved out of, are on market, but haven't sold.

Realistically you need about 5% of houses to be vacant at any given time to have enough stock open for people to just move around like normal. Anything less than that is a shortage.

Many American cities are sitting below 2% vacancy - which is an extreme shortage. NYC sits at 1.41%.

There are no answers to the homelessness crisis besides building housing. A lot of it.

[–] cogman@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

You are talking about unowned and unadvertised housing. A new trend in the housing market has been people buying houses and putting them on air bnb while they wait for the value to appreciate. Several houses in my neighborhood did that.

That alone has taken a huge number of units off the market.

But then on top of that, there's been rent collusion with apps like yield star which has ballooned the cost of housing to unreasonable levels. Landlords have let units sit empty because they know following the yield star recommendations will ultimately maximize their profits.

Building housing helps, but so long as these factors exist no level of new housing can compete. We'd have to more than double the empty units to make a dent in the pricing from these speculative owners. Even that might be too much.

A similar phenomenon has happened in China. There are literally giant "ghost cities" because real estate is a speculative market.

[–] sifr@retrolemmy.com 12 points 2 days ago

This needs to be the top story everywhere.

[–] The_Che_Banana@beehaw.org 6 points 1 day ago

Lol, like there's going to be social security after this administration. They're gonna break that piggy bank open and stuff their mattresses with it and sleep like babies to the cheering and delight of half the country because: fuck them poors.

[–] LuxSpark@lemmy.cafe 5 points 2 days ago

I hear getting old is a bummer anyway.

[–] FollyDolly@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago

Is her cat okay? Is Murial okay? I NEED to know the cat is alright.