If America is rich, why are there millions of homeless people?

Question

Lliam · Accepted Answer

That question it too complicated to answer here.

The government doesn't spend any money to assist its citizens or improve their lives. A person only has value to to the government if they pay taxes. Income tax, property tax, sales tax, ... It even robbed the Social Security fund and makes people pay tax on their SS benefits.

There are thousands of ways a person can become homeless. Sure, some people are mentally ill, addicted to drugs, or plain lazy. But lots of other things can happen that are out of a person's control. It's not always because they made bad choices.

There are lots of homeless vets. Did they make a bad choice by serving their country. Is it there fault that they got physically or mentally disabled fighting for this country?

What if a man and woman got married young. He had a good job and supported the family. She was a housewife with little education and no work experience. When they are in their 50s, his well paying job disappears when the company closes or downsizes. At his age, he can't find a job that pays more than minimum wage, they gradually spend their savings, then he dies of heart attack and leaves his wife bankrupt. What is she going to do?

Or a wife gets cancer and the husband goes into debt doing everything possible to save her. When she dies, he is bankrupt.

An old couple owns their home free and clear but, over the years, their savings dwindled and they live month to month on Social Security. They find it impossible to pay their property taxes and the government takes their home.

There are lots and lots of circumstances that are out of people's control.

During the Great Depression there were doctors, lawyers, stock brokers and formerly well off and wealthy people living in Hoovervilles and eating in soup kitchens.

And the problem is, once you are homeless, it is hard to recover. You're starting from scratch. Being homeless makes if very difficult to get back on your feet even if you have education or a skill.

And being homeless doesn't necessarily mean jobless. But few jobs pay enough even to afford an apartment.

Banks own way more repossessed homes than there are homeless. And the government pays banks for every empty home they own. Why doesn't the government pay banks to house people in those empty houses and apartments?

There are many, many other problems. I barely scratched the surface. But the problems aren't always the fault of homeless people. Most of the problems are systemic and have to do with greed, usury, and exploitation.

Jerre · Accepted Answer

Mostly because they don’t want to work

OlderAndWiser · Answer

There will always be people who choose to live outside of societal expectations, who eschew the 3 BR, 2 Bath ranch style house with a picket fence, a spouse, two kids, and a dog. They don't want a house. There will always be people who are mentally ill who cannot peaceably co-exist with anyone in a housing situation. They will walk away from any group home in which you place them. The only way to keep them housed is to keep them locked up.

Give a homeless person a million dollars and what do you think they will do with it?

I challenge you to contemplate this simple truth: every problem cannot be cured by spending money.

abc3643 · Answer

There aren't millions of homeless. There is less than 1 million homeless in the USA.

Why are people homeless? For a variety of reasons.

For example, there's a group of working homeless people in Silicon Valley. These people have decent paying jobs but cannot afford a place to live so they literally are living out of their cars or RVs or whatever. Why can't they afford it? Because the demand for housing is higher than the availability of it. Meanwhile, wealthy people like Trump have multiple homes, but, really, you only need one. Then there are real estate companies who buy affordable homes, destroy them, then build up much more expensive homes to sell to wealthy people. That's just what happened to the home I grew up in and, in fact, 3 homes so far on the block that I grew up on. Anyway, the affordable home is now replaced by the unaffordable home (I couldn't afford the house that replaced mine.) and that fucks over regular folks - including working people.

This is why @Jerre's MHO answer is horseshit.

glennos89 · Answer

Because money means power and people are chasing money thinking it will make them happy. But often wealthy people are greedy. The most beautiful people I have met in my life are definitely the poor ones.

Poor people will share their last $10 with another person who needs the money more then they do.
Most wealthy people are afraid of spending money because they want more money and it seems never enough

Personally I could never become wealthy because everytime I have more money then I need, I like to give it away to people I know and who need it.
When a person in front of me in the cue of a supermarket can't pay for their groceries because they don't have enough money, I will politely offer to pay the amount they need to be able to take away their groceries.

I live in the Netherlands ( one of the wealthiest nations in Europe ) and the amount of poor and homeless people is also unacceptable

Anonymous · Answer

That's a great question with a long answer. Which I don't have time for. Here's the short version.

We aren't rich and in fact we are 36+ $Trillion Dollars in debt. It's almost impossible to pay off.

Our government spends more than it earns, inflation is a problem, the Fed has printed tons of money further devaluing the dollar, and all of our leading economic indicators are pointing down, down, down. Our economy has been hollowed out.

Despite all of that, the economy is huge and if we spent a small fraction of what we currently give away to other countries to fund their wars, military weapons, military support, etc... we could end homelessness in America in millisecond. We have millions of homeless because Washington D. C. doesn't care. In fact, they actually prefer it this way.

Homeless people are easy to control and aren't a threat to their power. The poorer the masses are the easier they are to rule over.😔

DrPepper12 · Answer

Reagan. Reagan gutted funding for Medicare reimbursement, mental health, veterans, addiction treatment (Just Say No, right Nancy? - the REAL POTUS late in his 2nd term) when inflation was 6% annually his first term and he quadrupled defense spending.

There was NOTHING left for social services and those with addiction & mental health problems are not a valued constituency for the few that even vote so they were easily forgotten.

Add on active destruction of unions, export of manufacturing jobs, addiction, NIMBYism and most importantly a failure to build affordable housing and there you have it! Reagan was a fucking disaster. Boggles my mind how voters went right back to Republicans after the Nixon corruption with only Jimmy Carter in between for one term.

If America is rich, why are there millions of homeless people?

Anonymous · Answer

Zoning laws enforced by the voting rich. They keep housing prices artificially high. If the economy were a free economy devoid of government intervention, there would be zero homeless people.

The homeless problem can be somewhat encapsulated by the term NIMBYism. "Not in my back yard."

It's very complex at the end of the day. It has nothing to do with rich capitalists. It has everything to do with the rich capitalist and the power of government to maintain the rich capitalists position and wealth.

If the majority of people understood this we could easily counter vote and break down NIMBYism and the other government related problems that cause housing to be so expensive in the USA.

KostasKouvalis · Answer

Many factors. Some Conservatives claim there are enough programs to where anyone who wants a house can have one. I don't necessarily buy it. A lot of cities have started giving them free food and drugs.

But I think the biggest factor is strict enforcement of zoning laws. In India, Africa or Latin America for instance, someone can build themselves a shack from scrap, and the government won't bother them. But if you do that here, the authorities will immediately tear it down for "violating zoning code"

Now, as to why they became homeless in the first place, that I cannot answer

FunkyMonkee · Answer

Because most of the rich are greedy fuckers! They have money they can't BEGIN to spend but DON'T want YOU to have ANY of it and a lot of the poor will steal, cheat or lie, if they have to so, the rich can't trust them to just take what they're given.
A couple years ago, I figured out that if all the trillionaires, billionaires and millionaires, gave a total of a million dollars to everyone else on the planet, we'd all be rich and the ones that gave us that money would STILL be hard-pressed to spend what they've got or become poor! If I was a trillionaire, I'd have no problem doing it!

gatixek710 · Answer

Because if the government agencies tasked to reduce homelessness got rid of homelessness they would be out of a job. They have no personal incentive to solve the problem. They have a personal incentive to increase their department's budget (and by extension their salary). And our government would rather waste money on eastern european dictators and illegals.

dragoblack · Answer

Specifically; it's the large companies conglomerates, and politicians that are rich. Though the country is labeled as a democratic republic, it's a hotpot of all types of government, with empirical mindset manipulation of the working class, which is why the poor are kept poor and the homeless are punished with laws designed to punish them. The greedier the rich get, the more unstable the country becomes.

kellytheman · Answer

Couple things we are a large country with many people and sometimes there might not be as much jobs or opportunities as there was in the past. Think of China or India they have millions of people and they have more homeless people than the US and they have a lot of money also.

LunarEclipse433 · Answer

Because run away government spending on sex surgery for inmates, government officials taking unnecessary trips on the tax payer dime, leaving millions of dollars of US military equipment in a foreign country, forgiving student loans before taking care of our Veterans etc. Now all that said, there is a percentage of homeless people who do not want a job and just live day by day.

exitseven · Answer

There is a big divide between the haves and the have not. With millions of jobs being sent off shore the middle class has been gutted. We need leadership that is not in rhe pocket of Wall Street to try and bring these jobs back.

strateguy632 · Answer

1, America HAS rich industry n economy.

2, Americans are not rich.

3, AMERica government has gigantic national debt , obama almost doubled it, $9 tn. to $17tn. crazy spending. Extremely poor. far less than income.

Biden spent even more than obama in just one term!

monkeymanoohaah · Answer

Because wealth doesn't work like that it is our job to help the poor because they can't work for one reason or another however if you would tax people for homeless people then the government would not give that money to the poor and it would make it harder on people who work it's easy to look at someone rich and say I want that but you must work hard to get there

purplepoppy · Answer

It's rich because it doesn't spend money on sorting out social problems such as homelessness or It's causes. It's convinced it's citizens that helping others is communism.

Bklynbadboy12 · Answer

That's cause they choose to be that way there are hundreds of thousand homeless shelter but they refuse to go there cause they aren't allowed to use drugs there plus you are encouraged to get into a rehab program. Nobody have to do bad in America there's tons of programs where you can learn a trade people just don't go to them. Smh

Astarlessnightsky · Answer

Unequal distribution of wealth. A handfull of rich guys have more money than 50% of the citizen Combined. Also "being a rich country" is measured by the economy not, how well the poorest people are.

WindAtMyBack · Answer

Because there is no law to force people to get rich. The vast majority of homeless are homeless because of their own choices. Being in a rich country is completely irrelevant.

worldscolide · Answer

It's mostly due to mental illness. A majority of homeless are either veterans or drug addicts. Both need help. One thing you will notice, the homeless problem gets bigger, the more democrat/leftist a state leans.

SugarSugarplum · Answer

The homeless tend to collect in cities that are handing out the most free stuff. out here in the 'burbs, it's much less prevalent.

Avicenna · Answer

Mental illness and substance abuse are common causes. Also the huge number of illegals is crowding some people out of rentals and jobs.

captain_voidwalker · Answer

There are millions of homeless be ause our government would rather waste money in illegal immigrants and Ukraine than help its citizens

jshm2 · Answer

Rich doesn't mean "without problems".

Cheerfull009 · Answer

America is very rich , with occopying sources of weak countries by force and spending money to destabilize the poor counties but not for own people

Dargil · Answer

Democrats are the most of the reason. Democrats ruin everything they touch. It is heinous that ANY US combat veteran is homeless.

andreasderjuengere · Answer

Because of a basically aggressive and egocentric culture that leaves little room for compassion. It's not so much about "rich".

Anonymous · Answer

Because we run and own the world. Like it or not, wherever you’re from, your country is inferior in every way, and the USA is not just a country is a super power. Just how it is. Get offended, won’t change it.

shortster · Answer

We are rich compared to the rest of the world. Also part of being free, is the freedom to fail. For without failure there is not success.

dreamstar72 · Answer

Because most people in other countries believes in tv shows movies shows the real life in the USA

WhitneySnow · Answer

The country as a whole is rich but not everyone in it is

Agape93 · Answer

Because we are on our own, just a resource to those actually rich

Unit1 · Answer

The government and the matrix is "rich". They simply print money when they run out of it. It's the people, that are not rich.

Anonymous · Answer

A combination of different things, with one of the biggest being greedy corporations buying up houses/apartment building, increasing rents, in effect eliminating affordable housing.

debtfree_oneyear · Answer

America is not rich. A small percentage of Americans are rich.

Anonymous · Answer

Homes are expensive, and we got a lot of mentally ill people who wouldn't have a house regardless.

bowenw · Answer

It seems there is a wide gap between middle and low income people.

Anonymous · Answer

ask comrade Kamala if Americans are better off 4 years ago than they are today

Anonymous · Answer

It's not and the whole pyramid is coming down especially as BRICS takes off

Anonymous · Answer

Because it's a free country as well. You're free to become a success. But you're also free to become a homeless junkie as well.

MrGSpotHer · Answer

It's just how it goes the rich get richer and poor get poorer I guess they don't like charity

NathanDavis · Answer

because we can afford them...

beefcakebradybatson · Answer

Let me think... S-E-L-F-I-S-H-N-E-S-S !!!

In_Trance · Answer

The State is rich, not the people

Reijen · Answer

People make choices in life. Simple as that.

normalice · Answer

Gatekeepers

Oncewildtwiceburned · Answer

Fatherlessness

TheCaller · Answer

The USA is not rich

Update_Available · Answer

Good question

If America is rich, why are there millions of homeless people?

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