Month Four: 90 Days, Zero Deals | White People TACO Night

[archibaldcrane]

this is definitely true for some of them. not all nor even necessarily a majority but certainly a substantial amount.

It's just that in most places, addicts and mentally ill people can usually keep a roof over their heads, in some $400/mo shithole or crashing on couches or whatever. But when the cheapest shittiest apartments in the county are $900/mo those people end up on the street.

Homelessness tracks with high rents very steadily. It doesn't track with drug overdose rates at the population level at all.

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[thetruepandagod]

true, im just speaking on personal anecdotes as the resident meth head who knew more than a handful of people who chose to live on the streets even though they had families that would take them in. im sure if rent was affordable that may have been an option, but at the same time they were hustling for 20$ baggies so i dunno how cheap rent would have had to be.

[Mrbeansman]

It's just that in most places, addicts and mentally ill people can usually keep a roof over their heads, in some $400/mo shithole or crashing on couches or whatever. But when the cheapest shittiest apartments in the county are $900/mo those people end up on the street.

Homelessness tracks with high rents very steadily. It doesn't track with drug overdose rates at the population level at all.

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It also literally doesn't matter if it's ONLY 900 a month when landlords won't rent to you unless you make triple the rent in a month.

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[Ayn]

It's rough:

To Archie's point, and correct me if I'm wrong here, people usually assume abuse of drugs is the prime reason people end up being homeless. While that may sometimes be the case (anecdotally, seen that in my family), what tends to happen more often is that being homeless is so absolutely miserable and depressing that people will -turn- to substances to numb some of that reality, creating a pretty messed up cycle that's hard to get out of.

Regarding landlords only renting to you if you make triple the rent a month; that's especially tough anywhere, but especially in a high COL area; so if the rent is $2500-$3000, no one making minimum or slightly above that is going to be able to rent that even with dual incomes. Probably need multiple people contributing that. On the flipside of that, I recall a realtor (again, anecodtal) and a few past landlords telling me that the one time they relaxed those standards is when they got burned pretty damn badly. If you're in a state where tenet protections are pretty solid (which is not an AWFUL thing), that could make the non-corporate landlords pretty cagey. Witnessed one of those firsthand in a former rental I used to live in; pretty small multifamily unit, but one resident became pretty awful and it was a nightmare getting him out. Felt bad for the dude since he was seemingly normal then had some type of. . . psychotic break I guess? I know it spooked the next door neighbors into moving, since one of 'em was a young mother with a newborn.

[kuronosan]

true, im just speaking on personal anecdotes as the resident meth head who knew more than a handful of people who chose to live on the streets even though they had families that would take them in. im sure if rent was affordable that may have been an option, but at the same time they were hustling for 20$ baggies so i dunno how cheap rent would have had to be.

I'm speaking from both personal and anecdotal experience here but often times their families are not quite always willing to take them in because the drug use often doesn't stop and the crowds they bring to their family's door often burns those bridges people need to get out of the slump.

Yes there are people who live on the streets because reasons, but much like drug abusers it is not the voluntarily homeless population that makes up the majority reason people are homeless.

[Meresgi]

It also literally doesn't matter if it's ONLY 900 a month when landlords won't rent to you unless you make triple the rent in a month.

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Triple the rent in a month PLUS you better have 1st month, last month, a security deposit, a credit score higher then the fucking landlord themselves and 5 personal references all so you can pay their fucking mortgage for them.

[Salodin]

This is my 4th day in California and y'all's homeless problem is wild. I drove down skids row at 6am and it's kinda crazy y'all will let them turn the sidewalk into a campground instead of using one of these completely empty, multi-storied, storefronts or office spaces to set up additional housing.

We were in Santa Monica shopping near the cayton children's museum, and while beautiful and pleasant to walk through, the 3 story mall portion was half freaking empty which is wild when you consider how much they're charging for space in this city. Even the shopping down the avenue had so much prime space closed down not being used This entire city area is not using their space wisely in the least but I'm not a local so maybe it's a recent post-covid thing.

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[Cantih]

For commercial property, usually the financing involved includes provisions that don't let the rent go down, so they sit empty until someone who (thinks they) can afford the rent shows up.

But also greed.

[Sirious]

You know how many tiny homes they could build on one golf course.

~8000

~16000 golf courses

Housing crisis solved.

We need more 1000 sq ft homes and less mcmansions. More starter homes that can't be bought by corporations and only by people with no other homes.

But that's unfair to the capitalisms!

[archibaldcrane]

This is my 4th day in California and y'all's homeless problem is wild. I drove down skids row at 6am and it's kinda crazy y'all will let them turn the sidewalk into a campground instead of using one of these completely empty, multi-storied, storefronts or office spaces to set up additional housing.

We were in Santa Monica shopping near the cayton children's museum, and while beautiful and pleasant to walk through, the 3 story mall portion was half freaking empty which is wild when you consider how much they're charging for space in this city. Even the shopping down the avenue had so much prime space closed down not being used This entire city area is not using their space wisely in the least but I'm not a local so maybe it's a recent post-covid thing.

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Yeah it's insane, housing is crazy expensive here and yet we still make apartment construction illegal on the vast majority of residential land. It started getting bad around 2017 as rents crawled out from under the GFC and really started cooking upward. Skid row of course has always been awful, that's not new.

For commercial property, usually the financing involved includes provisions that don't let the rent go down, so they sit empty until someone who (thinks they) can afford the rent shows up.

But also greed.

Yeah they call it "extend and pretend" - the moment a commercial landlord starts accepting lower rents, then the value of the property reduces accordingly, and then the bank loan tied to a higher valuation is in jeopardy and the bank has to repossess. Banks don't want to own buildings that way so they keep up the fiction that the building can command the higher rents, even if currently vacant.

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[archibaldcrane]

Just realized I fucked up not telling Salodin about the coolest shit ever for little kids in LA - the Noah's Ark exhibit at the Skirball cultural center is so fucking cool.

https://www.skirball.org/museum/noahs-ark

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[Yabby]

This is my 4th day in California and y'all's homeless problem is wild. I drove down skids row at 6am and it's kinda crazy y'all will let them turn the sidewalk into a campground instead of using one of these completely empty, multi-storied, storefronts or office spaces to set up additional housing.

We were in Santa Monica shopping near the cayton children's museum, and while beautiful and pleasant to walk through, the 3 story mall portion was half freaking empty which is wild when you consider how much they're charging for space in this city. Even the shopping down the avenue had so much prime space closed down not being used This entire city area is not using their space wisely in the least but I'm not a local so maybe it's a recent post-covid thing.

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I'm sure California is worse than most, but this kind of thing happens in almost every major city. The amount of land going to waste is just ridiculous sometimes. Even simple problems like parking could be solved easily, but they aren't because it would cut into someone's buddy's profits.

I work in Detroit a few days a week, and parking where I’m at costs anywhere from 10 to 30 dollars a day, sometimes even 50 if there’s an event. At the same time, there are empty lots all around that either used to be parking or are just sitting there fenced off and locked so people can’t use them, even though no one else is using the space either.

One lot in particular comes to mind. It used to be a parking lot. They repaved it, painted fresh lines, and then just abandoned it. After people kept opening the gate to park there, they fenced it off and put down spikes. That’s 80 perfectly usable parking spots sitting unused, and it’s been that way since COVID. Total waste.

[synistar]

For commercial property, usually the financing involved includes provisions that don't let the rent go down, so they sit empty until someone who (thinks they) can afford the rent shows up.

But also greed.

It's also stupid expensive to convert a commercial property, such as an abandoned mall, to residential if one is trying to meet building codes.

Even converting old motels to temporary housing/halfway houses require a ton of investment and time. And those are made for sleeping ffs.

[6souls]

This one is real !

To no suprise, the merger between Skydance and Paramount, has been approved by the Trump administration today. Funny how fast this went down after Colbert was told he was going to be let go.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/24/media...erger-approved

The Donald fears South Park. Cool.

[Tymon]

https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comment...gal_authority/

Looks like he's testing the waters on a Ghislaine pardon

[Dimmauk]

https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comment...gal_authority/

Looks like he's testing the waters on a Ghislaine pardon

As soon as she names that Black Bastard Barack Obama, then she will have freedom. Who cares if the victims get justice?

[Qalbert]

easier to fall out a window if you aren't behind bars.
that said, I would have to think that for some portion of his base (even a depressingly small one) pardoning her would be a bridge too far on the defense of pedos thing

[Mertron]

yeah i can’t figure out which way it goes; she comes out and says (lies) trump isn’t a pedophile but bill clinton is, half the people say HA SUCK IT LIBERALS MAGA FOREVER and the other half goes “wait are we pardoning a convicted sex trafficker?”

unfortunately the first half will be much louder so that will probably win

[6souls]

https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1948748866364325902

Bet is was autopen.

[Tymon]

"wait are we pardoning a convicted sex offender"
"yeah, are you going to vote Dem next election?"
"well no, i could ne--"

end of discussion