One hundred thousand homeless families in England

@OogieBoogie Gosh, we are not the only country without a social conscious then.

@SW-User it's fucked up dude.
Property has some sort of tax loophole on it. So people with money use it as a tax escape hatch.
They only have to pay tax on a property if they earn any money from it, ie rent it.

So they buy, and let properties degrade and fall into ruin coz they literally CAN'T lose money on it . House and rental prices have doubled in the last three years. Incomes have gone up 3% (if you are lucky).
The middle class who don't own their home have become poor. The poor have entered poverty .

We now have three classes of poverty !

Welcome to the future 😒

@OogieBoogie
For real? 😱

@CrazyMusicLover it's not EXACTLY that. Its 1% or something ...so pretty flipping minimal.
Plus you can get a lot of that back with deductions, so it comes up to nearly nothing .

But if you rent it, it's considered income, so you get taxed at the rate of your total income bracket .

It's basically set up for those who are rich enough to invest ......and do it almost tax free.

They've spoken about changing it...but surprise surprise ...they hanent 🙄

@CrazyMusicLover Even in Canada, if you look at tax loopholes, they always benefit the rich. Those well to do here, who own rental properties, forget their privilege of owning capital and then complain if rent controls are put in place. I understand the government has to balance living and affordability with trying to cultivate growth in profit for those who want to build. Whose going to build rental units if they can not profit off the renters? But I've watched prices go from $1200/month to $2000/month in my city for a one-bedroom apartment. Its literally not sustainable. I make what is considered middle income, within industries my city tries to find growth in, and if I were to lose this apartment, I could no longer live here. That's how unsustainable it is.

This is also in Canada, rich in land, how did land here which is ample become so unaffordable? It's against the theory of capitalism in supply and demand. Some will say it's too much government intervention, that allows this, if you deregulate it, the market corrects itself - but from what I see, taxes benefit those who own, creating capital, against those who try live life day by day, and becomes justified upon, you could have seen this before. (That's not a compassionate society)

I went to a park today, I shake my head at this, but there are encampments being set up by homeless people, a lone one instead of joining a forest away, where the city is trying to push them out, some individual has set up his tent beside the washroom in a local popular park? It's smart of needed amenities, and what you determine you need when you are in squalor becomes different, while others are worried about the colour of their scaffolding?

Human nature does not see the tragedy it creates and tries to intellectualize, lobbied with dollars, its way out, forgetting, in different circumstances the mayor trying to push out the encampments could have been part of that encampment if not for the fortune he was afforded.

@SW-User this is so sad .
Here we are, in such affluent first world countries ...and our standard of living for the average person has dropped so low it doesn't even meet humanitarian basics 😞

I hear you man....I'm LUCKY to have gotten a rental. We have something like a 97% occupancy rate..
.so everyone looking to rent has to compete with 30 more individuals or couples wanting to rent.
Some places even get filled before prospective tenants can go look at them . I was thinking about moving ....I tired for 6 months ...and places got snapped up the very day they went on the market .

It's insane here. Rents are sucking up more than half of couples income.!

@OogieBoogie I wouldn't say average, but how quickly they can become. If I lose my apartment, I become one of those. I was thinking of a time, in March of this year, when I received word from my landlord he was looking to sell the building, while my work was talking of a prospective buyer. Once, I found out the ground sample from my workplace was clean from contaminated soil, I knew the story there, I'm out of work soon. I was potentially displaced from a home while possibly looking for work.

Way to have life just throw you to the fucking rudders, while you've been working yourself off supporting yourself and your cats. I looked at them and said, you always have a home.

My workplace is closing, and capitalists, if they had their chance, would remove any severance I'm owed, but I have that coming (mandated). If I play my cards right, and the package in severance is good, I have a hope of maybe moving somewhere more affordable. BUT this is a huge gamble itself, play my cards wrong, and I look upon some homeless people and ask myself, am I about to make the same mistake as you?

I don't understand why it needs to be this way. I find it ironic, and I asked a couple people in my workplace (though they own homes), so if they could afford homes on this property where we work now, would they? One's answer was no. I get for sentimental reasons. Another, more telling of economic struggles, said yes, I would, but I could never afford to live here (after working on the same land for 30 years.) A kind of symbolism exists there.

I'm in the position, single, where I can move. I never thought of it that way before. I'm glad you found a rental, and you see your gratitude too.. That counts for so much more than some can know.

@SW-User it's still a shock to me how quickly life can change .
You grow up thinking of you work hard enough you'll earn a sanctuary ....but it's not like that at all.
ANYTHING can happen .

And yeah...I've got my gratitude hat screwed on pretty tight .
A year ago I was feeling a little sorry for myself ...but then a friend 10 years younger had a turn for the worse . Her MS went ballistic . She's 43 and now in managed care. She can barely walk, barely remember people and lives in a constant state of 'now'. Her husband basically abandoned her while she was getting sicker -.and had gotten a girlfriend 15 years younger .
He's gotten controll of all her money and is selling their home.....and she has no idea about any of this.

That's crazy! Just ONE year and her whole life : work, marriage, future, family and complete self fell apart to shit !

There's no guarantees dude ...none at all.

@OogieBoogie That's screwed up and morally bankrupt. Yet, I can empathize his world was thrown upside down. Not making a right out of a wrong; just illustrating how things change, even in the heart. I can't fathom sometimes how it works out for some, and not for others. My ex, who has PTSD, anxiety disorders, who has to care for her mother in supportive housing from schizophrenia, became her mother's caregiver at the age of 5, while her father walked away. My ex then reconciled with her father years later, who carried the burden of guilt in his heart of walking away. He was also just young and made mistakes. And can you fault a person for not being able to handle the burden of someone's health? I love the idea of unto death do we part, we will be beside our sides, until.... but they are naive notions, and I had to be beside my ex (my ex at time) while she lost her father to cancer. You could see her mother cry.

She managed it more than I ever could, but if I think of the trauma she lived through, it does add up, she found her own way through adversity. Her Mom was homeless for some time, while her father lived relatively rich. This all happened within a year.

I only wish, we would actually create a world, instead of junk vanity, there is a true and just proper social net....or even more, it would not be needed, but I'm unsure we will ever be there. I'm sorry for what your friend is enduring.

@OogieBoogie all part of selling off oz to rich Asians, pushed by the real estate industry

@Convivial it's not right . And it's not fair .
How is the next generation supposed to get the 'great Australian dream' of owning a home ?

Ever since I can remember price of a home was about the same as the average yearly wage .
It made it possible to buy and also LIVE decently.

Who dafuq earns half a million a year these days ?

@OogieBoogie all part of the great game of concentrating wealth at the top....i saw a great example on the news the other night... One of the more affluent areas of Sydney and an auction.... On of the "beautiful" people being interviewed said "his are NORMAL people supposed to afford it"


Really, normal people?

@Convivial And THAT'S the problem .

It's so built for the rich ....we don't have a proper middle class anymore .
The gap is getting bigger.

So big there's no connection between the classes any more .

Middleclass is now almost poor.

@OogieBoogie This is fantasy, surely 😁

@Vetrov I've been rechecking numbers.
Official numbers were 122 000 (roughly).

But I remember reading an article that claimed that there's likely double that amount as many homeless don't have an address or fill out a census form, so they are unaccounted for.

Either way, it's still shocking numbers for a first world country with so much space .

But the vacant home number is officially correct .