The US unsheltered population is around 200k, the cheapest rent I can find in a city is ~$500 a month, so, assuming (incorrectly), you can actually provide shelter at that rate in the places people actually are, you get about 1.2 billion a year more than we currently spend, ignoring what that will do to the market, efficiencies of scale, tiny houses, and other options. This also only deals with the unsheltered (there are, probably, another 400k sheltered but homeless), and doesn’t necessarily include utilities. If 30 year fixed plus maintenance is the presumed amortization that rent is going against, then ~36 billion may be able to uplift the current unsheltered population, provided people are willing to be relocated. This, unfortunately, misses that a lot of the homeless population is only temporarily homeless already, due to section 8, public housing, etc, so it isn’t entirely clear that the 36 billion would actually be more than a hiccup.
The next problem is accessing the money. The billionaires come in a few different categories, based on whether their wealth is primarily from income (kleptocrats, oligarchs, oil barons, etc) or from static appreciated investments (tech company founders, etc). To some extent, we don’t want the 2nd group to attempt to liquidate their wealth, as currently, said wealth is, to the extent it exists, doing useful work, and liquidating it would be sucking a LOT of resources out of the economy, which may make sense if done gradually, with a clear plan. If done quickly, it is likely to devalue itself, crash a bunch of other things, and likely be illegal.
There are other problems, that said, there are places where things could be greatly improved, and it would make sense for governmental bodies to execute some of these plans where it would be efficient and compassionate to do so. There are a lot of people that it would be cheaper to provide housing for, than the current cost in services they incur due to not having shelter.
The tech founder liquidating his holdings to solve homelessness may or may not be a good idea, but it is not a bad idea because it would suck resources dedicated to tech out of the economy. He’d sell his shares to other people, who now own the tech stream of income, and then take their money and use it to solve homelessness. The only possible economic downside is a bit of inflation as the implied velocity of money goes up slightly since most capital owners spend a very small portion of their wealth each year, while he presumably would be spending it faster. But a 20 billion or even 50 billion one time spend in terms of that is not even a rounding error to the total economy.
If you provide free housing, then not only the people who are currently homeless would want to move into that housing but also some people who currently rent their flats.
The US unsheltered population is around 200k, the cheapest rent I can find in a city is ~$500 a month, so, assuming (incorrectly), you can actually provide shelter at that rate in the places people actually are, you get about 1.2 billion a year more than we currently spend, ignoring what that will do to the market, efficiencies of scale, tiny houses, and other options. This also only deals with the unsheltered (there are, probably, another 400k sheltered but homeless), and doesn’t necessarily include utilities. If 30 year fixed plus maintenance is the presumed amortization that rent is going against, then ~36 billion may be able to uplift the current unsheltered population, provided people are willing to be relocated. This, unfortunately, misses that a lot of the homeless population is only temporarily homeless already, due to section 8, public housing, etc, so it isn’t entirely clear that the 36 billion would actually be more than a hiccup.
The next problem is accessing the money. The billionaires come in a few different categories, based on whether their wealth is primarily from income (kleptocrats, oligarchs, oil barons, etc) or from static appreciated investments (tech company founders, etc). To some extent, we don’t want the 2nd group to attempt to liquidate their wealth, as currently, said wealth is, to the extent it exists, doing useful work, and liquidating it would be sucking a LOT of resources out of the economy, which may make sense if done gradually, with a clear plan. If done quickly, it is likely to devalue itself, crash a bunch of other things, and likely be illegal.
There are other problems, that said, there are places where things could be greatly improved, and it would make sense for governmental bodies to execute some of these plans where it would be efficient and compassionate to do so. There are a lot of people that it would be cheaper to provide housing for, than the current cost in services they incur due to not having shelter.
The tech founder liquidating his holdings to solve homelessness may or may not be a good idea, but it is not a bad idea because it would suck resources dedicated to tech out of the economy. He’d sell his shares to other people, who now own the tech stream of income, and then take their money and use it to solve homelessness. The only possible economic downside is a bit of inflation as the implied velocity of money goes up slightly since most capital owners spend a very small portion of their wealth each year, while he presumably would be spending it faster. But a 20 billion or even 50 billion one time spend in terms of that is not even a rounding error to the total economy.
If you provide free housing, then not only the people who are currently homeless would want to move into that housing but also some people who currently rent their flats.