A Simple Solution To America's Housing Crisis.
On an average night in the United States, more than 770,000 people are homeless, and this number includes children as well as adults. Of course, that's just an estimate from government sources. The real number is likely much higher, as outreach teams are unable to count every homeless person, especially those who are technically without housing but have friends who let them sleep on the couch for a few nights or who live in cheap motels when they can afford it. It's not beyond reason to think we could have a million people in America with no permanent, safe place to call home. It's often assumed that homelessness is caused by mental health issues or drug & alcohol abuse, but in reality, the main contributors to homelessness are a lack of housing supply, rising home values, and unaffordable rent. There simply aren't enough houses or apartments available, and as a result, prices go up and the requirements to qualify for a home loan or to be approved for a lease become unattainable for more and more people. The situation has gotten so bad that tent cities have sprung up in urban areas while others are forced to live in their cars. It's unacceptable that the world's most powerful nation is unable, or unwilling, to make sure every citizen has a home.
As usual, government officials have no solutions to what should be a simple problem. Could this be because the housing industry, which donates big money to politicians, prefers to keep the housing supply tight in an effort to keep prices high?
Despite what industry lobbyists say, I believe homelessness can be eliminated fairly easily, by diverting existing government expenditures from war and foreign aid and into a domestic building program.
First, some numbers: according to Janover Multifamily Loans, the current cost to build a 200 unit apartment complex ranges from $50 million to $100 million in an average city (not including major markets such as Manhattan and San Francisco). Since we need the most units possible and not luxury complexes, let's use the lower estimate of $50 million.
Now let's look at where the money could come from. We give Israel $3.8 Billion per year, and since October 2023 we've spent more than $23 Billion in military costs to enable their genocide against the people of Gaza. In Israel alone, we've wasted nearly $27 Billion that could have been used to help American citizens right here within our own borders. That money could have built 540 apartment complexes totaling 108,000 units.
In 2024 we gave Ukraine $1.2 Billion, Jordan $1.1 Billion, Ethiopia $874 Million, DR Congo $843 Million, Somalia $706 Million, South Sudan $657 Million, and Yemen $602 Million. (We give hundreds of millions more to other countries throughout the world in addition to these.) The total for these seven is $5,982,000,000, or roughly $6 Billion to make it easier to compute. That amount of money could have built another 120 apartment complexes totaling 24,000 units.
That's 132,000 homes built using the money we send overseas in just over a year, and in most cases that money is sent year after year. If we did nothing else but keep that money here instead of giving it away, we could continue to build thousands of homes every year and have 770,000 ready in less than six years. That's enough to house all the homeless we estimate we have now, plus provide thousands of jobs in construction and manufacturing. Getting people housed would also reduce crime, it would clean up our cities, and it would give people the hope they need to keep them from turning to drugs & alcohol.
We could gain even more units if local governments would loosen regulations prohibiting the construction of tiny homes and relax building codes that drive up construction costs. Homes need to be safe, but they also need to be available. Regulations and codes are often used to protect a city's image, but they do little good when residents are sleeping on sidewalks or in tents.
Our problem isn't a lack of funds; it's a lack of will combined with misplaced priorities. A nation is made up of its people, and those people can't be productive and contribute to the strength of the nation if they're struggling to stay alive.
Some will say my idea is socialism, a point I can't deny. While I strongly oppose all forms of Marxist ideology, we have a crisis that can be solved using money we're already spending. We just need to spend it on something that actually helps America instead of sending it to other nations that give us nothing in return. With a national debt of $37 Trillion that rises every day, we can no longer afford to fix the world while our own nation crumbles. Our focus has to be at home, at least until our internal problems have been taken care of.
Further, the apartment homes I've proposed wouldn't be given to tenants for free. Rent would be charged sufficient to maintain the properties and possibly return some funds to the federal treasury, but that rent would be affordable to people working the service jobs that help keep our economy going. We all like the convenience of fast food, for example, but the cashiers and the cooks have to live somewhere local or the restaurants won't be able to stay open. And do you really want the guy who makes your food to be living in a tent with no running water?
Ultimately, once we've gotten out of crisis mode, we can stop building apartments and start repairing our neglected infrastructure and paying down our debt. But no money should go overseas (other than for legitimate emergency humanitarian aid) until we've gotten our own nation built back strong again.
Because a strong homeland is the best kind of national security.
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Addendum:
After I published this article, I received some comments on social media suggesting that the best solution to the housing crisis would be to deport the illegal immigrants. Although that seems logical, here's is the reply I posted to explain why mass deportations will never happen:
"To show the fallacy of Trump's deportation psyop, I did some research and found there are an estimated 18.6 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, almost 6% of the total population. That's as many people as the total population of Cambodia and twice as many as live in Israel, Austria, or Switzerland. Deporting even 1/4 of the illegals would crash our economy, something Trump knows. Stunts like the "Alligator Alley" deportation camp are part of the theater that creates the perception that Trump is tough on immigration. In reality, even if 3.7 million people were deported every year, it would take five years to finish the job. (That's 10,136 people PER DAY, every day, for five years).
I'm not pro-immigration, but the numbers don't lie. We have an economy that is dependent on illegals. It also depends on income from illegal drugs, but that's a story for another day."
So while Trump will continue with his highly publicized deportations, he's going for the "low-hanging fruit" and the most violent criminals. What he's doing through ICE is essentially theater for the masses as well as a form of social training that conditions us to the sight of heavily armed police roaming the nation looking for targets. It won't make a significant dent in the number of illegals living in America nor will it solve the housing crisis.
