How private equity is changing housing

Here’s a novel and brazen idea: if a domicile has been vacant inside a metropolitan area for more than thirty days, it’s up for grabs. Be it an apartment, a condo, a house, whatever, but if someone isn’t living in that space for more than thirty days, let folks claim it as abandoned property.

Watch rents and values plummet real fucking fast as folks seek to claim their “winnings” before their shit gets taken. That’ll at least jumpstart the real discussion of making sure housing is accessible to those who need it rather than constant finger pointing.

Because sometimes you just need a bigger fire to create the necessary action to solve the underlying problems.

EDIT: I am honestly so sick of the current housing crisis and seeing a swath of vacant apartments and condos as “investment properties” here in New England that yes, I am serious, and I’ve got a mental map of about a dozen large starter units that have been vacant for a year or so that I’d rush to claim one of.

Your investment is irrelevant when humans lack basic necessities like shelter, and I’m tired of being civil or polite about this so your ego doesn’t get bruised.

Like, don't arrest people for sleeping under bridges unless they are sleeping in the middle of a footpath under a bridge. And don't go building footpaths under all the bridges to prevent them, either. Also tear down all the hostile architecture or at least don't arrest people for taking to it with angle grinders.

The free market is supposed to work by everyone solving all their own problems and then exchanging solutions with each other. If you claim to have a market but then arrest people for solving problems, no wonder you get a dysfunctional society.

Not saying that people living in tents on public land is a good long-term solution, but it's a step up from being completely shelterless, and since price changes happen at the margins, if it's even remotely viable, it may cause a market crash.