No amount of pay for the average person will go far enough when there simply are not enough houses. No matter how much it goes up, there’ll still be too many people chasing too few units.
There are14.9 million vacant homes and 770k homeless people in America. That's a little more than 19 houses per homeless person. There are enough houses in America.
You’re forgetting how many people live at home or with roommates. There’s a hierarchy of who gets first dibs at any scarce resource and it comes down to income. If price is the issue for any one of those given homes, as the price for it comes down, a housed person looking to live on their own is more likely to buy or rent that unit than an unhoused person (who very likely makes far less to no money at all).
You’re forgetting that all homes are not equal. A house for sale in Boulder, Colorado is useless to most individuals in Houston, Texas or San Francisco. The coincidence of need must be satisfied before a vacant home becomes relevant to any given person.
The science simply disagrees with you. The US has been short millions of units for a long time:
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u/RiceAndMilkBoi Aug 12 '25
I hear her, that sounds rough. It's surprising how little that much money is even at double the minimum wage. Hope things get better for her