Squeezed by high prices, a growing number of Americans find shelter in long-term motels
A surge in rents and home prices left more lower-income households with no place else to go.
"Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor; and if one is a member of a captive population, economically speaking, one's feet have simply been placed on the treadmill forever." - James Baldwin
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet." - Terry Prachett
While the above is absolutely true, the rich are rich because of generational wealth. And if you go back far enough, that generational wealth is based on exploitation, environmental abuse, genocide, all the hits.
Pratchett mentions generational wealth as well, noting the attics full of furniture and sturdy tweeds which could be handed down, and the estate itself, which could not only house innumerable family members and friends and their servants, but also provided income from rents and food from the gardens, fields, and animal pens. It's just more spread about, whereas the Boots Theory of Poverty is a complete thought.
Usually, it's not even going back at all. The generational wealth kids I grew up around still had their parents stealing their workers' wages and engaging in fucked up business practices.
It might not be exterminating a native population kind of thing, but there's that whole thing about the banality of evil and generally accepted insanity, so I still think it counts.
The boots theory is bullshit.
Price does not reflect quality of goods. Price reflects what the market will pay.
Cheap things can be better quality than expensive things.
Rich people aren’t rich because of some “wise” investment in necessities, the idea that that’s even considered a factor is insulting.
You are completely missing the point. Because they have money to begin with the have the money to invest. For example, buying a home instead of paying twice as much to live in a motel because you can't get a loan because you weren't born with wealth.
The principal is about the cost of poverty. It's not meant to be taken literally.
This so much. It is so hard to beat out of the older generation that you cannot SAVE YOUR WAY TO WEALTH!!!
My grandma thinks rich ppl are rich cuz they just spend less and have nice things.
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
This is horrifying. We're watching the American people get squeezed out of their homes into fucking motels after doing everything they could to stay afloat. This is awful.
And then the government spends more tax payer money on housing them in motels than it would cost to house them properly, because those funds are only available for emergencies.
But at least we can rest easy knowing profit was extorted to the max along the way to create a market humanity doesn't need.
How long before Americans start calling it "crowd sourced housing"? #grindset
This used to be common with hotels in major cities. Long term hotel residency and boarding houses used to be common in the US. Probably fell out of style post-WWII with the GI bill paying for so many down payments on single family homes in the suburbs.
I remember living in them, starting at 13-14 years old. There is an entire world of hidden homeless that live in hotels, motels, etc. able to make enough to have a bed, but never enough to get out. It’s a hard life.
It’s that stupid AI pricing needs to be more regulated.