From all of our many discussions I know that you are a highly ethical person, who would never do what happened as I described.
However I do believe that you are also an idealistic person who hasn't been exposed to the grubby reality of what some people do. Even with all my vetting I have had at times to gut and completely redecorate houses. When year old carpet throughout a house has to be replaced because of many bong burns along with ground in animal crap you get harder.
As to failed modes I agree that the US can be conservative but would point out that Australia essentially has what you are talking about.
While we do charge some rent for our public housing, at the same time we do have a national welfare net where the government pays for people to live, despite in some cases them never working and contributing. This payment can include a Rent Allowance as well. So actually it could be claimed that we have gone a step further, and supplied them with not only free accommodation, but enough money to live on junk food.
Many years ago I did work in the government welfare field, and could fill a book with stories. I pioneered a national scheme of Skills For Living and Working. When people are made to attend or lose their dole, and you hear a hired dietitian explain how they could cook simple cheap nutritious foods instead of buying KFC, and the response was "Nah, too hard" to making pumpkin soup (cut it up, boil in water, mash and eat with bread from the charities), you get harder. My son has a rental house, and took pity on his tenants by replacing blown light bulbs (their responsibility) after he found that they had several dark rooms, so you wonder.
I'm not remotely religious but remember from my church boarding school more than a half century ago how christ said "The poor will always be with us", plus I also remember reading how Warren Buffet said that if we redistributed all wealth evenly and came back ten years later much of it would have sprung back.
The E wrote:Daryl wrote:I remember a single female friend who rented out her farmhouse to people who had The E's attitude about free accommodation.
Thank you very much for insinuating that I am a deadbeat tenant who lets the flat he's living in deteriorate, that's great.
I think it's quite telling that my desire to not have anyone be homeless transforms in your mind into a desire to not have to care about the place I'm living in.
Also interesting how both you and Imaginos both look at the failure modes of the systems your countries have tried and are both coming to the conclusion that the idea of state-administrated housing is an obvious failure that can't ever work (I mean, I get it in Imaginos' case; after all, he seems to be someone who is convinced that government can't work, keeps electing people who tell him that government is bad, and then is astonished that his government is getting worse...)
hilari 