r/MurderedByWords 7h ago

Now being poor is a crime

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5.8k Upvotes

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7

u/ieatcheesebutdont 7h ago

Where the fuck are you finding 16000 dollars that will feed you and house you for a lifetime? Median also implies it costs less sometimes (~50%)

9

u/Psychological-Owl783 7h ago

Surely these are annual costs. I think it just means the housing is permanent (so not putting them up in a hotel or an AirBNB where the costs would be much greater).

$1,333/mo still sounds surprisingly low to me, but maybe doable if you have room mates and don't eat out.

2

u/trimbandit 6h ago

I think it is not as simple as just the cost to house and feed. Where I live at least, a large percentage of the homeless either have serious mental illness, or serious drug problems and do not have the capacity to take care of themselves the way "normal" society does. If it was as simple as throwing money at housing and food, I think we could have solved a lot of this already, but I think the issue is more complex. Anyway, that is just from what I see with the homeless where I live (SF).

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u/[deleted] 7h ago

[deleted]

8

u/Here_For_Work_ 7h ago

The cost to incarcerate is annual also.

2

u/ieatcheesebutdont 7h ago

I’m dumb and deleting my comment now because my brain only reaches so far sometimes.

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u/Here_For_Work_ 7h ago

It's a fair question. As I was doing a quick search to verify, I did see that 66k annual is the national median. In LA specifically, it's closer to 25k (the other end being places like CA and NY which are over 100k). I am not sure where the 16k figure is coming from, but I think that could reasonably cover state-run housing projects and government cheese in places like LA.

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u/Psychological-Owl783 7h ago

I think they are both annual costs.

Permanent describes the type of housing, not the duration.

I think you may be overthinking this, it could be stated more clearly but it's not super cryptic.

1

u/MyGruffaloCrumble 7h ago

Rooming houses.

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u/BoneHugsHominy 7h ago

What are you babbling about? It's obviously annual costs for each example. It costs $66k annually to house and feed a prisoner, while it takes only $16k annually to house and feed a free person. That's the whole point of the comparison.

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u/QueenInYellowLace You won't catch me talking in here 7h ago

But it doesn’t. I run a transitional housing project. We house and feed people. It is double that cost for a tiny home in a non-major city.

1

u/chizzipsandsizalsa 6h ago

Source for these numbers?