Hacker News Reader

Comment by candiddevmike | Hacker News Reader

Government should provide apartments, free, in the center of the city, for anyone who needs one. Housing should be a human right. You can pay extra for a better place, but then landlords would actually have to compete for your business instead of the other way around.

View on HN

Interesting idea. What tax rate are you ready to pay? Oh, and who defines "needs one"?

> Government should provide apartments, free, in the center of the city, for anyone who needs one.

During COVID lockdowns I watched lots of international TV drama series on Netflix.

One of those "random things I learnt on Netflix" was that they (sort of) offer this in the UAE if you've lived & worked there for 10+ years.[1]

Its basically means-tested housing. So they offer anything from interest-free 25 year loans to fully subsidised housing.

[1] https://www.tamm.abudhabi/en/aspects-of-life/benefits-for-em...

The UAE are in a uniquely blessed situation where they have a small population, not a lot of land, and a ton of valuable resources. Not every country could pull this off without significantly reworking how it's tax/budget/administration work.

That being said, there's subsidised, including to 100%, housing in France too. And cities are legally required to build affordable housing for those schemes, so it's not "it exists on paper, but nothing has been built in decades so nobody can get in".

I would love some city or government to try this experiment!

The closest to it today is Finland's "Housing First" policy: https://ysaatio.fi/en/housing-first-finland

But even in Finland, housing is only sometimes free and then on a net basis (rent can be canceled out by a means-tested housing benefit).

Are you insane? Then what, abolish poverty, stop human exploitation, and maintain the ecosystem that allows our species to survive? You dangerous revolutionary.

Not to mention ending militarism.

Its actually interesting to read about housing in the Soviet block. Housing was a right, but in reality long waiting lists, multi generations in cramped apartments and lots of dense blocks. But it kinda worked. I'm not sure how private stand alone housing was allocated.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com