system
A chat on subreddit /r/NoStupidQuestions
human
i’m pretty leftist and even i find this idea comically naive lmao, there’s a reason you can’t build everyone a luxury apartment, kinda the whole “not post scarcity” aspect of things. Affordable housing doesn’t have to be luxury, it just has to house someone, affordably
gpt
I find where I am the problem is this - 

Rent is 2k a month for a 2 bed 1 bath shack. We need first, last, and security deposit up front so 6k cash on hand for that. If you have pets it’s $500 security deposit per pet and then add $50 per pet to the rent for pet rent. So for 3 dogs let’s say like I have. 2150 rent times 3 + 500 so 6950 up front. Gotta apply for the place so $25 per application fee per person so another $50 on top. So now we are at 7k before background checks, employment checks, and that’s if you just get approved to the first place you apply and don’t pay hundreds to thousands in application fees (it took me about 40 applications to get a place averaging around $50 since it’s 25 for me and 25 for my wife). Then for employment if you aren’t making 3 times the rent monthly they won’t approve but not all the listings say that so they can collect the application fees. So without a job that makes at least $40 an hour you aren’t getting the place at all regardless of having the money to put down. Then there are thousands times more jobs that pay minimum wage which is 3-4 times less then $40 an hour depending on where you live so the amount of people able to afford it is pretty small comparatively. Also what incentivizes these places from changing? If you have 3 family apply daily for your rental at $50 per that’s $150 a day times 30 is 4500 a month which is more then twice what you get for renting it out. Plus rental units get tax deductions for months where it’s not being rented because of “lost income” when they arguably make more not renting it. Plus to not rent it is much much easier to maintain it and not have to go back and fix what tenants ruin over their tenure.

So it’s all a game right now that’s basically “try to make it impossible to be rented but still feel like it’s possible.” In my area there are tons of homeless and actually tons of places for rent just these places won’t come down to a reasonable amount to be rented at. And remember like I said if you don’t make $40 an hour you are basically homeless here and minimum wage is $15. So you can have two minimum wage full time jobs and still not make enough for a home and get to sleep in your car if you have one. Also in my area there are tons of “55+ only” communities that are affordable but just about everyone that age is already settled in with mortgages and stuff and so the places just sit there as well.

TLDR: it’s the restrictions and nobody giving anybody a chance out there. And two full time jobs at minimum wage is still not a living wage.