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Would you take a job that pays $15/hr but provides housing at no cost? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 6 days ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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You're living in a townhouse as part of an apartment complex. The apartment complex has benefits such as a pool and hot tub, indoor gym, full size basketball court, a library, and a garden. You have 2 other roommate/coworkers, and you have 6 neighbor/coworkers. A Labor neutrality agreement is guaranteed, and both tenant unions and labor unions will be voluntarily recognized.

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[–] 16 points 6 days ago* (22 children)

Yes, but I'd immediately suspect I was joining a cult.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 6 days ago (21 children)

    No lol it's an idea I've had that I want to propose to my state to handle the housing crisis. Basically make really nice apartments with a lot of amenities nearby, and then hire librarians, maintenance crews, and social workers. The folks that rent have payments set to pay off the cost of construction plus an emergency repair fund with no profit margin

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  • [–] 7 points 6 days ago (7 children)

    We can't even open homeless barracks in my state.

    Are you in the US? If so, you sound psychotic.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 6 days ago (6 children)

    I am in the US. Are you saying you wouldn't support this if it was proposed?

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  • [–] 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

    People like you and me are kept far the fuck away from making governmental decisions.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 6 days ago (2 children)

    I'm not going to go to government, I'm going to go to tenant unions and housing advocates and get their support, then use my union connections to get time with the AG

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago

    I'm saying that you think the government cares about homeless people enough to, you know, HOUSE them.

    Providing housing is a pretty basic concept, and not in anyway new. We have several types of housing programs, ALL of them desperately underfunded.

    You are expecting a housing program that is much more convoluted and complicated and expensive but probably no more effective to be implemented. Why?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago*

    So this sounds like low income housing. Which they can’t afford. Because we already can’t afford to pay for this kind of stuff in nicer areas.

    Do you allow dogs? Cats? Children? What if someone is allergic that is rooming with someone else? What if someone destroys the house because they don’t see value in something they aren’t paying for? Apartments have people coming in to take advantage you can’t even out toilet paper out because it would get stolen. My last middle class apartment smelled like piss in the hallways. One person was housing wild animals. There’s a reason why the state has its housing set up like it is.

    Does it sound wonderful in theory yeah. Can I think of 1 million reasons on how to take advantage of that? also yeah.

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  • [–] 6 points 6 days ago

    It's going about the problem the opposite way. People should be paid sufficient wages to afford housing. In general, the jobs that provide housing are in apartment complexes or hospitality, so they already own livable units as part of their business. If you're constructing units for no reason other than providing a place to live, you should give your employees sufficient pay to have the freedom to manage their own living conditions.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 days ago (9 children)

    Why is this plan more effective than building the houses and then selling or renting them on the open market? I don't see why you would want to offer them in return for labour rather than offering them in return for money.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 6 days ago* (8 children)

    No, the jobs are for people that work for the apartment complex. However for people elected to manage the apartment, their rent is also waived. The apartment rent for residents is set for each unit to pay the cost in 30 years, at which point rent will reduce to the cost of maintenance plus some mutual savings.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 days ago (7 children)

    I asked why, though.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 6 days ago* (6 children)

    Because single family homes aren't efficient enough, and by cutting out the profit incentive it lowers the cost of living overall

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  • [–] 2 points 6 days ago (5 children)

    I'm not sure whether you mean for "single family home" to mean literally a home sized for a single family, or a detached house.

    In the either case, whichever institution you're imagining builds the houses and offers them for its workers could build whatever type of housing it wants no matter how it offers them to people. If you imagine it building apartment blocks and offering them in exchange for labour, it could build apartment blocks and offer them in exchange for money.

    If you're worried about occupancy, the mechanism of offering housing to employees becomes purely a way of forcing more than one family unit to occupy a single dwelling. I don't see why this would be a good way of achieving that. If people don't want to live in shared accommodation, you have to make it attractive to them in some other way. Bundling it with a job doesn't make it more attractive.

    For your second point, the institution building the homes can choose not to make a profit regardless.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 6 days ago (4 children)

    Single family homes has always referred to detached houses from what I've seen, I've never heard it to mean all forms of housing units for a single family.

    I don't think a development company, or really any organization other than government, will voluntarily building nonmarket housing in which the rent doesn't produce profit. I am making the assumption that the person that takes this deal is single, but I imagine that accommodations for individual quarters would have to be figured out

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  • [–] 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

    OK, so the government builds the homes. It doesn't want to make a profit. Why can't it sell them at cost? Or if you're worried about investors flipping them, rent them?

    Offering them as part of a salary just seems pointless and leads to the problems that other people are raising.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    As another person put it, the idea is more housing with a job. The goal is that once the payment is taken care of, the people that live in the apartment complex are the ones that manage the apartment, rather than outsource it or keep it under government management

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago

    I'm still not hearing any reason why that is a good thing over the alternative.

    I think on some level it just appeals to you, but you're finding it hard to explain why.

    Given that there's a real problem with housing tied directly to employment though, I think it would be better not to do this.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 days ago (1 child)

    Your state is probably going to tell you that they already fund various halfway houses.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 6 days ago

    Nah, this is distinct from a halfway house, it's a government funded nonmarket housing. Social workers are so people have access to basic therapy, not to retrain people. The people that live there need to pay rent, but the apartment complex is managed by a board of residents that are elected

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