121
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
142 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] [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

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] [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

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent