Sheesh, it’s not that hard gen-z,
just stop buying lattes, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and buy property in the 1980sI’m afraid that’s not possible, all people nowadays know is mcdonald’s , charge they phone, twerk, be bisexual , eat hot chip & lie.
Don’t forget the avocado toast.
Alternate headline, sub header combo:
"Gen Z aware of main cause of homelessness
Boomers and Forbes editors remain unconvinced"
Silly me, I assumed all people, those in the working class at least, genuinely fear becoming homeless…
Seriously though, what an odd way to frame it, but I guess when you look at the source, it makes a bit more sense that a financial publication will be spreading this kind of out of touch divisive crap, it’s not like they’re going to be honest about capitalism and the fact that people of all ages are finding it harder and harder to survive under it…
Silly me, I assumed all people, those in the working class at least, genuinely fear becoming homeless…
Gen-Xer here. At my highest highs and my lowest lows, I have never let go of a background fear of becoming homeless.
Pretty sure you have to be either rich or stupid not to have that genuine feel
At least I’m close enough to parents if it gets to that point, and they finally got high speed internet. Although then I’d end up in the middle of nowhere
Doing pretty well by most standards but I know that I’m just one misstep off a ladder, one car crash, one disease away from losing my job and eventual homelessness for my family. Sure, they’ll be able to hold out longer if I die quick, but anything protracted and expensive will ruin everything else too.
No, here in Germany the state pays your rent and gives you a monthly allowance (Bürgergeld) after you are out of job for more than a year so you don’t end up homeless (in the first year you get 65% of your average monthly salary from the 12 months before that per month). We also have homeless people, but in principle everyone is entitled to it.
Even owning a house and plenty of savings, a single medical emergency can still be bankruptcy.
It’s not fearing. It is becoming homeless. Both young millenials and older gen Z I’ve seen and myself had experienced going homeless. It’s our reality.
I’m 35. I was homeless for a short time when I was 23. My sister who is 4 years older than me has been homeless a few times, but she has her own issues. I know a few people around my age who were homeless for short times. It’s becoming a rite of passage in this country to experience becoming unhoused, and it’s really fucking sad how normalized it’s becoming.
Interest rates are through the roof right now at the same time that rent is through the roof and people wonder why homelessness is on the rise. Meanwhile, wages haven’t budged but grocery trips have gone up 100-200% in the past 5 years. Companies claim “supply chain” but the reality is that they raised prices when they had believable temporary reasons and never saw any reason to reduce them back down. Hence record profits. We’re being fucked to the limit.
My sister who is 4 years older than me has been homeless a few times, but she has her own issues.
Maybe that is a radical idea to some but I for one think people shouldn’t become homeless even if they have issues of any kind.
Good luck…
We got adult single people with full time jobs going homeless. Until this basic issue is fixed, nothing can be fixed.
Agreed. I don’t think she’s psychologically capable of caring for herself. I think there was some serious trauma because she graduated summa cum laude to get her ME degree, so to go from that to barely holding low level jobs like cart pusher has been pretty jarring to watch. But yeah, at the end of the day, everybody deserves food and shelter and healthcare.
39 checking in. in 2010 I was super broke, and when they shut my power off, my landlord said he wasn’t gonna renew the lease next month. that meant I had no food, no lights, and 30 days to come up with 90 days’ rent (first, last and security at a new place). I was lucky that I had someone to let me crash and start rebuilding my life, but I also promised myself I’d never for the rest of my life let my survival be dictated by luck and someone else’s kindness.
Been trying to find a new car, and realized that out of all the things I’ve been looking for in my new vehicle, I realized I forgot one very important thing. At some point, I could become homeless, and might need to live out of my car, so searching for one that has a fold-down backseat to put a mattress is key.
This is America…
If you don’t do a lot of highway driving a Subaru Sambar van is awesome and they’re dirt cheap to import. Next year the 1999 models will be available and they’re very improved for safety features compared to the 1998 ones.
When the Kei Vans were first made they made being able to fold the seats down flat into a bed a big priority because of how high rent was in the 80s and 90s in Japan.
Edit: I should mention that the improved safety features is that a front crumple zone exists at all, it’s still not safe, but it is a lot better than the older ones.
I think it’s more of an inter-generational thing.
Huge class element too
For sure. And intersectionality would be a great tool for this conversation, if there really was one.
Well they should, my partner and I became homeless for a few months because we got priced out of our housing. We had a friend to crash with but it was awful and ended up destroying that relationship, AND the solution ended up being moving to a smaller town because rent was simply too high.
we all need to pick a small town and fucking descend upon it
In capitalism as inventory goes down prices go up. As we descend upon that small town and rent or buy what’s there, prices go up.We need to instead lobby for legislation that heavily taxes investment properties. That will free the hundreds of thousands of homes that’re empty. Also local housing initiatives where tax dollars go to subsidize the building of more houses. Look at the G.I. Bill after WW2 for a great example of this. But instead of veterans, anyone with income 90k or below gets a check to help with their first home. Of course we’d keep the GI Bill for veterans as well. This isn’t a zero sum game.
Some anti-NIMBY regulation could probably help too at least when it comes to residential buildings.
Yes, rezoning for denser housing and removing unneeded or dangerous commercial zoning could help too.
Allowing commercial inside residential areas the way most countries outside the US do could help the US too. That way people wouldn’t need a car for basic necessities.
The fact that most Americans can’t just walk to the corner store to get something still blows my mind
In my city near Los Angeles they proposed to turn a parking lot into a 5 story affordable housing complex. All the NIMBYs came out of the woodwork to fight it claiming “it will hurt the neighborhood charm and character of single family homes.” The city said F OFF and are moving forward with the plan anyways.
Looking at the drama that’s currently going on in my small village, NIMBY is a hell of a drug. Not sure how we can regulate that.
Wouldn’t that be YIMBY?
This is called gentrification.
Wait, other Gen Xers and Millennials don’t fear becoming homeless?
I have a lot of friends who were homeless at least once during life, and all the others have been on the verge of homelessness. Is this atypical in the United States?
Oh, no…we do. My best friend is a millennial, I’m an xennial, and we worry as much as Gen-Zers do. Well…I don’t necessarily because I have an in-demand career as a high school advanced math teacher, but I do worry like hell about retirement. My friend, though, while having a full-time job, they have almost no savings and would be one crisis away from homelessness if it weren’t for the people in their life who care about them.
Yeah, but think about how much fun we had with cardboard boxes as a kid. Now we get to relive those glory days and we can build those cardboard box castles we always dreamed of.
“Just stay in line, shut up and do as you’re told and you’ll probably make just barely enough to choose between food and medicine.”
-Your boss’ boss
My water’s been shut off for days. I need to get a second job soon 😞
You have to get a second job in order to be able to afford to exist in this shit society.
What you need to do is rest, create as it suits you, and have the time to enjoy being a human with other humans who love you.
Edit: I don’t get the down votes. I’m advocating for an overhaul of the system in which we all have the time to not spend every last bit of energy we have hustling just to be able to afford a roof over our heads and can use it instead to enjoy living.
I think the thing here to is we are talking typical ones. Not like someone who is screwing around in life. Im an Xer so like I did not have the option of the house with 2 cars in the suburbs thing I grew up on as “normal” or at least the cash to have an eqivalent expense wise. I have done very well. So I have a place but I know peers in rediculous situations that are a hairsbreath from homeless. For millenials and gen z this is moving to the mainstream and the whole suburban fantasy family is not something they were barely not able to achieve but is a crazy pipe dream. and I just can’t imagine what the next gen is going to face.
The system is working as designed
And it will continue this way as long as we are all so complacent about it waiting on someone else to fix it
So many folks at or just over the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid that even Forbes can see them.
