The number of stories I’ve been seeing lately about the housing crisis fueled by private equity firms buying houses, apartment complexes, and mobile home parks led me to wonder how the decision to make housing unaffordable benefits those real estate investors. It seemed even more odd that the GOP keeps fighting to make sure wages won’t keep pace with the cost of living. Some commenters pointed out the threat of homelessness is used to motivate people to work for less.
They are following through on that threat, though. Reports show increasing numbers of people in poverty, evicted, or unhoused before and during the pandemic (including evictions from nursing homes). The press is pointing out growing numbers of encampments as the population affected increases in multiple states.
The GOP is leaning into criminalization (expanding the ranks of the millions of formerly incarcerated people already disenfranchised) through anti-camping laws they claim are being drafted to address the problem. However, the origins of those laws reveal they were designed to spread misery and assign blame to the opposition. Of course, 45 expressed his support for an extreme version of a tent city plan, too:
What concerns me is that in addition to the cruelty being the point, this could also effectively disenfranchise millions more people - especially seniors, who are known for having high voter turnout.
