Of a hundred and thirty million homes, nineteen million stand empty.
It's a bit disingenuous - there is no specific, de facto reason why every family in the United States cannot own a home. There would still be a few million left over. Enough few millions that we could do some quality control.
With over one million homeless children, defending the status quo for material reasons is simply absurd - there is plenty.
Plenty.
I've offered hints at solutions in other diaries, my main argument here is not for a specific solution, but rather, that a solution clearly exists. We could build a million more homes, we could alter property taxes, we could seize bank properties gained by predatory lending - whatever.
Hopelessness and apathy are far too easy. Some parts of reality are harsh, but others - focus on this thought for a moment:
We have built enough houses to comfortably shelter every man, woman, and child in the nation, with enough left over for every immigrant, legal or otherwise.
Yes, a bunch of borderline psychotic wolves are running our financial henhouse. Yes, global warming is a problem. Yes, health care is a mess. Yes, we have corporations trying to intrude on our water rights.
We have enough arable land and the means to feed ten billion people, should we wish to. It would be a vegetarian diet, mostly, but then again, there aren't ten billion people on the planet, much less the country. More sustainable farming brings that down to 'only' a billion or so.
There's no need to even discuss 'wealth redistribution' as tea partiers call it. The simple fact of the matter is, we as a people are quite obviously capable of vastly outproducing our basic needs.
Our situation is absurd, but hopelessness is a figment of your imagination.