The hotel is being cited as "unfit for habitation", but then we're expected to believe somehow that the streets are?
"Fit for habitation" in the D.C. metro area, once you include utilities, for a small room, starts at what, $1,000/month? Someone working at a restaurant living off of tips could easily spend all of their takehome pay on basic shelter alone. Too many rules and regulations, are in part what is causing the rent to be too damned high by restricting the supply of shelter. Of course, the other component is greed. Upper-middle class NIMBYS have no problem charging top dollar to rent out their 2nd or 3rd home, slumlords do the same shit, while wall street firms buy up everything they can to drive the price of shelter as high as possible. All enabled by a Federal Reserve system that has rendered access to housing into a ponzi scheme.
The result? There are lots of homeless people out there who aren't there by choice, most of whom work jobs. And government resources are devoted to depriving them of their ability to find their own shelter when their job doesn't provide them enough tokens to afford it. And what if someone doesn't want to spend the majority of their waking hours making someone else who is rich even richer, are they undeserving of necessities such as shelter as a result? The so-called "shelters" often provided are worse than being on the street considering the likelihood of being robbed...
SMFH. Why can't people just be left the fuck alone?
dcist.com
