• fonix232@fedia.io
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    6 days ago

    Fun fact: there were no (involuntary) homeless people in the USSR. And even voluntary homelessness was reduced (although through forced work - if you were caught panhandling or otherwise begging for money/food, you’d be put in a worker’s home and scheduled for work at whatever nearby factory or farm that needed more people).

    Tons of “social housing” was built - cheap but for the time, well made blocks of flats, houses, etc., often sold at a very low price thanks to state driven programs. Homeownership rates (as in, residential housing that was occupied by its owner) was up to 90%, East Germany being the main stickler to rentals that even the hard Soviet “no landlordism” rules couldn’t eradicate fully (albeit in this case the landlord was the state, and the rent was dirt cheap).

    So this is one VERY SPECIFIC aspect that wasn’t true under socialism/communism.

  • Undoobitably@fedinsfw.app
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    6 days ago

    Fun fact: In communist China (present day) there are entire cities built and left empty to meet top-down government mandates.

    Official sanitized reports show 2~2.5 million homeless Chinese, while up to 300 million suffer from housing insecurity. That’s a homeless population that is nearly the population of the entire USA.

    Not only that, but in this example of communism you need a permit to move to a city so you can be an illegal immigrant in your own country.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underoccupied_developments_in_China

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_China

    • 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 days ago

      “Free market capitalism until other countries beat you in your own game, then when you can’t compete, they’re a ‘national security threat’”