this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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Recently found a pretty interesting video about China and how they combat homelessness (sorry on reddit). You can buy a 1 room apartment for $15.000 and the monthly costs are minimal. Of course I don't truly know if there really isn't any homelessness in China, but we absolutely have the technology to solve this problem lol
It's probably mostly accurate, most other developed nations DO prioritize housing and caring for their homeless because it just makes sense that if you don't want decay in your population, you do SOMETHING to take care of them.
Now that said, I am far more concerned/curious how China is handling one of the leading causes of homelessness which is mental and physical health problems, and how much access the average person starting to slip through the cracks can get to proper healthcare.
I am not well versed on China's healthcare situation though, and it's been almost 17 years since I've been there last, when I was there people seemed kind of... miserable. Overworked, unable to afford more than the most basic amenities and living conditions. At least the working-class drivers and clerks. Honestly, China 17 years ago feels a lot like many places in the US right now.
Well, for 2022 I found that the average wage is 2600¥ or 330€ per month (with enormous differencs between the regions). That means a flat is 4 annual salaries on average, assuming ithe 15000$ or 14000€. That's not that much off a difference to Germany, where I am from.
So one could argue that this is just the advise "get a job and buy a house!!!" To a homeless person.
4x the annual median salary for a house sounds amazing to me. In the US, low cost of living areas can have a median income of $40k and houses will still cost $320k (8x your annual salary). In areas like San Francisco, median income is around $140k while median house prices are $1.2M (8x the annual income).
So it seems that housing is twice as affordable in China and Germany.
But keep in mind that here you compare a house (!) in the US, to a single bedroom apartment in china. That is quite a difference.
In the state that I grew up in it was less expensive for my parents to buy a house than to continue to rent one.
I think there are more factors at play than you're giving credit. For example, Germany has an average cost of 3000-5000 euro per m^3 which translates to ~$320-540/sqft. In the US the average cost of a house is ~$146/sqft in the south, ~$156/sqft in the midwest, ~$220/sqft in the north, and ~$195/sqft in the west. So while the 8x vs 4x comparison is accurate, you're probably also getting 50% less house in Germany.
The problem is there really are not many small homes in the US. Me and my wife are not planning to have children so a small house is really all that we will ever need. But there are just not any available for us or the ones that do exist are in historical areas so they are even more expensive than a larger house in the suburbs.
What do you mean by small and I think context of where you live matters.
Around me there are an abundance of 0.75k-1.5k sqft homes, typically they are older (1940-1980), and they are between $180-250k. They aren't in high demand because they are older, they may need some TLC, they have old styles, they are 45 min - 1 hour drive from the big city, and they may not be as big as people want.
I have coworkers who lament not being able to buy a house, but when you talk to them they are looking at 2500+ sqft, less than 10 years old, 20 min from downtown, but $425k.
EDIT: After typing this I opened Zillow and within 30 seconds found a house across town that's 980 sqft, $115k, 1950's, but you're gonna have a 45 minute (minimum) commute every day unless you leave for work at 5 am.
EDIT 2: Oh and 0.34 acres with no HOA
But absolute scale makes a difference, especially if you compare having a job or not, and how expensive it is to give a home to a homeless person. My impression was that they just give you an apartment for free.
The proper comparison would be complicated, when building and maintaining an apartment block, how much money is siphoned off as profit to the capitalists?
Also e.g. Germany has a lot of regulations which is sometimes nice, but also lead to higher costs. Like converting your car to electric isn't done in Germany, because regulations demand you make an EMF test which costs something 5-10 thousand euro. So there are practically none. That held back private innovation for EVs. There are countless regulations for building too which might sound good on paper but have been tweaked to only benefit the capitalists and make costs go up and projects take forever.
Then in Germany you wouldn't give an apartment as a homeless person for free, you'd have to show that you're jobless and that has to be verified then they give you money then you can pay rent to someone. Although I'm not quite sure how the situation in Germany is overall.
In China if you are homeless the cops pick you up and say if you work as a street cleaner you will get a home in excange.
If you don't like that arrangement you dissappear.
In case your source for that is serpentza, then you should check this reply with more links debunking this guy and his racist views.
Obviously China is not a utopia and with a billion people things will be bad at some place or another. But cherry picked examples and wild accusations like "they will dissappear" is just anti-China propaganda.
I went to Shanghai last year and there were, in fact, homeless people around. Not many at all, but I was surprised to see any.
I don't know who that is.
I read news articles.
The news articles I read said they offer homeless people housing for work, if they refuse they are "reeducated" which is one of the many ways people dissapear in the China meat grinder.
I got a weird vibe with serpentza.
One one hand, yes he does tell the truth about China sometimes. But he also have this weird vibe like putting "My Chinese Wife" in youtube titles (like imagine a white guy in America putting "My Black Wife" in the youtube title) or even a video title designed to clickbait people like "Are Chinese Men Cowards" which its just like WTF is that title, he did answer "No" in the video, but this guy clearly doesn't care about Political Correctness (aka: Politeness).
But he literally made a video recently proclaiming the USA is "the best" country in the world. Not "one of the best", he said "the best". The Video was made after trump won the election for the second time.
You can't take this guy seriously.
The homeless thing is real tho. They exist. But my point is: serpenza is a joke.
Edit: This is the video where serpentza said the "America is Best" thing: https://youtu.be/1hePvgiYyhU?t=1029 (Starts at 17:09)
"America is the best country I've ever lived in" Which is because he have lived in 3 countries, South Africa, PRC, USA, of course the US seems the best, because he haven't lived (as in long-tern) in EU countries, but then he doubled down in the next sentence:
"America is the best country in the world" LOL nope. Dude forgot the EU Exists. 🤣
Video was published in December 30, 2024, like... bruh... forgot the LGBT people? Minorities? Immigrants? 🤔 This is white privilage in action. Maybe he isn't malicious, but this is peak ignorance and being totally out of touch, even if he has good intents.
Serpentza is compelling and interesting on a cursory glance. And I don't know if he is consciously racist or how far his biases go. The bigger problem is that there are "algorithmic forces" shaping content and content creators.
The content creators wants to make money, needs to make money. They will experiment with various things. They make compelling content, don't have time to deeply study history or sociology or economics, only enough to project an image. Psychological needs from narcissism might make them unable to resist rationalizations in exchanges for clicks.
There have been quite a few cases with supposedly liberal or leftist icons suddenly turning to reactionary rhetoric. It's hard to understand and somewhat traumatizing. Recently TYT. I think the moral of the story is that much of it is subconsciously performative and not well thought out beliefs. And economic reality makes ideology a lie.
I think Serpentza fits in there somewhere, if he's not outright paid indirectly by the state department to spread propaganda.
I think he realized the US's turn towards fascism and amp up the right-wing rhetoic to secure his adjustment of status. AFIAK, he is still a citizen of South Africa, and I'm not even sure if he has permanent residency in the US, or just some visa. I think he's bootlicking to make sure he doesn't get deported to South Africa.
And he's a cishet white man, so this spiral into fascism doesn't affect him, which is why he's too blind to see the shit that's been happening.
And its also the fact that he criticized South Africa and China too much, he just has to keep his mouth shut about the US to stay out of trouble, kinda similar to how Snowden went against the US, and now he is in a situation where he can't criticize the Russian government.
Yes because they kill the ones who don't agree to work for housing
Thanks for helping explain how homelessness works in china you dumb bot
You have no actual evidence for this assertion besides your brain on McCarthyism. I think you start from your preconceptions and then work backwards, solely within your mind palace.
Yeah no, there's decades of China's documented oppression of its people.
Sorry you are too stupid or proud or whatever to engage with the real world like a big boy.
It sure sucks when you can't just ban all dissent!
Removed for “misinformation,” from Reuters, Bloomberg, CNBC, and Wikipedia 🙄