Monday 16 December 2013

Problem + problem = solution

Here's the Sally Army's Xmas 2013 TV advert:

Now, let me see if I can reduce the first two problems highlighted to a simple diagram, the solution of which must be obvious to a child of seven…

7 comments:

Derek said...

See the article on Homeshare in Wikipedia for an obvious partial solution.

Of course, it can't always solve the problem since the reasons that Sam is homeless or that Margaret is alone may also be reasons why no one wants to live with them. But in many cases it's win/win.

Ian Hills said...

Insofar as there really is a housing shortage, mass immigration might conceivably have something to do with it. Oops, racist.

Bayard said...

"Insofar as there really is a housing shortage"

AFAIK, there isn't a shortage of places to live as such, simply a shortage of places to live at prices that everyone can afford to pay in the places they want to be.

Of course, it could be the other way around: the government is encouraging mass immigration so that their rentier friends have tenants to rent their really grotty homes to. Oops, conspiracy theorist.

Mark Wadsworth said...

D, it's all little steps.

IH, immigration has provably relatively little or no effect on house prices (house prices went up around the world in the Noughties, in immigration countries and emigration countries, for example), and they are certainly not the cause of Margaret rattling around on her own in a house she cannot afford to heat.

And if you talk to homeless people, they are often the sort of people who could never really "cope" anyway (for whatever reason) or their girlfriend chucked them out, they lost their job and never managed to get back into normal life.

So I certainly do not think you can blame homelessness on immigrants. We might dislike some immigrant groups for other reasons, that is a different topic.

B, yes, the conspiracy theory holds up better. Plus them in charge have plenty of cheap labour. So it's win-win for them.

James Higham said...

# Problem 3 Govt gets it into its head - wouldn't it be a lovely idea to remove the home from the owner and/or force her to have someone else in there. Coercion follows.

Derek said...

# Problem 4 Govt gets it into its head - wouldn't it be a lovely idea to take the vagrant off the street and/or force them to be slaves in someone else's home. Coercion follows.

That's why homesharing has to be a private contractual agreement between consenting parties.

Kj said...

Derek: you know in the "ye olde days", around the farming communities here, it was a duty for all the farmers to lodge and feed anyone, need usually decided by the priest, who needed caring or was struck on hard times. And the duty, i.e. the old widow, was sent between the farmers for roughly equal sharing of the burden. Kind of like the Elizabethan poor law, but non-cash-based. You could imagine a lot inbetween "regulated" lodging of people, to entirely voluntary. Take for example the east asian (and many other) tradition of having older parents living with the nuclear family, it would be unheard of not to, even if it´s not legally required. AFAIU, in Switzerland, social services will hound family to step up before they give anyone anything of the needs based allowances.