Annual US military budget could buy every homeless person a $1 million home

[Cheese Sandwich]

In January 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found there were 564,708 homeless people on a given night in the United States. As ThinkProgress has previously reported, one of the best ways to end homelessness is to make more permanent housing available.

Last year, a HUD study found that giving families permanent subsidies, like a housing choice voucher, is more effective in preventing homelessness than other interventions, like short-term rental assistance or temporary housing. It also helps keep families together. A 2014 study from the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness estimated that it cost the state over $31,000 each year for each chronically homeless person, compared to just $10,000 to provide them with permanent housing, job training, and health care.

Using those findings, ending homelessness in the United States would likely require about .01 percent of next year’s likely military expenditures. The government could even purchase a $1 million home for every homeless person in the United States with the budget, and it would still have money leftover.
...

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2016/05/21/3779478/house-ndaa-2017-budget/

[think]

1. 564,708 people are homeless in America. That is as sad as it is shocking....

[Cheese Sandwich]

5. I think the real number is probably a lot more

Homeless people are hard to count.

Plus there are many more "hidden homeless" which is like adults that have to move in with family like a charity case because they have no place else to go. Those aren't counted as homeless. If you count all those the number must be in the millions.

[pangaia]

2. I remember reading something about this,.. support fot the homeless...

somewhere else and was really pleasantly surprised..

If only..if only.....


Get the dirty $$$$$ out of politics.. for starters...

[yeoman6987]

3. Wouldn't that put millions of other Americans in jeopardy of losing their home

About 3 million would lose their jobs (military and civil service) and ultimately their homes. I think the 10 percent the DOD is living through sequester now is hard but survivable. The biggest problem is congress forcing military to take aircraft and equipment they don't want. That needs to stop. Maybe stop adding to the budget every year for awhile and give the money to HUD for additional homes. Nobody needs a million dollar home. A hundred thousand dollar home would be doable and successful.

[polly7]

4. Stopping destroying sovereign nations would save trillions. nt.

[yeoman6987]

6. Now that is a great point. The money we could save stopping that would do

A ton of good.

[niyad]

7. you know, we could put those people to work doing something really useful--digging ditches,

planting trees, repairing this nation's disastrously crumbling infrastructure. there is plenty to be done, and not enough people to do it. eliminating most of the military and its support structures in the mic would give us the people and the money and the resources.

[ashling]

9. Hyperbole - its a thing

I don't think anybody is suggesting actually giving anybody 1 million dollar homes.

The point is that there are resources to end (or substantially ameliorate) homelessness. There are also other resources which are currently WASTED such as corporate subsidies to fossil fuel.

[valerief]

8. Isn't the military budget the petty cash for the obscenely wealthy? nt