Please note, this post is not to “toot my own horn” so to speak. It’s to illustrate how people on the “left” can be just as stupid as people on the “right” at times. I’ve lost more than a few “liberal” friends because I have no problem calling the on their bullshit as much as I do those who are right-wing.

I just unfollowed a ridiculous page on Facebook. It’s called Silly Hippy, and the person who runs the page seems to have an axe to grind against landlords. I’ll be the first to admit there are some horrible ones out there. Not all tenants are great, and not all landlords are evil. I detailed my own trials and tribulations renting my parents’ old home after they passed away.

Anyway, the Silly Hippy has been posting anti-landlord screeds for a while. I usually ask, so I should do what? Sell my parents’ home and put the person who’s living there now, an adult male living on disability out in the street? It would be nice to have the $400k I could probably get for the house, even “as is.” A brand-new house around the corner from us just sold for $560k. However, I made a choice when my father passed in 2015 to put my money where my mouth was about helping each other out. Affordable housing where we are is a huge issue. I’m not making money on the house. I’m just paying the taxes & insurance and socking some away for the repairs. The house is 17 years old, so things will start failing sooner rather than later. I’ve replaced a couple of appliances already there.

This is the usual crap that is posted there lately, along with:

Now, I don’t know how it is where you live, but the local government here is ignoring the lack of affordable housing to fight a bakery over a mural on the store. If you think that government can step in and make sure everyone has decent housing, it can’t. I would like it to function better and give people a hand up to having a good life. That’s not what these people are talking about, though.

“Basic necessities” should be free. Who gets to decide what those are? Even in some of the more progressive areas of Europe that’s not the case. But let’s say everyone is entitled to basic housing and food and water. Again, who gets to decide? When Andrew Yang came through the area in 2020 during the Democratic primaries, he touted a “universal basic income.” I think that’s an idea that could be explored, but I also recognize that it would also just cause inflation as the cost of many of those “basic necessities” would just go up when people are competing for them.

So it’s my fault because I own a house that someone else can’t afford a house? I’m really confused on that. In fact, part of the problem in this particular area (and many others) is that so many homes are being bought and turned into Air BnBs. It’s inflating the market artificially, and once those who have bought those homes can’t rent them and go underwater, housing prices will come down. I’m in the business and I see it happening already in some areas. There are also conglomerates of landlords in REITs who are buying up houses and renting them out, also driving up the cost of housing. Those issues do need to be addressed. If my home’s value decreases, that’s okay with me. If I was really looking to make money, I’d just sell it.

I don’t want sympathy and I don’t want a pat on the back. I just want people to realize there are many landlords out there who are trying to help, and we shouldn’t be lumped in with the corporate types that are out there, or slumlords. However, I just blocked him after this and left the page. I really don’t have any use for it. What does he think should happen? Should my parents’ home that they worked so hard for all of their lives been seized after they died? Basically, what these people are arguing for is Communism, without the military aspect we saw in the Soviet Union. Everything belongs to the state and they decide who gets what. I’m pretty liberal, but even I don’t trust the government to manage that. My belief is the government should do what it can to create a level playing field with opportunity for all. It would be nice to see more “villages” of tiny homes where people can live and if they don’t take care of it, at least it doesn’t affect their neighbors like it does in an apartment. If the home is really destroyed, then it can be replaced easier and those people lose the opportunity for housing. How people respond to the opportunities offered to them is up to them.

Even Habitat for Humanity has criteria for the help they give people in owning their own homes. People are given classes on how to manage a home and do basic maintenance. But the Silly Hippy and his followers think everybody should get their own home and no responsibilities in life. Even the Neanderthals had to hunt for their food.