A surge in rents and home prices left more lower-income households with no place else to go.

Summary

A growing number of Americans are seeking shelter in budget motels due to rising rents and home prices, with families experiencing cramped, unstable living conditions.

In New York’s Hudson Valley, over 550 families with children lived in motels in 2023, a 21% increase from 2018.

High costs, safety concerns, and limited housing options make escaping this cycle difficult.

Advocacy groups warn motels are an unsustainable solution as housing costs outpace wages, while waitlists for subsidized housing and vouchers remain long.

  • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    231·
    21 hours ago

    The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

    Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

    But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

    GNU Terry Pratchett, from “Men at Arms”