That cartoon confuses âhouses existâ with âthe hard cases vanishâ. A spare inventory of homes is not a conspiracy; it is what abundance looks like in a system with mobility, renovation cycles, seasonal demand, second homes, investment risk, and properties in the wrong place for the jobs that exist. Vacant does not mean usable, and it certainly does not mean âowned empty to murder the poorâ.
Communism does not eliminate the problem; it eliminates the ability to refuse the stateâs solution. The homeless are not magically housed; they are compelled, relocated, institutionalised, or âre-educatedâ. The pretty picture of universal housing comes with the ugly machinery: allocation by permission, surveillance, coercion, and punishment for noncompliance. There is always housing âfor everyoneâ if you are willing to force everyone into whatever the planner deems acceptable.
And yes, the housing is often a shoebox, overcrowded, and rationed, because when price signals are suppressed you replace them with quotas. Families double up. Units are assigned. Waiting lists grow. Dissent becomes a housing problem. The claim is not just that everyone gets a roof; it is that everyone gets the roof they want, where they want, when they want. That is the lie.
Capitalism does allow people to make destructive choices. That is not a defect; it is the cost of treating adults as adults. You do not fix addiction and collapse by pretending scarcity is a moral failure of landlords. You fix it with treatment, enforcement against predation and disorder, and communities that stop rewarding self-destruction with excuses.
Homelessness is not one thing. Some people are priced out, some are mentally ill, some are addicted, some are violent, some are transient, some are escaping abuse, some are simply broken. The cartoon needs a single villain, so it picks âcapitalismâ. Reality is messier, and it does not become kinder when you hand it to a state that can compel obedience.