nah this is nonsense.
News flash: churches exist even in the left coast.
One of the biggest non profit organizations that helps people in Vancouver's DTES is Union Gospel Mission and the Salvation Army.
Nonetheless severe poverty has persisted in this city my entire life. The churches hand out food and run some shelters but it's a band aid.
The solution would start with housing, but the government refuses to spend the money to build it. So the status quo persists, with non-profits, many of them religious, step into the void just to keep people alive.
> The solution would start with housing
This is the answer. Housing cannot be both an investment and broadly affordable. Our society needs to choose.
Honestly its time to rip the bandaid off here with housing. Build, build, build. Fuck the NIMBYs, use eminent domain and buy them out. Build up, not out, and start driving prices down.
We need to stop making real estate an investment vehicle and an endlessly appreciating asset. "Line must go up" is fine for the stock market and a company's profit, it need not apply to a basic human need.