> Owning multiple properties and renting them out isn't a right. Having a house to live in should be.
I’m not sure I’m reading this correctly. You believe it should be a human right to have a home to live in? Every person is just given a free home? Who would build all these homes in this utopia?
That's a very non-charitable way of reading my statement, I believe you are very sure you're not reading it correctly.
But yes, I do "believe it should be a human right to have a home to live in". Not given freely, but having the opportunity for housing. It's even in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Even if it's at the cost of someone else who does not wish to single-handedly carry this burden? I have seen first hand the damage someone can cause to a home. I really think that when they are not paying for it they have even less of an emotional stake in the livability of the home post inhabitance.
Yep, I was an accidental landlord due to the housing bubble bursting in 2008 (had to move for a job, couldn't sell the house without taking a huge loss).
Hired a property manager, found a tenant, and did my best to be a good landlord. Let the tenant pay a couple of weeks late a few times without getting bent out of shape, fixed things promptly, etc.
Then the time finally came to sell last year. The market had recovered, I could sell the house and actually make a profit. My reward for doing "the right thing" (not defaulting/short-selling/etc.) was ready to be reaped.
Tenants moved out... got our first look at the house. It was a complete nightmare. Turns out they raised rabbits (as in, to sell) in the property and trashed the place (poop everywhere, stained walls, and egads.. the smell). Ended up taking a large loss on the property anyway - had to basically dump it in order to find a buyer and just be rid of the thing.
The tenants lost their security deposit. That's it. I lost tens of thousands on the sale price (and this was a sub-$200k home), not to mention the years of maintenance, etc. I spent (well, my useless PM charged me) while they were in the house.
Yea, should have just sent the bank the keys in the mail and walked away. In the end it would have been less painful.
Our property manager (standing in for the owner) inspected our rental every 3 months for the first year, then every 6 months after that. If we'd've trashed the place, they can start the eviction process straight away. Do you not have the right to inspections?
Going from "Having a house to live in should be a right" to "having the opportunity for housing should be a right" is a very non-charitable way of arguing.
I would phrase it more as "a human has the right to access any resources necessary to continue existing".
That includes having a place to be, and the means to acquire food, water, and medical treatment. At minimum, this would be in the form of subsistence farming, including medicinal crops. One person has the exclusive right to enough land surface area to meet all their own needs, the exact number depending on the local environmental factors.
When it is more advantageous to society at large to exclude would-be subsistence farmers from access to vital resources, it creates a duty for them to replace the products that the person would otherwise create from them. With economic specialization, this should be trivial. A thousand subsistence farms may be replaced by one industrial farm that can feed tens of thousands. It stands to reason that the industrial farmer should feed those prevented by law from farming for themselves, because if that person does not, the thousand will burn the law and take the land by force to feed themselves, and people elsewhere may starve. In the interest of preserving the benefit of economic specialization, which allows billions more of us to exist than the planet would otherwise support, those who benefit from owning property should share enough of that benefit with those who do not that they are not forced to rebel against property itself in order to survive.
The more specialized society becomes, the more critical it is that transfer of "unearned" benefits take place. Those benefits are the price that the winners must pay to the losers, for continuing to play by the rules of the game instead of cheating at it, or flipping over the game table and stomping on all the pieces.
You believe in responsibility, but the tenants (OP's hypothetical ones) have failed the responsibility that got them into their housing. At that point, to allow the tenants to stay is giving them the home freely.
It's funny you mention this, because it is an actual right in France. People have a right to housing. That's why the government provides (or should provide more) shelter to homeless people.
Do you believe that people do not have the right to have a shelter where to live, but only those who are rich enough to afford it ?
I’m not sure I’m reading this correctly. You believe it should be a human right to have a home to live in? Every person is just given a free home? Who would build all these homes in this utopia?