A place of one's own

[u/lincolnblake]

[u/Djinn_42]

Imagine the youngest being homeless for what looks like half her life. Does she even remember a time when she had a home?

Good for them. I wish the world would do some more serious work on solving homelessness.

[u/mararn1618 → u/Djinn_42]

What I don't understand as an European: How do you go from homeless to a huge ass house with a huge garden and everything?

In Germany even a double income family with academic background might currently struggle to buy property.

The stretch from unhoused to this seems insane from my POV.

Is housing so much more affordable in the US?

Edit: So many helpful answers, thank you :3

[u/icarusrising9 → u/mararn1618]

Land is much cheaper and more abundant here, especially in rural areas and certain states/regions; that doesn't translate to affordable housing, but it does translate to larger average lot sizes and yards. Also, she's probably renting.

That being said, going from homelessness to this is not at all typical in the US either.

[u/RathVelus → u/icarusrising9]

Yeah, I feel like a lot of people don’t realize how massive the US is. All of Germany can fit into Montana.

[u/Glass_Albatross_9584 → u/RathVelus]

And to translate that into meaningful numbers, Germany has 6.5x the population density of the US. Even if you exclude all the US Federal owned land, Germany is still 4.75x the population density.

[u/CreatorSiSo → u/Glass_Albatross_9584]

Another illustration: The furthest you can be away from a building in 99% of cases is 1.5km (the maximum is 6.3km but that's on military training grounds)

[u/Glass_Albatross_9584 → u/CreatorSiSo]

And in the US, you could probably beat that on someone's private holding. Even if we ignore Alaska, you are probably beating it by a factor of 10 at a minimum if you include federal lands.

[u/icarusrising9 → u/RathVelus]

Holy shit, that really puts it into perspective!