AirBnB Will House Afghan Refugees

Posted on September 6, 2021 by Jeff Perry

The Taliban is consolidating its hold on Afghanistan after 20 years of failed American intervention. Meanwhile, refugees continue to flee in hope of a better life elsewhere. The total numbers could be 400,000 to up to two million refugees. But where the government has continuously and catastrophically failed, charities and generous companies are stepping up. Particularly noteworthy is AirBnB, whose Co-Founder and CEO Brian Chesky said that AirBnB will house Afghan refugees at no cost.

“Starting today, Airbnb will begin housing 20,000 Afghan refugees globally for free,” Chesky wrote on Twitter. “While we will be paying for these stays, we could not do this without the generosity of our Hosts. If you’re willing to host a refugee family, reach out and I’ll connect you with the right people here to make it happen!”

This is especially interesting since Airbnb has been regularly demonized by everyone from conservatives to socialists, and blamed for everything from rising property prices to gentrification. If the people who think they know what’s best had their way, Airbnb would not exist or would be regulated into obscurity. But the loss wouldn’t have just been the valuable service that Airbnb provides. Without Airbnb, 20,000 refugees would still have no place to live.

Granted, housing 20,000 people is helpful, but won’t solve the refugee crisis, let alone the crisis of those who remain in Afghanistan. But if the past 20 years in Afghanistan have taught anything, it should be that the government and those who pretend to know best usually don’t. When the state and its appointed experts try to force their will on society, the results are never good.

When one central authority imposes their will on everyone, people can’t respond to everyday life—let alone to crises—in ways that are appropriate for themselves and their situations. In contrast, when people are free then there are millions of potential solutions. The government and their experts had their way with Afghanistan, and now the country is shattered and hundreds of thousands are fleeing. They had their way with the COVID crisis, and millions of lives were shattered. If they had had their way with Airbnb, the current crisis would have one less solution. It’s one more reason to get the government out of the economy.

Toronto Carpenter is Defying the City to Help the Homeless

Posted on November 1, 2020 by Jeff Perry

Khaleel Seivwright is building insulated, mobile shelters for homeless people this winter. (CBC)

Winter in Canada is no joke. With average temperatures below freezing, Toronto is no exception. Shelter is essential to prevent Canadians from freezing to death. Yet the economic consequences of the government’s reaction to COVID-19 have left an increasing number of Canadians on the streets as winter looms closer. But one Toronto carpenter is defying the city to help the homeless.

Khaleel Seivwright, a 28-year-old carpenter, noticed the increasing numbers of homeless people in Toronto. Determined to do something about it, he started constructing small shelters and giving them away for free. With wooden walls, fiberglass insulation, a door, and a window, the shelters are nothing fancy. But they will keep people warm and could be the difference between life and death for some Canadians this winter—even though the shelters are technically illegal.

“It just seemed like something I could do that would be useful because there’s so many people staying in tents,” said Seivwright. “I’ve never seen so many people staying outside in parks, and this is something I could do to make sure people staying outside in the winter could survive.”

Predictably, the government officials who get paid with taxpayer money when there are homeless people are not thrilled about Seivwright’s efforts. Gord Tanner, director of homelessness initiatives and prevention at the Toronto’s Shelter, Support and Housing Administration, admitted that “the system is very busy and very full.” With winter still on the way and the Canadian government’s COVID economic restrictions still crushing businesses, homelessness will likely continue to rise.

Despite this, in an interview with CBC Tanner refused to say if the city would take a more lenient approach to mobile shelters or other encampments this winter, though he noted that mobile shelters can pose “significant” risks to occupants, including as potential fire hazards. Reporters from CBC apparently did not ask Tanner if he thought homeless people would prefer the certainty of death from exposure to the risk of death by fire.

In any case, Seivwright says that the threat of law enforcement won’t deter him from helping people in need. “This is what I know how to do, this is what seems to be viable, so I’m going to continue to do this.” Each shelter costs about $1,000 in new material and takes Seivwright eight hours to construct. Seivwright is paying for the project largely through a GoFundMe online fundraising campaign—funded with voluntary donations.

Advocates for the homeless are urging the City of Toronto to dramatically increase the capacity of its shelter system, which would require forcibly taking money from taxpayers—and a large chunk of that would end up in the pockets of administrators. But as this Toronto carpenter is defying the city to help the homeless, his fundraising campaign exceeded the $20K goal by more than 400% in less than a month. Last week, Seivwright increased the goal to $200K—and as of this writing, it’s more than halfway complete. That means potentially lifesaving shelters for hundreds of Canadians, from an outpouring of kindness and compassion. That’s the power of voluntaryism in action.

Why is Housing So Expensive?

Posted on June 22, 2020 by Jeff Perry

Something that VIA frequently gets requests for is help with rent payments. Why is it difficult for so many people to afford housing? Why is housing so expensive? The standard answer is that it’s those lazy landlords, sitting on piles of money and smoking cigars, who are to blame. This seems to make sense at first glance—after all, aren’t the landlords the ones who are charging the rent? But lets take a closer look by examining a case from a simpler time: that of Pa Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie.

Pa Ingalls, though frequently short on luck, was an entrepreneur at heart. Anticipating that a thriving town would one day stand on the rolling grasslands, he picked a deserted spot nearby and started building a farm. This is called homesteading—in the words of John Locke, Pa Ingalls had “mixed his labor” with the land, and in doing so made it his property. He had built a nice little farm when disaster struck—worse than a prairie fire or drought. The United States government decided that it owned the land that Pa Ingalls had built on, and he had to leave to make room for indigenous Americans (who were, incidentally, forced to moved from other land that the government had also decided it owned—but that’s another story).

Fast forward a hundred and fifty years, and we see that the cause of the Ingall’s housing crisis is the same as our own: the government. At the simplest level, a person who needed a house could simply go to an unowned spot of land and build a shelter—not an ideal long-term solution, but everyone has to start somewhere. This simple expedient is forbidden, however, because the government has decreed that it owns all the land in America. Why, when it has not done anything at all to the land to make it the property of the government? Because, that’s why—and if you build a house on it, you’ll only be kicked off and have your house stolen—if you’re lucky.

In a free market, the high price of housing would cause people to want to build more housing—because they want the profits.
John Doe Tweet

Fortunately, in a complex economy, there are people who are much better at building a house or apartment than the average person. In a free market, the high price of housing would cause people to want to build more housing—because they want the profits. But with more housing available, the price would decrease, since renters would have more options. So what stops that from happening? Again, the government. In addition to directly increasing the cost of housing—such as through property tax—the government indirectly increases the cost. Zoning laws, building codes, and other rules and regulations prevent new housing from being created when it is needed. Not coincidentally, this makes some people demand that the government Do Something, which usually leads to more government control over people’s lives.

That’s where voluntaryism comes in. Right now, all we who are more fortunate can do is help people pay the high costs that government has imposed on everyone. But in a truly free society—one without Big Brother telling everyone what to do—how would housing be provided for the less fortunate? The possibilities are nearly endless. Simple charities—to build new housing or pay bills—would be one way. Subsidized or even no-cost housing could be made available by businesses—people are much more likely to shop at a store they live right next to than one across town. Microliving in low-cost rental living pods, house-sharing agreements, and other creative voluntary arrangements would flourish. The answer to “why is housing so expensive?” can be summed up in one word: government. But in a voluntaryist society, the solutions to the housing problem are limited only by human imagination and initiative.

This article was originally published by Being Libertarian.

Boxer Donates Winnings To Charity

Posted on March 8, 2020 by Jeff Perry

Instead of spending his money on sports cars and swimming pools, this boxer donated his winnings to charity — specifically, to fighting homelessness.

British Boxer Tyson Fury has championed many charitable causes since his own battles with drug abuse and mental health problems. The Sun reports that when he traveled to an event in LA and saw the homeless crisis that the government has caused, he vowed to do something.

There was more than sentiment behind the boxer’s promise. Following his bout with Deontay Wilder, Fury donated his entire paycheck of about $9 million to charities that provide housing for indigent alcohol and drug addicts in his home country of England.

But Fury claims that knowing he’s been able to help people is worth more than any publicity that might come from his actions. “I did give away my last purse but I don’t do charity work for a pat on the back,” Fury said. “I do it to help people but I do not want praise for it, I don’t want to be called a do-gooder.”

Fury’s fight against his newest rival—homelessness—is a great inspiration to all of us who believe in voluntaryism. People want to help others. And from boxers donating their winnings to charity to a neighbor providing a helping hand, they will.

Government Steals $600 Million From Detroit Homeowners

Posted on February 6, 2020 by Jeff Perry

In a spectacular display of callous unconcern, the City of Detroit has overtaxed its homeowners by over $600 million during the past 10 years.

According to investigative reporting by The Detroit News, Wayne county tax assessors simply stopped reassessing homes as market prices fell. Anna Bolden bought a lovely brick bungalow at a tax foreclosure auction for $4,800. When her tax bill came in, she found out why the house had been foreclosed: the city was charging taxes on a house worth $57,000. “I went down [to city and county offices] to ask questions, but it’s like everybody is giving you the runaround,” she said. “It makes you feel like they are cheating you…but what can you do?”

Although some homeowners managed to pay their inflated tax bills, at least 59,000 homes still have tax debts totaling $153 million dollars—including interest and fees on their fraudulent debts. There is a process to appeal the tax bills, but it’s a long and complicated process, and many don’t even know it exists. About 28,000 people have already lost their homes to the government over the excessive taxes. The ACLU of Michigan and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund sued to stop the tax foreclosure auction in 2016, but a judge ruled that the Michigan Tax Tribunal had oversight rather than the court—essentially claiming that this injustice was not his problem.

Despite low-interest repayment programs put into place by the government, many citizens feel that more should be done. However, city officials report that they are not allowed to simply eliminate the tax debt—even when the amount people were overcharged is more than the debt the currently owe. Nor are they allowed to retroactively apply poverty tax credits that people qualified for but were not aware of in previous years.

Of course, simply forgiving the tax debt that should never have been levied in the first place is out of the question for the government. City and county officials have argued that forgiving overtaxed residents who have not paid their taxes would be “unfair” to those who have paid. Naturally, the same officials have made no effort to address the unfairness faced by those who have lost their homes due to the overtaxing. However, the former Chair of the State Tax Commission Doug Roberts admitted that “Nobody paid as much attention as we should have. We should have [intervened] sooner.” Roberts also stated that the Detroit News’ findings are a “compelling case” and the government should “resolve the issues as equitably as possible.”

“That’s what government exists for,” Roberts said. Whether the government exists to belatedly correct a problem that it created and then ignored for years while tens of thousands of people suffered, you can judge for yourself.

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