Can the older generation alleviate the housing crises?

amother

Olive ↓

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 3:13 pm

They won't be there forever so it will eventually go to a younger family.

I understand what you mean in some ways. I find it a bit sad that all the houses near my kids school belong to older people so all the kids have to be driven to school. We also have to walk quite far to shul. You can move out to new, cheaper areas but essential infrastructure remains in the same place. It's just how it is though.

I think our generation needs to be smart in thinking where is the best place to invest instead of pining after our lovely childhood homes. We bought a flat then a house quite far out and now we can probably buy a house that's more central in a couple of years. It's about working up the ladder.

amother

↑ Lightyellow

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 3:25 pm

Dolly Welsh wrote:

Having more kids is not a "want" in the same sense as "I want nicer earrings. Poor me." Having kids is the core thing of us going forward as a people. OP wants to do her job. She can't. And it is not her or her husband's fault. They are not slacking. She is choking on something and we are sympathetic.

This thread is about a problem. And OP is not the only one with this problem. And she has a perspective we can sympathize with.

What are we really on earth to do? Be comfortable?

And she needs to find a different solution. She can't have it all, something has to give. She can make more money, find a different house, move out of that city, etc.... we all have these issues.

↑ Ema of 5

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 3:26 pm

Cheiny wrote:

No, not everyone in this generation is working.

True, but it’s very hard to do that in frum society. Families living on one income are either living extremely frugally (many below the poverty line) or the working spouse is bringing in an incredible amount of money. There are definitely more 2 income families these days.

↑ Dolly Welsh ↓

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 3:39 pm

amother Olive wrote:

This. Yes it IS sad the kids have to be driven to school and you have to walk quite far to shul.

I am going to call that sad right now. In that context.

There is also nothing 'large family' about OP having a third child, which for now, she can't.

↑ Dolly Welsh ↓

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 4:14 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

Say, I have an idea! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG_0hhckDSU
Uh oh, anyone old enough to have that in her frame of reference is old enough to... never mind.

Ha ha never saw the movie but I don't want the grandparents to disappear. I want them to be there. Gardening, helping, loving, telling tales of the old days, enjoying it all. With some privacy certainly. And respect. "Shush, Sabba and Savta are napping."

amother

↑ Vermilion ↓

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 4:16 pm

Cheiny wrote:

No, not everyone in this generation is working.

All of my friends are working plus juggling a couple of young kids. None of our mothers and their generation worked a day of their lives.

Then we all live in tiny crazy expensive apartments.
We have the same issue as op, only with renting instead of buying.
A lot of elderly people or couples whose kids have long moved out live in large cheap apartments. It makes no sense for them to move out, because they would have to pay triple the amount for a much smaller apartment. We have a real crisis here.

And no, there are no out of town communities where we live. It has been tried and failed.
We would have to move out of the country, which means new languages etc and leaving family behind.

It’s hard not to become cynical or bitter. I‘m working very hard on my emunah and bitachon. That’s the only answer.

amother

Begonia

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 5:00 pm

I didn’t read all seven pages but I understand where op is coming from. I too am raising my family in a tiny apartment with no room to move, and I know a lot of older couples or even older people who one spouse has passed who live in multi story houses huge houses with unused rooms, backyards and more. Most of them are not hosting either.
That being said I would never expect or even think of this idea for them to move or sell and downsize. It’s their house, they can and should do with it whatever they want.
Also, even if they sell and downsize, many younger people can’t afford the asking prices, plus you can only downsize for close to the same amount you’re selling for.
It doesn’t make financial sense either.

GLUE ↓

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 5:51 pm

Cheiny wrote:

Or maybe the current generation can be responsible, work, and support themselves?

A YIMBY activist was by a zoning meeting to try to get an apartment complex build. Some one stood up and said the problem is, When I was your age I lived with a few people to save $$$, you want everything handed to you on a silver platter.
She looked at him and said, I am now 30 years old marred with a child, when you where at my stage in life did you also live with a lot of room mates?
She then asked him how much did you pay for your house.
When he answered, she took the price and put it in an inflation calculator, it came out to around $350,000-I can afford a house that price she said.
Then she took what his house is worth now-around 1.something million put it in the calculator, then took the result and asked him if he would have been able to afford his house when he brought it.
He did not answer her instead kept calling her spoiled and selfish.

Not everyone in this generation is wasting their money on avocado toast.
------------------------
OP your solution is right out of the YIMPY playbook, there are YIMPY groups in every major city across the world. The housing crises effects almost every country. It's nice to say move to somewhere cheaper but many times there is no were to go.
The only way for your idea to work is for the people living in the houses to see the benefit for them and how splitting their house to put an apartment in will help them. This idea has worked in some places that has done it.

↑ Dolly Welsh ↓

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 6:10 pm

We cannot have two classes. The comfortable old and the poor young. That's two nations. We have to be one nation.

OP is living with her husband and two children in 400 square feet.

No, old people don't want to move. Fine. And it often makes no economic sense either.

Fine. So they might move internally: move over not move out.

Live in another part of the house, and let the young parents fill up the paid-up house's children's bedrooms with.... new children. Right where they themselves grew up. That's what those rooms are for.

amother

↑ Jean ↓

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 6:17 pm

amother Vermilion wrote:

One can make the same argument about money. You can have many struggling families in a community where there are a few multi millionaires. Those few multi millionaires have resources to support themselves many times over, yet the struggling families can barely put bread on the table. If we follow the same thought process we should take the majority of their money to distribute to the needy, and leave them with enough for them to live on.

luckiestmom

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 6:25 pm

OP, you are probably right on the point that young people today are struggling more financially than when the older generation was young. In the past if you lived modestly and even one parent earned a decent wage you were able to save up for a down payment for a comfortable house. Today, even with both parents working their heads off its barely enough to live through the month. However, it still doesnt mean that the older generation owes us their extra space. It just doesnt work like that.

amother

Clover

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 6:34 pm

amother OP wrote:

But they didn't! They moved into an existing smaller community and hijacked all their conveniences.

Most of these women were stay at home mums. The men were in kollel and they STILL were able to buy huge houses in their twenties. In a city!!

Their tution was peanuts and was waived for many many large families because of the hashkafah of having many kids.

I wrote my OP because all I want is to know that I can have another kid! I don't need what they have. I am not asking for a study, a playroom, I don't need more than 1-2 bedrooms to fit all my kids iyh, I don't need a big front and back yard, I don't need parking because we don't have a car. I don't need a laundry room, hallway etc. I Just want a kitchen, decent living room and 2-3 bedrooms. I would love a small garden for the kids.

All I want is a healthy family.

I was just suggesting an idea and would like to hear others opinions RESPECTFULLY.

You don't sound entitled to me. I bet the posters who were rude to you would never be satisfied with the amount of space that would make you happy.

amother

↑ Birch ↓

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 6:41 pm

Older people also don’t have to live in a home full of tumult of young family
If you want to do this when you are older then go ahead
Give all your resources and peace away
And live as you wish
Just as you wish to make your own life choices
Leave others to do the same for themselves

amother

Cognac ↓

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 6:47 pm

Dolly Welsh wrote:

People on imamother really don't get (or agree) with this concept.

Countless threads devolve into "just stop having kids you can't afford" and "why did you have so many kids you can't afford" "it's not MY problem that you are struggling" etc.

This is a common regurgitated response in threads about tuition, kollel, and everything in between.

amother

↑ Rose ↓

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 7:16 pm

amother Vermilion wrote:

Which generation is this? I'm in my fifties and we all worked, and still work.

My parents generation did not work, but they hand washed diapers... my mother did not own a dryer, and cleaning help was much less common (at least where I lived).

I don't know where you live, but the frum world is a really big place. You can even move to another country... and acclimate easily if you speak the language and there is frum infrastructure.

amother

↑ RosePink ↓

Tue, Aug 27 2024, 7:43 pm

amother Rose wrote:

My grandmother worked as did all of the mothers of my friends.

They were all New York City school teachers which was their limitation because they would have been doctors or lawyers if born a few years later.

But they worked. My mother worked. Wouldn’t have been able to afford any kind of life style on one salary.