You're living in a townhouse as part of an apartment complex. The apartment complex has benefits such as a pool and hot tub, indoor gym, full size basketball court, a library, and a garden. You have 2 other roommate/coworkers, and you have 6 neighbor/coworkers. A Labor neutrality agreement is guaranteed, and both tenant unions and labor unions will be voluntarily recognized.

Yes, but I'd immediately suspect I was joining a cult.

I make more than enough to offset that at this point in my career, so no.

For someone younger starting out? Absolutely a decent deal.

No. You don't want to be in a situation where losing your job means losing your housing.

But you can also save up what you'd spend on housing, then rent from savings.

At like 21? Yeah I'd have loved that job. At 30, no thank you to roommates.

Being able to live alone is one of the most important things to me. If I want someone in my space, it's my choice.

I'll take it. Where do I apply?

You basically just described the army. Except the pay is probably lower. And labor union lol.

No lol it's an idea I've had that I want to propose to my state to handle the housing crisis. Basically make really nice apartments with a lot of amenities nearby, and then hire librarians, maintenance crews, and social workers. The folks that rent have payments set to pay off the cost of construction plus an emergency repair fund with no profit margin

Damn, and here I was going for socialism lmao

No. Tying my housing security to my employment security only benefits the employer. A worker is allowed to leave whenever they want; a slave isn't.

We can't even open homeless barracks in my state.

Are you in the US? If so, you sound psychotic.

Understandable position

The army is socialism kinda. An authoritarian kind.

I am in the US. Are you saying you wouldn't support this if it was proposed?

People like you and me are kept far the fuck away from making governmental decisions.

It's going about the problem the opposite way. People should be paid sufficient wages to afford housing. In general, the jobs that provide housing are in apartment complexes or hospitality, so they already own livable units as part of their business. If you're constructing units for no reason other than providing a place to live, you should give your employees sufficient pay to have the freedom to manage their own living conditions.

You have 2 other roommate/coworkers, and you have 6 neighbor/coworkers.

Immediate end of question for me.

I need a good separation of work and private times/places. Coworkers are not automatically friends.

I'm not going to go to government, I'm going to go to tenant unions and housing advocates and get their support, then use my union connections to get time with the AG

I used to work on cruise ships. I worked over 80 hours a week, and was making $1075/mth.

That's about $13.50/hr.

But, i had room and board paid for (but had a roommate), and actually saved money during that time.

When I first read the title, I assumed the housing wasn’t shared. And even then, I would’ve said no unless utilities and maintenance were covered as well, because $15/hour is still low to actually live comfortably. But with roommates? Even more so no, unfortunately.

No, not even if it's a 32h work week and the job is meaningful.

My rent is notably below market rates for my area at $1200/month. At a 32h work week free rent is worth ~$8.5/h, for a total of ~$23.5/h.

I currently work a meaningful job with a 32h week @ $21.5, which will go up to $25/h when i complete certification in ~6 months. Plus i can live with my wife.

I think if you're gaming out some socialist system in your head you could easily double it to $30/h with fewer rich parasites hording wealth.

Yes, utilities are included

In my mind part of if being free is being paid enough to afford travel. It also includes being able to seek out a better job.

It doesn't seem like either would be true in this arrangement.

If the pay was scaled to today's costs, and the housing guaranteed between jobs, then it would sound much more appealing.

Well this is more socialist inspired housing to solve the homelessness crisis in my state. I'm more gaming out a living wage on free housing

Fair point. I was struggling to think about how much a living wage would be with provided housing

Slavery with perks is still slavery.

I've basically had this working on a cruise ship. Plus free food. I didn't spend jack shit the whole time I was working so everything I earned was easily saved.

What about food?

We tried this before, they were called company towns and they got banned because they're a horrifically abusive practice.

Imagine living around the same people you work with. Imagine a company that won't even let you take a piss break having control over your housing situation. Imagine getting fired and having to move out of your apartment the same day.

Is there another kind (in practice)?

The broader idea is that the job is paid by the government as part of a program to end homelessness

Your state is probably going to tell you that they already fund various halfway houses.

Nah, this is distinct from a halfway house, it's a government funded nonmarket housing. Social workers are so people have access to basic therapy, not to retrain people. The people that live there need to pay rent, but the apartment complex is managed by a board of residents that are elected

Isn't that "board"?

Not if I’m only getting paid $15 an hour.

No

He who controls things, decides how it's used.

Why is this plan more effective than building the houses and then selling or renting them on the open market? I don't see why you would want to offer them in return for labour rather than offering them in return for money.

The apartment is managed by a board of elected residents

No, the jobs are for people that work for the apartment complex. However for people elected to manage the apartment, their rent is also waived. The apartment rent for residents is set for each unit to pay the cost in 30 years, at which point rent will reduce to the cost of maintenance plus some mutual savings.

I asked why, though.

Because single family homes aren't efficient enough, and by cutting out the profit incentive it lowers the cost of living overall

I have done this before. Not at this stage of life but when I was young it worked well for me.

I'm not sure whether you mean for "single family home" to mean literally a home sized for a single family, or a detached house.

In the either case, whichever institution you're imagining builds the houses and offers them for its workers could build whatever type of housing it wants no matter how it offers them to people. If you imagine it building apartment blocks and offering them in exchange for labour, it could build apartment blocks and offer them in exchange for money.

If you're worried about occupancy, the mechanism of offering housing to employees becomes purely a way of forcing more than one family unit to occupy a single dwelling. I don't see why this would be a good way of achieving that. If people don't want to live in shared accommodation, you have to make it attractive to them in some other way. Bundling it with a job doesn't make it more attractive.

For your second point, the institution building the homes can choose not to make a profit regardless.

Then it's housing that comes with a job, not a job that comes with housing. There's an important difference.

Single family homes has always referred to detached houses from what I've seen, I've never heard it to mean all forms of housing units for a single family.

I don't think a development company, or really any organization other than government, will voluntarily building nonmarket housing in which the rent doesn't produce profit. I am making the assumption that the person that takes this deal is single, but I imagine that accommodations for individual quarters would have to be figured out

Never thought of it like that

I just need a small room to myself with the only agreement being to keep things quiet. My last roommate situation was fine. We had a big common area, but he only used it on dates, mostly we just stayed in our rooms.

Language is a bit of problem. "Roommates" can mean literally sharing a room, or it can mean sharing an apartment with separate bedrooms.

OK, so the government builds the homes. It doesn't want to make a profit. Why can't it sell them at cost? Or if you're worried about investors flipping them, rent them?

Offering them as part of a salary just seems pointless and leads to the problems that other people are raising.