how is that even remotely "for pretty questionable reasons"? it states right there that the rich are using them as second homes and party pads which is very common.
what ticked me off about the article is they claim that there are close to 250K vacant apartments cause they are "priced out of reach for most renters" which is totally false.
When there are so many homeless people in the city, renting out an apartment that will only be used for a few weekends a year is morally questionable for both the renter and the landlord.
It's a morally questionable situation, but I wouldn't put the blame and responsibility on the individual renters/landlords. The flaw is in the system that incentivizes and perpetuates such a situation. The people involved are simply rational actors in that system. Problems aren't solved by just hoping everyone acts more morally, but by redesigning the structures and incentives that shape both the outcomes and our values.
you cannot make a false statements as "And 3x that number that are vacant for pretty questionable reasons" and then turn around and use the sympathy card as justification by stating that what someone is doing with the property they rightfully own as "morally questionable". by doing so, you are no better than the author of the article in my eyes.
i don't like it either that people are sleeping on the streets while these places are "uninhabited" for whatever reason, but the people who own these places have the right to do with them whatever they want.
The people who own and rent these places have a moral obligation to make moral decisions. A landlord deciding that people should be homeless just so they can make some more money is probably morally wrong. I'm sure we could imagine some exceptions, but in the common case I believe this is true.
Your last part about rights seems to be talking about legal rights, which is a bit irrelevant and also factually wrong. There are regulations on renters and owners, and there's no reason a city can't democratically decide they want different regulations.
Aren’t you then deciding that people should be car-less? (presuming you have a car - clearly many of us do), and that car sits idle most of the time in a parking lot, isn’t that the same thing?
So are you (and all of us) then acting immoral by not letting a car-less person use our car?
I think your understanding of morality is deeply flawed.
again... you are trying to play the sympathy card since your original reply was false and rather than admitting it, you chose to take an emotional path in the discussion in an attempt to side step this fact. this discussion is done.
Let me mention a case I know of at second hand: penthouse apartment facing Central Park. Assume that the owners decide that it is the socially responsible thing to sell the apartment. Now, clearly, the next occupants will not be formerly homeless: the homeless can't afford it, and the coop board wouldn't have them. What are the odds that the sale causes an effect all the way down from the 5th Avenue world to the sort-of affordable world?
I think selling to someone who will actually live there instead of someone who will just visit sometimes will increase local housing availability. It might also push the price down substantially. That means someone local might be able to afford a penthouse who otherwise would not. And while that individual buyer is probably not homeless, it does take them out of the market for lower-scale apartments which decreases pressure right down the line. It could literally reduce homelessness at a 1:1 rate.
And 3x that number that are vacant for pretty questionable reasons.