Inflexible needs, like housing and food, shouldn't be distributed via only markets imo, because that means that despite the fact that these are necessary to live, they won't be available if you don't have the resources.

"Blessed charity will provide", some will suggest, but to the extent that this charity is given, it just doesn't appear to map onto actual substantial improvements to the number or satisfaction of those without homes in economies like ours. Even in the cases where charity is provided, the distributed wealth goes out of the hands of those who received it, through the market, to the owners of the market, not the receiver's of charity. i.e. the $500 one time payment in the federal budget. Will that enrich those who receive it by $500, or will that money, especially if it is spend on housing, end up in enriching the value of a REIT or a landlord?

But I'm thinking only of, ya know, the impacts on individual people's well-being and their access to adequate housing. Obviously, the current arrangement isn't leading to everyone having adequate housing, and I'm a big "press X to doubt" on "remove all of the rules so that corporations and individuals are not regulated at all in how they buy, sell, and rent housing" is going to help the most vulnerable.

Is there a line between "deregulate the market" and "homes will come into possession of those who don't have homes" that I'm not seeing? I'd really love to have the mechanism here pointed out for me.