The problem is most people confuse charity with socialism.
Heck within reason, I think the Government should help people who truly need help as well as private charity.
But Socialism is about control and not charity. If you don’t own the fruits of your Labor then you are really just a slave.
Recently I heard an interesting discussion comparing capitalism and socialism. After listening to it and making notes, it confirmed something I have been thinking for some time. It started with my liking of the saying, “give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach him to fish he eats for life.” The Christian impulse to help others is important in our culture, but has been perverted by totalitarian Communism. Making people dependent on the state for all their safety and comfort is weakening. On the other hand the basic goal of Capitalism is controlling production and amassing as much profit as possible destroys the social contract. Our political parties seem to be in major crisis. I am thinking the perhaps we need a new party—the Entrepreneurs Party. Such a party would have the basic goal of using the creative spirit to create something of value to other people, and using profits to help self and family. But once one has a reasonable level of comfort, then using one’s business and energy to teach and help others build and be creative as well. The end goal being a comfortable life where one also takes pleasure in aiding the growth and comfortable life of others. The end goal of amassing huge amounts of money does not seem to make very many happy super rich people.
On the subject of super expensive cities. I notice several trends. It seems that in some cities big national developers promote legislation to push poorer people out and increase the rate of gentrification. One way of doing this is by increasing property taxes 10% a year and more even if no improvements have been made on one’s home, but based on one or two sales of super renovated properties. If you live in such a city, fight back, demand that unimproved property only be taxed using the inflation rate which is typically 2 or 3%. In one city, I know, failure to pay property tax on time causes a 12% penalty in the first late month. In surrounding jurisdictions the one month late rate is only 1.5 to 2%. I could go on, but you get the idea, watch for such tricks by big developers in your own area. This harms many other types of businesses as workers have to live way out in the suburbs where homes are cheaper. Incidentally, regarding NY City prices, property taxes in New Jersey are higher than in most other places.