Political Memes

Like Finland. Their recently built public housing is pretty aesthetically pleasing

That's in part because they are far past their original designed lifespan, as these were meant to give everyone a house. Despite their other egregious excesses, the Soviets at least said they believed in housing as a human right, and implemented policies to that effect. Not only for building housing at record rates with innovative prefab construction, but also for upkeep of those buildings.

That is in stark contrast to the radical chicago school of economics "reforms" after the collapse of the soviet union, which basically created an oligarchy overnight. Those buildings were sold for pennies at private auctions to private landlords. Whole populations who used to have the security of free public housing, suddenly found themselves having to rent the house they have always lived in. Meanwhile those landlords never have nor will invest anything in upkeep, which likely accelerated the deterioration of these buildings significantly.

I do agree social housing should if possible be beautiful. However, the first concern should always be to build enough of it so everyone who wants housing can get it. Most of the western world is in a deep housing crisis, so IMO any social housing is beautiful.

It would be relatively cheap and easy to retrofit them with moss/fern panel facades or other types of plants. Improves the visual appeal while also contributing to cleaner air and cooler temperatures, and creating food/habitat for wildlife.

There's really no reason not to do it.

They also have an accessibility issue because anything 5 stories or less does not have an elevator and smaller cities would often build tons of those 5 story ones, meaning all the cheap-ish apartments are 4th or 5th floor.

I've seen a few here in Estonia that went through renovations to become much nicer than new, but you're still stuck with some things structurally that aren't all great and despite kredex funding assistance, most of those buildings are stuck with 10-25 year loans after those renovations, making them a bit more expensive to live in.

And they don't necessarily solve homelessness anyway. For example in the US there are significantly more vacant homes than homeless people.

Homeless people need a lot more help than just a roof over their heads. In places where they don't allow drunk people in shelters and there are winters, they have homeless people in the summer, but not necessarily in the winter when it's too cold to be drinking outside. Mental health issues tend to be a large factor in someone becoming permanently homeless vs temporarily due to financial difficulties (the latter often means couchsurfing till you get a new job, etc). And being surrounded by commie blocks can't be good for your mental health, they definitely make me feel depressed and I'm glad I've never had to live in one.

Fuck these old commie blocks, we can do better without significantly worse costs per unit.