Tl;dr 3 in 4 people who apply for housing subsidies don't receive them, rent is increasing faster than wages, zoning and NIMBY-ism prevents more housing being built, and pandemic aid is stopping...
Tl;dr 3 in 4 people who apply for housing subsidies don't receive them, rent is increasing faster than wages, zoning and NIMBY-ism prevents more housing being built, and pandemic aid is stopping during a CoL crisis.
None of these means homelessness in general can't be solved, but various groups have a vested interest in not solving it.
For example, Landlords want more money and know they can charge more because there aren't enough low-cost alternatives.
There's not enough low-cost housing because it reduces/stagnates surrounding house prices and people want their house value to increase.
Furthermore, homeowners tend to vote; renters tend not to vote. Housing affordability necessarily entails lowering home values: they are two sides of the same coin. Consequently any politician who...
There's not enough low-cost housing because it reduces/stagnates surrounding house prices and people want their house value to increase.
Furthermore, homeowners tend to vote; renters tend not to vote. Housing affordability necessarily entails lowering home values: they are two sides of the same coin. Consequently any politician who wants to make truly meaningful progress on housing affordability faces a very short career.
This is certainly part of it, but there's more to it than this. Relatively wealthier homeowners also have more time on their hands, so they can show up to public meetings and influence electeds....
Exemplary
This is certainly part of it, but there's more to it than this. Relatively wealthier homeowners also have more time on their hands, so they can show up to public meetings and influence electeds. They can put together signature-gathering events and present petitions to their local electeds. They can donate to their elected to influence policy in the direction they want. And yes, electeds often come from a wealthier, homeowning demographic which makes them more receptive to the needs of these wealthier homeowners than the relatively poorer renters. Lots of unelected bureaucratic agencies also just have biases writ into them through decades of hiring officials with certain viewpoints and ideas and biases.
I'm a transit advocate and we see the same issue playing out in those areas as well. DOTs that structurally grant new development projects to wealthier areas. Electeds from poorer districts who live in the wealthiest part of their district. These are really hard problems to solve and as an advocate, a lot of what I do is go out onto the streets and try to encourage regular folks to vote.
Unfortunately, many of the impediments that keep people from being regularly civically engaged (i.e. struggling to make ends meet, regularly moving from rental to rental thus being unable to...
Unfortunately, many of the impediments that keep people from being regularly civically engaged (i.e. struggling to make ends meet, regularly moving from rental to rental thus being unable to establish a strong local sense of community, basic obfuscation of how to get involved in public comment and advocacy) makes it really challenging to seek out office, even local offices. Campaigning requires a ton of resources, time, and a network, which people living in the thick of it often have the least of.
I think the challenge comes down to the distinction between people who feel ownership of the work that is being done through active participation/engagement in a specific political office vs....
I think the challenge comes down to the distinction between people who feel ownership of the work that is being done through active participation/engagement in a specific political office vs. people who just want to engage in their community as participants, not withstanding a greater commitment. I don't know if there is an easy answer beyond giving people the stability to survive/thrive without having to work a 40 hour/full-time week. I believe a multi-constituent/ proportionally represented district is best able to serve a communities' interests, but we run into the constant issue of power begetting power begetting power.
I'd love for it to come down to a people with resources connecting people without to those resources, but historically that just doesn't bear out. We need to create pathways that support people who have institutional knowledge and experience while simultaneously elevating/respecting people with lived experience. I really don't know how that can be done, but I know that should be the aim.
No it's a good question and friends of mine have asked if I want to run for office too. At this time in my life I'm not ready, but it's something I'm trying to open up space for so there will be a...
Anyways, I don't know your situation, so I apologize if I overstepped, but I do think it's an important question to ask since a lot of people tend to separate themselves from politicians and forget it's actually something that can be done and is achievable.
No it's a good question and friends of mine have asked if I want to run for office too. At this time in my life I'm not ready, but it's something I'm trying to open up space for so there will be a time in my life when I'll at least feel ready, whether or not I decide to. The problem is that running for office is like exposing yourself to a large social media audience but worse.
Something that does frustrate me is how politicians like AOC and progressive political groups don't offer more resources and easy to follow road maps for how normal people to get into politics. Demystify the process, explain the hardships and realities while also getting into what makes a campaign successful.
I myself have looked into local politics, and unfortunately it very much is a "figure it out yourself" kind of thing that is inaccessible to most, including me.
These are good questions. The answer simply that politics is mostly based on working with the voters on the one hand and working with the existing political machinery on the other. Working with voters is "easier" because essentially you're just asking regular folks to vote for you. Working with the machine is a lot harder and involves getting to know existing politicians and how to work with the system in a way that the system will recognize, respect, or work with you. The easiest way to get experience with this is just to join a local activist group you believe in. Canvas with fliers, yell your positions out, send out campaign mail, and spend time with the machine that makes politics work. It's a time-intensive but ultimately fairly low barrier entry point.
I agree that there is a voter base there, but I think with folks focusing at high levels of government (federal/state) we lose out on where a lot of housing action actually takes place, at the...
I agree that there is a voter base there, but I think with folks focusing at high levels of government (federal/state) we lose out on where a lot of housing action actually takes place, at the county and municipal level. As you pointed at we can move the needle with folks like Konstantine Anthony, but I think we need more attention on local elections. Much of the new developments approved and zoning regulation are a local issues. NIMBYism really is the cause of death for most new projects, so removing power from these local groups (that @infpossibilityspace points out are usually owner, not renters) is kind of key. That or you need to recapture the council and commission positions which are generally appointed positions with fixed terms (2-4 years). As a renter, you usually don't have the bandwidth, and even if you do, signing up for a 4 year term can seem daunting if you might not be able to afford to stay in an area.
The town I live in is small, with a population of <15,000. We have a large devision between our city employees (the city manager, housing director, city planner...) who are more or less "young" (25-55) who are pushing for progressive development and volunteer politicians (city council, the mayor, commissioners...) who are more or less old (65-90) and are trying to halt development or really change of any kind. Because some form of collaboration needs to occur between the two to ratify new projects, the volunteer city government can effectively create gridlock for new projects and ensure that the only new projects that are developed are low density, high dollar condos or single family homes. There is open discussion about how low income housing will bring "undesirables" into our town.
Personally I'm a renter and I've joined our local planning commission, but even that was just kind of luck. Our mayor is very conservative, going so far as to dismantle our DEI committee, and is in-charge of appointing new commissioners. I have a very white sounding name, have worked in traditionally conservative industries (heritage preservation and natural resource management), and pretty far along in my career trajectory while still being relatively young (<35). I was appointed due to a 2 paragraph application that made me seem like an old white guy who cared about history and "how things were", effectively the perfect NIMBY. But surprise, surprise for them, I'm an urban planning radical and I'm at the table now. Unfortunately we don't have critical mass, or anywhere near it, for passing progressive legislation. However it does mean that I can different perspectives to the table, even if it's disregarded when we vote. I can actually see the potential for change and some of my older cohort members are starting to open up to ideas like complete streets, low income housing, and mixed use zoning.
In California we have a new threat that is making minor change a more palatable option. The Housing Accountability Act is allowing state level planners to reject municipal zoning and plans that do not allow for sufficient development (ie. NIMBY zoning) and if out of compliance past the update deadline Builder's Remedy allow development in any residential area. This means high density housing in single family housing zones. This means 5 over 1s in traditional suburban hellscapes. It means there is a specter of horrible development for NIMBYs to actually pass progressive-ish legislation changes. It is freaking awesome.
So I'm actually pretty optimistic for housing development, but with the caveat of what you're saying: The younger renting crowd needs to get involved in municipal politics.
Yep, our area is facing this too. Then they have the audacity to complain that "nO oNe WaNtS tO wOrK aNyMoRe!" They honestly expect people to drive up to 20 miles one way for a 4 hour shift at a...
The town I live in is small, with a population of <15,000. We have a large devision between our city employees (the city manager, housing director, city planner...) who are more or less "young" (25-55) who are pushing for progressive development and volunteer politicians (city council, the mayor, commissioners...) who are more or less old (65-90) and are trying to halt development or really change of any kind. Because some form of collaboration needs to occur between the two to ratify new projects, the volunteer city government can effectively create gridlock for new projects and ensure that the only new projects that are developed are low density, high dollar condos or single family homes. There is open discussion about how low income housing will bring "undesirables" into our town.
Yep, our area is facing this too. Then they have the audacity to complain that "nO oNe WaNtS tO wOrK aNyMoRe!" They honestly expect people to drive up to 20 miles one way for a 4 hour shift at a minimum wage retail job and are shocked when the proles say no. They don't understand (or care to) that would mean their first hour of work is to just cover their gas for the day for an effective 25% paycut to boot..
I highly suggest trying to start a group of people who share your views. Putting up fliers around town (maybe around your parks?) and asking folks to join a Discord is enough to get started. Once...
Unfortunately we don't have critical mass, or anywhere near it, for passing progressive legislation. However it does mean that I can different perspectives to the table, even if it's disregarded when we vote. I can actually see the potential for change and some of my older cohort members are starting to open up to ideas like complete streets, low income housing, and mixed use zoning.
I highly suggest trying to start a group of people who share your views. Putting up fliers around town (maybe around your parks?) and asking folks to join a Discord is enough to get started. Once you have people join your Discord, start trying to engage them with ideas and media about the benefits of mixed-use, denser developments and multiple mode shares. From there ask these folks to email their local reps, attend city meetings, and voice their opinions. A single angry voice in the crowd is a crank, but once you have a group you have a community group, and local officials are a lot more interested in (and afraid of) community groups than they are cranks. Even 3 or 4 people in a small town of your size would be enough, but obviously the more the merrier.
I hear ya, I actually have a pretty deep community here, but one that will call in and speak on every. single. topic. in one of our five hour meetings I do not. No that is for Inge, Lisa, and...
I hear ya, I actually have a pretty deep community here, but one that will call in and speak on every. single. topic. in one of our five hour meetings I do not. No that is for Inge, Lisa, and Barb. Learned pretty quickly that folks burn out. I keep my folks in my back pocket for when I bring topics to the floor or to support inline community projects. I think it's the deep loneliness and conservative media driven rage that drives the few truly dedicated member of our community. Our town had a proposed skatepark, we got the funding for it (over $200,000) had 3 public locations picked out (including a vacant lot next to a public highschool), and we helped organize over 100 people to come out to multiple city council meetings. But then the cranks organized and would get about 50-60 folks to call in to suck up air and educate everyone on how they bring "crime and undesirables". As you can imagine, it didn't get built.
Apologies for the tone, I just got home from a particularly fun commission meeting...
I am organizing, but the process is slow and frustrating. Honestly I get home from these and question why I'm doing this with my free time. The feeling will pass but I'm steeped in it after every meeting. I just need to remember: baby steps.
It's NIMBYism, but it's also that it costs about the same to build an apartment regardless of if it's a "luxury apartment" or a regular cheap rent apartment. So, as a builder, which are you going...
It's NIMBYism, but it's also that it costs about the same to build an apartment regardless of if it's a "luxury apartment" or a regular cheap rent apartment. So, as a builder, which are you going to choose? Why walk away from all the extra money that building a luxury apartment brings in?
My city is trying to remedy that specific issue with housing vouchers - live where you want, in that luxury apartment that everyone is building, and the city will help you make the difference in rent. Its going... Okay, I think, we haven't been doing it for long and it's incredibly difficult to even qualify for a voucher, then once you get one, half the places won't accept them because they think you'll trash the place with your poor people drugs.
"Luxury" is just a marketing term. What makes most luxury apartments luxury is just the nature of being in a desirable area during a housing shortage. There's nothing inherently luxurious about...
"Luxury" is just a marketing term. What makes most luxury apartments luxury is just the nature of being in a desirable area during a housing shortage. There's nothing inherently luxurious about them. So it's not really the fault of builders here.
In my city there's a running joke, the price of rent is based on how many different types of siding an apartment complex has. Luxury is a marketing term, that's my point. These apartments only...
In my city there's a running joke, the price of rent is based on how many different types of siding an apartment complex has.
Luxury is a marketing term, that's my point. These apartments only differ from regular apartments because of the place that they're at, and the types of amenities that they have. (these buildings tend to have massive open areas with pools and such). The actual living space in these building is smaller than older style apartments. They're meant to pack as many people into them as they can.
Its just that the land that they're on is so expensive, they have to buy into the whole luxury thing. The city subsidizes some of them, in exchange for the promise that they'll accept housing vouchers, but really everyone is doing what's in their own best interest here - the land owners are selling for as much as they can, the people who buy the land are maximizing their profit out of it by playing marketing terms, and the people who used to live there are left out in the cold because their old apartment building just got torn down to build a new luxury apartment that's 3x the rent they used to pay and their jobs don't pay 3x as much as they used to.
It all works because people keep moving here out of nowhere and actually paying these luxury prices. The article even said, we're housing so many more people than we used to, but so many more people are becoming homeless that we can't keep up. Where are all of these people willing to pay high rents coming from? Why do the people who can't pay the high rents seem to outnumber them?
Is this actually happening, though? As you've acknowledged, there's not much really separating a "luxury" building from a normal one other than some nice amenities. If people were living in an old...
the people who used to live there are left out in the cold because their old apartment building just got torn down to build a new luxury apartment that's 3x the rent they used to pay and their jobs don't pay 3x as much as they used to
Is this actually happening, though?
As you've acknowledged, there's not much really separating a "luxury" building from a normal one other than some nice amenities. If people were living in an old building there with a third the rent, it's likely the landlord there could've increased their rent significantly and still found a tenant. If not, it's probably because the building was in poor shape, or there were other reasons discouraging people from living there.
Where are all of these people willing to pay high rents coming from?
It really depends on the city. In an area that's growing at all, though, you really do need to build a lot of housing to keep rent relatively affordable. Fortunately, luxury development is mostly a boon to cities. It more than pays for itself in terms of taxes. "We could build a ton of luxury apartments and they'd all get filled" is a great problem for a city to have, because that's basically an infinite money machine for the city. Sadly, NIMBYs usually get in the way of this.
Most of the luxury apartment buildings used to be low income housing in my city. They're being systematically removed and replaced with luxury apartments. It's not cut and dry like they were...
Most of the luxury apartment buildings used to be low income housing in my city. They're being systematically removed and replaced with luxury apartments. It's not cut and dry like they were perfectly fine livable apartments - the city waits until something happens, the complex catches on fire, fails an inspection, the land owner dies and the family sells it because it was built in the 60s and updated in the 90s and they don't want to pay to update it again, stuff like that.
Its just that it's all happening quickly - in the past ten years, every single massive strip of old close-enough-for-public-transport apartments have all been torn down and replaced with luxury high rise mixed use apartments. While that's a great idea and good for the city and I support it, there's all of these people who used to live there that now can't afford to live there. Its been gentrified, and the city supported its gentrification, and didn't do much of anything to help the people that we pushed out of there. By the time they came up with housing vouchers (just a couple years ago) the gentrification process had been displacing people for like 15 years.
I don't see why you continue to call these luxury builds, when you've acknowledged they're not luxurious. Of course a city would support gentrification. That just means that an area is becoming...
I don't see why you continue to call these luxury builds, when you've acknowledged they're not luxurious.
Of course a city would support gentrification. That just means that an area is becoming nicer. More money, more resources, less crime, etc, are all good things. Of course a nicer area will be more expensive, but again, that would apply to those old buildings as well. The issue is a shortage of these nice areas, so they all become extremely expensive. Keeping areas poor isn't a good solution to this problem.
Ive been inside some of these building they're certainly luxurious! Definitely five star hotel vibes. Besides, they call themselves luxury, seems only fair that I do. I think that theres a way to...
Ive been inside some of these building they're certainly luxurious! Definitely five star hotel vibes. Besides, they call themselves luxury, seems only fair that I do.
I think that theres a way to help impoverished communities become less impoverished. I don't think we have to mow them down and replace them with expensive fancy buildings. Maybe like one or two expensive fancy buildings here and there that the community which currently resides in the area could make use of.
Keep in mind that people value new housing more than used housing, even if they were built exactly the same way - so old housing is usually cheaper housing, it's not necessarily replacing Toyotas...
Keep in mind that people value new housing more than used housing, even if they were built exactly the same way - so old housing is usually cheaper housing, it's not necessarily replacing Toyotas with Ferraris.
If the price of housing being high is caused by high profit instead of high costs, then the solution is a simple one: more nonprofit housing. Coop housing, for example, but mostly we just need way...
If the price of housing being high is caused by high profit instead of high costs, then the solution is a simple one: more nonprofit housing. Coop housing, for example, but mostly we just need way more public housing.
I could see that if you built two apartments at the same time and called one of them luxury and the other one not, but that's not what's happening. The old, non-luxury apartments are being torn...
I could see that if you built two apartments at the same time and called one of them luxury and the other one not, but that's not what's happening.
The old, non-luxury apartments are being torn down instead of refurbished and replaced with high rise mixed use luxury apartments which are 3x the price of the old ones. The old apartments might have been fixed up and the rent might have increased 1.5-2x, and displaced maybe half their tenants, but instead they were torn down and the price was jacked up 3x such that everyone had to leave, and almost no one could come back.
Entire sections of my city have been removed replaced with entirely different groups of people than the people who used to live there, it was really wild to watch. I drive down those roads and honestly have no idea where I am sometimes and I've lived here forever.
I think that you'll find that in the greater scheme of things, this situation isn't happening. I make a mental note of each time I see a mixed-use building with apartments because where I live...
I think that you'll find that in the greater scheme of things, this situation isn't happening. I make a mental note of each time I see a mixed-use building with apartments because where I live they are extremely rare. It's much more common to refurbish them, change the names, and with the rebranding call them "Luxury".
I wish most of the buildings were just being refurbished! Instead the people who owned them just let them sit empty for ten years until they could finally justify mowing them down and building new...
I wish most of the buildings were just being refurbished! Instead the people who owned them just let them sit empty for ten years until they could finally justify mowing them down and building new fancy apartments.
My city gives subsidies to build new apartments because of the housing shortage, but the housing shortage is what it is today because between 2008 and 2018 or so, the people who owned properties slowly abandoned them and let them sit empty until there really was no saving them. If the city could have stepped in and given subsidies to repair these buildings as they needed it, we wouldn't be here. Then we would have a good mix of old, cheaper apartments and new fancy apartments instead of just all new fancy apartments.
There's a joke in some economic circles about how "we just need to subsidize demand!" And I'm wondering if those housing vouchers don't fit into that category. The point the economists are trying...
There's a joke in some economic circles about how "we just need to subsidize demand!" And I'm wondering if those housing vouchers don't fit into that category. The point the economists are trying to make is that the issue with housing in the US and Canada is not that people are too poor to afford homes (subsidize demand), but instead we have a critical supply shortage that will only be corrected by building (subsidize supply).
If the vouchers are ultimately intended to fund/encourage housing development, then it might make the most sense to simply pay housing developers. Though that assumes that developers aren't building due to pricing constraints. Odds are the real root cause is nimbyism and exclusionary zoning that makes it impossible to build enough housing.
Its a good idea and I think its working, most of the homeless in my city have always been the long term homeless who need more assistance than just housing. The most reported problem I'm seeing...
Its a good idea and I think its working, most of the homeless in my city have always been the long term homeless who need more assistance than just housing.
The most reported problem I'm seeing with it is that once you have the voucher, theres such a demand for housing that people who can afford it without the voucher get priority than those with one. Even though the land lord is obligated to rent out some percent of units to those with vouchers, people with them are having trouble finding housing.
Re NIMBY-ism, it’s worth pointing out just why property owners defend property values to the extent that they do. In the U.S. housing is used as a savings vehicle, anything that damages the value...
Re NIMBY-ism, it’s worth pointing out just why property owners defend property values to the extent that they do. In the U.S. housing is used as a savings vehicle, anything that damages the value of a home means owners take a direct hit to their savings. Property taxes are set at that value, so not only are cities incentivized to keep property values high but those values/taxes also direct education dollars to the schools in the area, so anything that damages property values hits city coffers and school budgets.
And changing those factors might not have the desired result. For example, want to delink property taxes as a significant portion of a city’s budget? Then they’ll turn to sales taxes and business taxes to get it, so now your neighborhood will adjust and you might wind up living across the street from a car dealership or a Best Buy. (Funny how cities can suddenly find a way to rezone land when it’s a high tax revenue car dealership, isn’t it?)
So I agree with you about the vested interest in not solving for the need for low income housing, but I don’t think it’s out of selfishness/wanting more money or a lack of caring, it’s that asking people to throw away their life savings is a big ask; telling cities where the demand for government services only grows that their income stream will tank in value is a big ask and so on.
The fact of REITS and house-flipping as a hobby has done more to skew the market in the last decade and create real barriers than NIMBYs and tax structures imho. REITS buy up the cheap land/structures to turn into rentals, same with people making a living house flipping. So even as housing starts ebb and flow, housing stock tightens, the rental market expands, rents rise, then house prices rise, and then I’m back looking at the NIMBYs and property tax that’s paying for everything and well … any solution that really makes a big dent in the problem no matter how partial will have to take all of this into account and to date I’ve never seen that happen. If anyone here knows of some, I’d love to hear about it (and I’ll happily make sure my city council hears about too).
This wouldn't be a huge problem if it wasn't for the housing shortage, which is a result of chronic under-building caused by NIMBYs. A rental house is still an occupied house; these people aren't...
REITS buy up the cheap land/structures to turn into rentals, same with people making a living house flipping.
This wouldn't be a huge problem if it wasn't for the housing shortage, which is a result of chronic under-building caused by NIMBYs. A rental house is still an occupied house; these people aren't buying houses to leave them vacant. The only solution is to build more housing. Going after rentals doesn't solve the shortage.
I disagree. I see it as helping cause the housing shortage. In my area, REITS are scooping up all the entry level homes so first time buyers are priced out of the market and remain renters. This...
I disagree. I see it as helping cause the housing shortage. In my area, REITS are scooping up all the entry level homes so first time buyers are priced out of the market and remain renters. This keeps an upward pressure on prices making it difficult to find properties to be low income housing. It keeps property taxes high, it keeps the tax base high, which incentivizes only building high end single family homes, NIMBYism by both homeowners and city managers, etc. From my perspective, it isn’t just a simple homelessness is due to “there’s a housing shortage” because “housing starts are down”.
REITs do not have an infinite amount of money. They aren't buying houses to leave them vacant; they're renting them. That they are still profitable shows that there is significant unmet demand for...
REITs do not have an infinite amount of money. They aren't buying houses to leave them vacant; they're renting them. That they are still profitable shows that there is significant unmet demand for rental houses. This is indicative of, and caused by, a housing shortage.
If we built enough new housing, REITs could not monopolize it.
I’m just going to circle back on this and say, my comments are directed toward why there are barriers to housing starts specifically constructed for the homeless/low income population and how...
I’m just going to circle back on this and say, my comments are directed toward why there are barriers to housing starts specifically constructed for the homeless/low income population and how other factors make it economically unfeasible to do so.
If we built enough new housing, REITS could not monopolize it
It’s not that simple and the economic and political landscape matters. Who is going to build new housing if they can’t make a profit renting/selling it? If they can’t recoup the cost of materials by renting/selling it? If they can’t afford the salaries of the construction crew? No one but the government. So why doesn’t the government do more of it? See my first comment about the barriers that are real whether any of us like the fact of them or not.
I don't exactly see your point here. In the markets where housing is unaffordable in the US, development is profitable and developers want to build! They're generally blocked by restrictive zoning...
I don't exactly see your point here. In the markets where housing is unaffordable in the US, development is profitable and developers want to build! They're generally blocked by restrictive zoning and other processes that limit development.
"Developers won't want to build" isn't an argument to block them from doing so.
The solution to property taxes would be a land value tax. Georgism is a pretty effective way to encourage livable development, and the tax actually reduces blight and speculative investment. The...
The solution to property taxes would be a land value tax. Georgism is a pretty effective way to encourage livable development, and the tax actually reduces blight and speculative investment. The state of Pennsylvania has a few towns and cities that tax land with great results.
It seems like there has to be some kind of correction on this. Doesn’t demand for luxury/overpriced housing have to peak sometime/somewhere?
For example, Landlords want more money and know they can charge more because there aren't enough low-cost alternatives.
There's not enough low-cost housing because it reduces/stagnates surrounding house prices and people want their house value to increase.
It seems like there has to be some kind of correction on this. Doesn’t demand for luxury/overpriced housing have to peak sometime/somewhere?
There's no such thing as "overpriced" in this context. Housing is worth what people are willing to pay. Due to an extreme undersupply, housing in most metro areas is far too expensive, but those...
There's no such thing as "overpriced" in this context. Housing is worth what people are willing to pay. Due to an extreme undersupply, housing in most metro areas is far too expensive, but those are still prices people are willing to pay to live there. Only solution is to reduce demand or increase supply. Obviously it does balance out currently at some point; you can see this with people leaving the Bay Area, for example.
Housing is essentially a captive market. You can't refuse to pay what they ask because if you don't you're homeless. The argument you're making is very simelar to the neoliberal position on...
Housing is worth what people are willing to pay.
Housing is essentially a captive market. You can't refuse to pay what they ask because if you don't you're homeless.
The argument you're making is very simelar to the neoliberal position on housing, which I disagree with for numerous reasons but it's so complex and outside of my wheelhouse that I will decline to go into details because I find those conversations rather draining.
People often have more options than this. They can get more roommates. They can live with family. They can move to another city. It's more captive than say, a market for things people don't really...
You can't refuse to pay what they ask because if you don't you're homeless.
People often have more options than this. They can get more roommates. They can live with family. They can move to another city.
It's more captive than say, a market for things people don't really need, but there are definitely choices people can make based on housing costs.
Adding more people adds more to your household income; you're still paying what the landlords ask. And how do you expect someone who can't afford to live in the place they are currently living can...
Adding more people adds more to your household income; you're still paying what the landlords ask. And how do you expect someone who can't afford to live in the place they are currently living can afford to move to a new city that they most likely don't have an employment agreement in?
I think there are plenty of reasons why it's good to have more high density housing, but you can't just expect everyone to bunk together and live essentially as if they were in a hostel.
If two people were previously paying rent on two separate units, but their landlords increase their rent, so they decide to move in together, now only one of them is paying rent, and the other...
Adding more people adds more to your household income; you're still paying what the landlords ask.
If two people were previously paying rent on two separate units, but their landlords increase their rent, so they decide to move in together, now only one of them is paying rent, and the other landlord needs to find another tenant.
As for moving, the people here still do tend to have money, even if they cannot afford to sign onto an expensive lease. Obviously if you are living paycheck-to-paycheck, it is harder to move, but that is not the situation for most people.
This would be a nice solution if society was in any way structured to support this. I wouldn't mind affordable communal housing type buildings that aren't slum-adjacent but that's basically a fantasy.
I think there are plenty of reasons why it's good to have more high density housing, but you can't just expect everyone to bunk together and live essentially as if they were in a hostel.
This would be a nice solution if society was in any way structured to support this. I wouldn't mind affordable communal housing type buildings that aren't slum-adjacent but that's basically a fantasy.
A few years ago there were some silicon valley housing startups that were basically making capsule hotel style apartments. I haven't heard anything about them since so who knows if they're still...
A few years ago there were some silicon valley housing startups that were basically making capsule hotel style apartments. I haven't heard anything about them since so who knows if they're still operating, let alone successful.
Mostly that kind of "dorm style housing" is simply illegal to build in most of the US. Even if they had a viable business model, it's impossible to get permits and city council approval. San...
Mostly that kind of "dorm style housing" is simply illegal to build in most of the US. Even if they had a viable business model, it's impossible to get permits and city council approval. San Francisco in particular has some famous NIMBY socialists on the council opposed to basically any development.
Without regard to the semantics, let me ask the question another way. Housing is increasingly burdensome expense for an ever growing segment of the population. The young/childless/very affluent...
Without regard to the semantics, let me ask the question another way.
Housing is increasingly burdensome expense for an ever growing segment of the population. The young/childless/very affluent have mobility options, and many are exercising them from premier markets to secondary markets, I experience this in my home state of nc with migrants from ne/la/sf/etc. Many who are here are now experiencing financial distress, and are unable to move downmarket. But that’s just a social ill.
My query is, who is replacing the people leaving the more expensive markets? Surely at some point supply/dand adjusts and the cascade stops?
In many cases, no one? New York and California have lost a significant number of people. Rents have decreased, though not as much as one might initially expect. A lot of this is due to people...
In many cases, no one? New York and California have lost a significant number of people.
Rents have decreased, though not as much as one might initially expect. A lot of this is due to people choosing to have fewer roommates, move out from their parents' place, etc.
So if rents aren’t decreasing with demand, why can we expect increased supply to have any effect? Separate from that, if noone is replacing the emigrants, there has to be a bottom right? I mean,...
So if rents aren’t decreasing with demand, why can we expect increased supply to have any effect? Separate from that, if noone is replacing the emigrants, there has to be a bottom right? I mean, ny and ca are not going to empty out?
Rents have decreased with a decrease in demand. It's just that the decrease isn't as large as you'd expect, due to the pent-up demand for more housing. The same is true of more building; New York...
Rents have decreased with a decrease in demand. It's just that the decrease isn't as large as you'd expect, due to the pent-up demand for more housing. The same is true of more building; New York and California will need to add millions of more units to significantly reduce housing costs. Fortunately, this isn't that hard if you relax zoning. Plenty of developers are looking to build.
The municipality still has to plan for the additional demands on water, sewer, schools, fire, police, street traffic, etc. It's not as simple as relaxing zoning.
The municipality still has to plan for the additional demands on water, sewer, schools, fire, police, street traffic, etc. It's not as simple as relaxing zoning.
There's an equilibrium point with respect to price. At the current price, NY and CA have their current population. If the price dropped, enough people are interested that the price would return to...
There's an equilibrium point with respect to price. At the current price, NY and CA have their current population. If the price dropped, enough people are interested that the price would return to where it is now.
To change the equilibrium point, we need to increase supply. If you imagine a supply and demand curve, the only way to satisfy demand...is to build more housing to meet demand.
Traditionally the correction would be that people get old and die, leaving their house/land to be recycled back for the next generation. However the past 50 years has seen a massive increase in...
Traditionally the correction would be that people get old and die, leaving their house/land to be recycled back for the next generation. However the past 50 years has seen a massive increase in life expectancy, so that correction is being delayed.
People are living longer than ever and it's one of the reasons why so many developed countries are demographically screwed. Things are so expensive for young people that they can't afford (or they're too pessimistic about climate change) to have kids.
We won't see the true consequences for another 20 years, but they then it will be too late (like climate change). We need to make big changes now.
I wanted to fact check this thinking maybe infant mortality or low birth rates were more responsible than "people living longer than ever". However, it seems there's a lot of truth to this. This...
At least on the West Coast of the US, demand for land and housing includes demand from real estate investors overseas. My understanding is that some of these properties sit vacant when not in use...
At least on the West Coast of the US, demand for land and housing includes demand from real estate investors overseas. My understanding is that some of these properties sit vacant when not in use for visits to the US.
Sure, but "overseas investors" are often used as a scapegoat to avoid solving the real problem: far too few homes in the places people want to live. Addressing any part of this crisis takes...
Sure, but "overseas investors" are often used as a scapegoat to avoid solving the real problem: far too few homes in the places people want to live. Addressing any part of this crisis takes political capital, and making the questionable move of barring overseas investment will burn a lot while accomplishing basically nothing.
It's like a ban on plastic straws. Is it marginally better for the environment? Sure, but the energy used to implement that policy would be better spent elsewhere, and it gives politicians an excuse to say "well, we've taken action", when in reality they did basically nothing.
Good article. Thanks. When I read books with stories about urban life from before the 1930's, boarding houses/rooming houses are just part of the city environment. Even something like Japanese...
Good article. Thanks.
When I read books with stories about urban life from before the 1930's, boarding houses/rooming houses are just part of the city environment. Even something like Japanese capsule hotels could help so that workers could have their primary home not in the city.
Airbnb has certainly contributed to taking housing off the market.
Also big investment firms have been buying up rental housing and landlords have been using an algorithm to collude to raise prices.
This article seems to touch on low-income housing, but what about no-income housing. Either I am not meant to take the headline literally, which means they're not talking about ending...
This article seems to touch on low-income housing, but what about no-income housing. Either I am not meant to take the headline literally, which means they're not talking about ending homelessness, just ending the most visible parts of it that disrupt cities when too many people are homeless, or if I take it literally, then part of "ending" homelessness has to address people who have no income, not just people who have low income.
They're taking the easy fruit first. Easiest is keeping people from becoming homeless. Next easiest is moving people from temporary housing into permanent housing. Next easiest providing people...
They're taking the easy fruit first. Easiest is keeping people from becoming homeless. Next easiest is moving people from temporary housing into permanent housing. Next easiest providing people who are staying with family or friends for a couple weeks with temporary housing. Then you've got the short term homeless and the long term homeless. Short term assistance is a remedy of providing temporary housing, job assistance, child care, help with drug addictions, etc. Long term homelessness is the most difficult, these people often aren't able to care for themselves or function without assistance and most of them should be in long term care housing.
The article talks about the gap that they've got in the "keeping people from becoming homeless" category, which makes no sense because it's the easiest thing to accomplish. That's what they should be focusing on, because it would give the most return for their money. There's an entire industry of payday loans profiting off of this group of people, there shouldn't be, there should be government assistance instead.
Yes. I have seen people claim that public housing should not be tried because it leads to consolidated crime and drug use, but those also occur in homeless encampments. I read somewhere that there...
Yes. I have seen people claim that public housing should not be tried because it leads to consolidated crime and drug use, but those also occur in homeless encampments.
I read somewhere that there have been discoveries in housing design to reduce crime in public housing, but I can't find the article.
Max (HBO) streams a series produced by David Simon (of The Wire, Treme and Generation Kill) called Show Me A Hero (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_Me_a_Hero) . It is about a local politician...
Exemplary
Max (HBO) streams a series produced by David Simon (of The Wire, Treme and Generation Kill) called Show Me A Hero (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_Me_a_Hero) . It is about a local politician becoming mayor of Yonkers, NY in the 80's running on a platform of solving the problem of federally-mandated desegregated affordable public housing. This was based on real events in which he collaborated with a housing designer and produced what basically looked like a block of duplexes with a fenced in front and back yard. They were adjacent to a pleasant neighborhood. Applicants were screened for criminal activity and were told that staying in these low-cost units was dependent on a zero-tolerance for criminal activity or complaints.
The idea was that these units looked and felt like homes and were fenced at the sidewalks like private property. From the standpoint of design, these were completely unlike public housing projects in which public areas such as stairwells and playgrounds quickly became open drug markets. The lack of public spaces was felt to be a crucial element to success. The design concept is referred to as Defensible Space Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensible_space_theory) and still has some currency today.
Public housing also does not have to be 100% low-income tenants.
New York's Lower East Side, through retirement of a long-term incumbent representing the area, was able to build on three very large tracts of undeveloped land on the south side of Delancey Street leading to the Williamsburg Bridge. This is mixed use including subsidized housing that is intentionally both low-income and market-rate. To my direct experience, there is no high-crime vibe right in front or along Delancey and prices remain reasonable for the area. The adjacent Essex Market offers meals for as little as $4-6 which is pretty good anywhere and especially for Manhattan.
Yes, there is generally pervasive sentiment among advocates, planners, and developers that concentrating low-income housing leads to a lot of the problems that US had with its housing projects in...
Yes, there is generally pervasive sentiment among advocates, planners, and developers that concentrating low-income housing leads to a lot of the problems that US had with its housing projects in the '60s-'70s. That doesn't necessarily preclude public housing from existing in any meaningful way. In California, a lot of new housing projects restrict some percentage of their units to be low-income housing, which means that rent is capped for its residents while the developer pays (or rather, fails to capture the rent thereof) the cost differential between market rate rent and the affordable rate. A public housing program would only need to pay the affordable rate out. I also tend to agree that heterogeneous income and class distributions encourage more diverse, resilient neighborhoods and push ghettoization back. America has enough class-segregation problems as it is.
The problem is largely one of funding. Governments just don't want to (or don't have the money to) fund public housing. In an inflationary environment where lots of middle-class voters are feeling strapped for cash, it's hard to convince voters to levy the additional taxes necessary to pay for a public housing program (which can be very expensive.) An upcoming Californian bill to increase bridge tolls to fund falling transit revenues has controversy because middle class drivers don't feel that they have the money to fund the poorer populations that depend on transit as a lifeline (they aren't the only users of transit, but are the ones who would be disproportionately affected by deep cuts in transit service.)
Yes, using Section 8 vouchers is an easy way to do this, but again goes back to the question of funding. The current inflationary environment has made most folks wary of tax increases.
Yes, using Section 8 vouchers is an easy way to do this, but again goes back to the question of funding. The current inflationary environment has made most folks wary of tax increases.
Can someone explain to me why builders aren't just building houses hand over foot non-stop? Its completely free money in my area because there's plenty of space to build, the houses are ALWAYS...
Can someone explain to me why builders aren't just building houses hand over foot non-stop? Its completely free money in my area because there's plenty of space to build, the houses are ALWAYS going to sell at ridiculous prices, and there is still never enough housing.
Depending on the region, it's illegal to build endless tracts of suburbs. Oregon and Washington have Urban Growth Boundaries designed to preserve green spaces around the cities. Denser housing has...
Depending on the region, it's illegal to build endless tracts of suburbs. Oregon and Washington have Urban Growth Boundaries designed to preserve green spaces around the cities. Denser housing has a lower environmental impact, so the policy does work in multiple ways.
In some areas like Atlanta or Northwest Arkansas or even LA, developers are hitting the limits on reasonable commutes. Cities get choked with traffic and congestion from low density development patterns focused on cars. When someone says they want to buy a home in a city, they usually mean they're looking at places within the city limits rather than an hour drive away.
That said, developers have started ramping up development in many regions, unfortunately the housing isn't located where demand is the highest (Cali, NYC, etc). And around 80% of new housing starts are still single-family houses, so the problems inherent to Anglophone suburban development are still with us. https://www.axios.com/2023/07/07/homebuilding-hot-spots
On paper it would seem like a win/win if they "just built more"--more taxes, more jobs, more disposable income as rent comes down, etc.. However, in reality not every place has infrastructure to...
On paper it would seem like a win/win if they "just built more"--more taxes, more jobs, more disposable income as rent comes down, etc..
However, in reality not every place has infrastructure to meet the demand of 250 new houses in a single area let alone 2000+. Sewer, water, lanes of roads, traffic lights/flow of traffic all need to be thought of and supplied. That can cost political capital even if said houses are wanted because that means raising taxes to pay for those things before the houses are built/occupied. Smaller subdivisions of 50 houses take years to complete once ground is broken.
The Villages in FL, which started in the 80's and is STILL adding multiple sections of hundreds of houses each at a time, was subjected to the NIMBY crowd when they starting buying local farms and ranches. They're subjecting everyone to their own NIMBYism of not wanting affordable housing anywhere near them for the construction workers and employees of all their restaurants, box stores, sub shops, pro shops, fire stations, etc etc. The Village stretch from Orlando to Wildwood (a roughly 40 mile stretch).
(on a side note it makes me so giddy that the leopard is eating faces there since they are mainly staunch DeSantis supporters. They are suffering greatly from the immigrant exodus on all of their unfinished houses. The best part is that The Villages is a special district like Reedy Creek/Disney and one of their special provisions is that ALL houses in The Villages are collateral for a special bond for the builder--even houses that are paid for 100%. This isn't an issue when there is a building boom, but if there are close to a 1000 unfinished houses at various stages just sitting there......)
I think another problem is that even if a near perfect solution was found for homelessness it wouldn't be dupilcated but abused by bad governments until the near perfect system collapsed. Texas...
I think another problem is that even if a near perfect solution was found for homelessness it wouldn't be dupilcated but abused by bad governments until the near perfect system collapsed.
Texas and Florida have been showing their asses for publicity stunts by human trafficking legal immigrants just to "oWn ThE LiBs". If California suddenly developed an effective solution, do you think Texas gov't would suddenly copy that near perfect solution to homelessness or just ship people to CA? They'd even get aroused at the bonus points of being able to point out how "broken" CA is because they're so woke. (Obviously they'd completely ignore their involvement in the system crashing.)
I know it would never happen (and why) but it would be amazing if the federal gov't started closing military bases in places like Texas, Florida and Alabama (Tuberville) and setting up Federal housing programs on the land. Deprive states of the military income as actual consequences of ignoring Federal laws (trafficking immigrants) or when they do anti-american things like talking of suceding or intentionally undercutting our military. Turn the "Make America Great" book against them. The R's willingly let people die at the beginning of COVID since it was affecting blue areas worse at the time. The amount of tantrums from them over saving lives by housing the homeless would implode the space/time continuum. I know it's all fantasy and 150% unrealistic but the "high road" doesn't seem to accomplish much when the side of taking the low road has shown they're willing to let people die just to show up the other side and still "win".
It's weird to say, but Texas actually has some of the most effective anti-homelessness services in the country! NIMBYism is also massively worse in California, and the regulations around building...
It's weird to say, but Texas actually has some of the most effective anti-homelessness services in the country! NIMBYism is also massively worse in California, and the regulations around building housing push prices way up compared to Texas. I really don't like the state level politics of Texas, but I'm not afraid to admit when they get something right. Even the NPR article you're commenting on mentions Texas as a model state for homelessness.
I have thought about tiny homes as a viable solution like the Community First! Village from your article link after discovering the Veterans Community Project in their 6 locations. I donate to VCP...
I have thought about tiny homes as a viable solution like the Community First! Village from your article link after discovering the Veterans Community Project in their 6 locations. I donate to VCP every year when I get my tax return.
Unfortunately, I can't see that as viable here in Florida due to hurricanes and tropical storms.
As dumb as this sounds, these kind of projects are the top of my list for a serious donation if I ever win any major amount of money in like the lottery or anything. (Ideally I'd set up a fund in perpetuity and donate the interest to them yearly)
I’ll add something a bit late to the discussion: there is no incentive as it does not generate profit. More and more public goods and needs are falling by the wayside in the US for this simple...
I’ll add something a bit late to the discussion: there is no incentive as it does not generate profit.
More and more public goods and needs are falling by the wayside in the US for this simple reason.
Can’t fix bridges, can’t fix potholes, can’t build a bullet train, can’t even maintain existing railways, can’t have public healthcare, can’t solve homelessness because none of this drives a profit and that is all our country cares about anymore.
Please consider reading the article before making a low effort comment. The current housing shortage is connected to 2008 and has much more to do with modern NIMBYism than Reagan.
Please consider reading the article before making a low effort comment. The current housing shortage is connected to 2008 and has much more to do with modern NIMBYism than Reagan.
If the line between Reagan and where we are now was any straighter, we'd have to redefine geometry. I mean, who do you think signed CEQA into law in California, which is abused endlessly by NIMBYs??
If the line between Reagan and where we are now was any straighter, we'd have to redefine geometry. I mean, who do you think signed CEQA into law in California, which is abused endlessly by NIMBYs??
You could explain why, you think it is Reagan? I can guess you are referring to closing the inpatient mental hospitals, but I could be wrong and I really don't want to have to guess. Also the...
You could explain why, you think it is Reagan? I can guess you are referring to closing the inpatient mental hospitals, but I could be wrong and I really don't want to have to guess.
Also the mentally ill are only one subset of the homeless.
Here's an article that gives a thousand-foot view of some of his more impactful choices. I was actually frustrated it didn't mention him killing the Mental Health Services act and all that, so...
The Mental Health Services Act was killed because of books like One Flew Over The Cuckoo Nest. Residential facilities were often abusive, and they can be traumatizing. Democrats have had decades...
The Mental Health Services Act was killed because of books like One Flew Over The Cuckoo Nest. Residential facilities were often abusive, and they can be traumatizing.
Democrats have had decades to fix Reagan's mistakes. Rather than blaming a dead man, we need to focus on fixing problems.
Reagan killed MHSA because of a book written almost 20 years before MHSA was even passed? Cool. Mistakes? Cool. Yeah. Reagan didn't do all this by accident, he actively attacked the majority of...
Reagan killed MHSA because of a book written almost 20 years before MHSA was even passed? Cool.
Mistakes? Cool. Yeah. Reagan didn't do all this by accident, he actively attacked the majority of the country. He laid the groundwork for decades of exploitation, hate, and death. From the AIDS crisis and it's lasting impact on the LGBTQ community to homelessness to labor exploitation and undermining unions and enabling monopolies to the wealth gap to environmental destruction to just some unbelievable international fuckery, we are still living with Reagan's legacy of things he chose to do knowing the consequences full well and not giving a crap because it all helped the wealthy.
We haven't undone Reagan's attacks on this country yet. I mean, certainly that's not the only part of history we haven't gotten past. Like the failure of Reconstruction, for one. We should fix that, too. But right now we're talking about the current homelessness crisis, and until we understand what exactly was done to cause this crisis, much of which started with what Reagan did in office, how are we going to fix it?
Tl;dr 3 in 4 people who apply for housing subsidies don't receive them, rent is increasing faster than wages, zoning and NIMBY-ism prevents more housing being built, and pandemic aid is stopping during a CoL crisis.
None of these means homelessness in general can't be solved, but various groups have a vested interest in not solving it.
For example, Landlords want more money and know they can charge more because there aren't enough low-cost alternatives.
There's not enough low-cost housing because it reduces/stagnates surrounding house prices and people want their house value to increase.
Furthermore, homeowners tend to vote; renters tend not to vote. Housing affordability necessarily entails lowering home values: they are two sides of the same coin. Consequently any politician who wants to make truly meaningful progress on housing affordability faces a very short career.
This is certainly part of it, but there's more to it than this. Relatively wealthier homeowners also have more time on their hands, so they can show up to public meetings and influence electeds. They can put together signature-gathering events and present petitions to their local electeds. They can donate to their elected to influence policy in the direction they want. And yes, electeds often come from a wealthier, homeowning demographic which makes them more receptive to the needs of these wealthier homeowners than the relatively poorer renters. Lots of unelected bureaucratic agencies also just have biases writ into them through decades of hiring officials with certain viewpoints and ideas and biases.
I'm a transit advocate and we see the same issue playing out in those areas as well. DOTs that structurally grant new development projects to wealthier areas. Electeds from poorer districts who live in the wealthiest part of their district. These are really hard problems to solve and as an advocate, a lot of what I do is go out onto the streets and try to encourage regular folks to vote.
Unfortunately, many of the impediments that keep people from being regularly civically engaged (i.e. struggling to make ends meet, regularly moving from rental to rental thus being unable to establish a strong local sense of community, basic obfuscation of how to get involved in public comment and advocacy) makes it really challenging to seek out office, even local offices. Campaigning requires a ton of resources, time, and a network, which people living in the thick of it often have the least of.
I think the challenge comes down to the distinction between people who feel ownership of the work that is being done through active participation/engagement in a specific political office vs. people who just want to engage in their community as participants, not withstanding a greater commitment. I don't know if there is an easy answer beyond giving people the stability to survive/thrive without having to work a 40 hour/full-time week. I believe a multi-constituent/ proportionally represented district is best able to serve a communities' interests, but we run into the constant issue of power begetting power begetting power.
I'd love for it to come down to a people with resources connecting people without to those resources, but historically that just doesn't bear out. We need to create pathways that support people who have institutional knowledge and experience while simultaneously elevating/respecting people with lived experience. I really don't know how that can be done, but I know that should be the aim.
Very few people want to train their replacements. Especially when the job gives you power and influence.
No it's a good question and friends of mine have asked if I want to run for office too. At this time in my life I'm not ready, but it's something I'm trying to open up space for so there will be a time in my life when I'll at least feel ready, whether or not I decide to. The problem is that running for office is like exposing yourself to a large social media audience but worse.
These are good questions. The answer simply that politics is mostly based on working with the voters on the one hand and working with the existing political machinery on the other. Working with voters is "easier" because essentially you're just asking regular folks to vote for you. Working with the machine is a lot harder and involves getting to know existing politicians and how to work with the system in a way that the system will recognize, respect, or work with you. The easiest way to get experience with this is just to join a local activist group you believe in. Canvas with fliers, yell your positions out, send out campaign mail, and spend time with the machine that makes politics work. It's a time-intensive but ultimately fairly low barrier entry point.
I agree that there is a voter base there, but I think with folks focusing at high levels of government (federal/state) we lose out on where a lot of housing action actually takes place, at the county and municipal level. As you pointed at we can move the needle with folks like Konstantine Anthony, but I think we need more attention on local elections. Much of the new developments approved and zoning regulation are a local issues. NIMBYism really is the cause of death for most new projects, so removing power from these local groups (that @infpossibilityspace points out are usually owner, not renters) is kind of key. That or you need to recapture the council and commission positions which are generally appointed positions with fixed terms (2-4 years). As a renter, you usually don't have the bandwidth, and even if you do, signing up for a 4 year term can seem daunting if you might not be able to afford to stay in an area.
The town I live in is small, with a population of <15,000. We have a large devision between our city employees (the city manager, housing director, city planner...) who are more or less "young" (25-55) who are pushing for progressive development and volunteer politicians (city council, the mayor, commissioners...) who are more or less old (65-90) and are trying to halt development or really change of any kind. Because some form of collaboration needs to occur between the two to ratify new projects, the volunteer city government can effectively create gridlock for new projects and ensure that the only new projects that are developed are low density, high dollar condos or single family homes. There is open discussion about how low income housing will bring "undesirables" into our town.
Personally I'm a renter and I've joined our local planning commission, but even that was just kind of luck. Our mayor is very conservative, going so far as to dismantle our DEI committee, and is in-charge of appointing new commissioners. I have a very white sounding name, have worked in traditionally conservative industries (heritage preservation and natural resource management), and pretty far along in my career trajectory while still being relatively young (<35). I was appointed due to a 2 paragraph application that made me seem like an old white guy who cared about history and "how things were", effectively the perfect NIMBY. But surprise, surprise for them, I'm an urban planning radical and I'm at the table now. Unfortunately we don't have critical mass, or anywhere near it, for passing progressive legislation. However it does mean that I can different perspectives to the table, even if it's disregarded when we vote. I can actually see the potential for change and some of my older cohort members are starting to open up to ideas like complete streets, low income housing, and mixed use zoning.
In California we have a new threat that is making minor change a more palatable option. The Housing Accountability Act is allowing state level planners to reject municipal zoning and plans that do not allow for sufficient development (ie. NIMBY zoning) and if out of compliance past the update deadline Builder's Remedy allow development in any residential area. This means high density housing in single family housing zones. This means 5 over 1s in traditional suburban hellscapes. It means there is a specter of horrible development for NIMBYs to actually pass progressive-ish legislation changes. It is freaking awesome.
So I'm actually pretty optimistic for housing development, but with the caveat of what you're saying: The younger renting crowd needs to get involved in municipal politics.
Yep, our area is facing this too. Then they have the audacity to complain that "nO oNe WaNtS tO wOrK aNyMoRe!" They honestly expect people to drive up to 20 miles one way for a 4 hour shift at a minimum wage retail job and are shocked when the proles say no. They don't understand (or care to) that would mean their first hour of work is to just cover their gas for the day for an effective 25% paycut to boot..
I highly suggest trying to start a group of people who share your views. Putting up fliers around town (maybe around your parks?) and asking folks to join a Discord is enough to get started. Once you have people join your Discord, start trying to engage them with ideas and media about the benefits of mixed-use, denser developments and multiple mode shares. From there ask these folks to email their local reps, attend city meetings, and voice their opinions. A single angry voice in the crowd is a crank, but once you have a group you have a community group, and local officials are a lot more interested in (and afraid of) community groups than they are cranks. Even 3 or 4 people in a small town of your size would be enough, but obviously the more the merrier.
I hear ya, I actually have a pretty deep community here, but one that will call in and speak on every. single. topic. in one of our five hour meetings I do not. No that is for Inge, Lisa, and Barb. Learned pretty quickly that folks burn out. I keep my folks in my back pocket for when I bring topics to the floor or to support inline community projects. I think it's the deep loneliness and conservative media driven rage that drives the few truly dedicated member of our community. Our town had a proposed skatepark, we got the funding for it (over $200,000) had 3 public locations picked out (including a vacant lot next to a public highschool), and we helped organize over 100 people to come out to multiple city council meetings. But then the cranks organized and would get about 50-60 folks to call in to suck up air and educate everyone on how they bring "crime and undesirables". As you can imagine, it didn't get built.
Apologies for the tone, I just got home from a particularly fun commission meeting...
I am organizing, but the process is slow and frustrating. Honestly I get home from these and question why I'm doing this with my free time. The feeling will pass but I'm steeped in it after every meeting. I just need to remember: baby steps.
This is exactly how I feel after some meetings. Keep up the good fight.
It's NIMBYism, but it's also that it costs about the same to build an apartment regardless of if it's a "luxury apartment" or a regular cheap rent apartment. So, as a builder, which are you going to choose? Why walk away from all the extra money that building a luxury apartment brings in?
My city is trying to remedy that specific issue with housing vouchers - live where you want, in that luxury apartment that everyone is building, and the city will help you make the difference in rent. Its going... Okay, I think, we haven't been doing it for long and it's incredibly difficult to even qualify for a voucher, then once you get one, half the places won't accept them because they think you'll trash the place with your poor people drugs.
"Luxury" is just a marketing term. What makes most luxury apartments luxury is just the nature of being in a desirable area during a housing shortage. There's nothing inherently luxurious about them. So it's not really the fault of builders here.
In my city there's a running joke, the price of rent is based on how many different types of siding an apartment complex has.
Luxury is a marketing term, that's my point. These apartments only differ from regular apartments because of the place that they're at, and the types of amenities that they have. (these buildings tend to have massive open areas with pools and such). The actual living space in these building is smaller than older style apartments. They're meant to pack as many people into them as they can.
Its just that the land that they're on is so expensive, they have to buy into the whole luxury thing. The city subsidizes some of them, in exchange for the promise that they'll accept housing vouchers, but really everyone is doing what's in their own best interest here - the land owners are selling for as much as they can, the people who buy the land are maximizing their profit out of it by playing marketing terms, and the people who used to live there are left out in the cold because their old apartment building just got torn down to build a new luxury apartment that's 3x the rent they used to pay and their jobs don't pay 3x as much as they used to.
It all works because people keep moving here out of nowhere and actually paying these luxury prices. The article even said, we're housing so many more people than we used to, but so many more people are becoming homeless that we can't keep up. Where are all of these people willing to pay high rents coming from? Why do the people who can't pay the high rents seem to outnumber them?
Is this actually happening, though?
As you've acknowledged, there's not much really separating a "luxury" building from a normal one other than some nice amenities. If people were living in an old building there with a third the rent, it's likely the landlord there could've increased their rent significantly and still found a tenant. If not, it's probably because the building was in poor shape, or there were other reasons discouraging people from living there.
It really depends on the city. In an area that's growing at all, though, you really do need to build a lot of housing to keep rent relatively affordable. Fortunately, luxury development is mostly a boon to cities. It more than pays for itself in terms of taxes. "We could build a ton of luxury apartments and they'd all get filled" is a great problem for a city to have, because that's basically an infinite money machine for the city. Sadly, NIMBYs usually get in the way of this.
Most of the luxury apartment buildings used to be low income housing in my city. They're being systematically removed and replaced with luxury apartments. It's not cut and dry like they were perfectly fine livable apartments - the city waits until something happens, the complex catches on fire, fails an inspection, the land owner dies and the family sells it because it was built in the 60s and updated in the 90s and they don't want to pay to update it again, stuff like that.
Its just that it's all happening quickly - in the past ten years, every single massive strip of old close-enough-for-public-transport apartments have all been torn down and replaced with luxury high rise mixed use apartments. While that's a great idea and good for the city and I support it, there's all of these people who used to live there that now can't afford to live there. Its been gentrified, and the city supported its gentrification, and didn't do much of anything to help the people that we pushed out of there. By the time they came up with housing vouchers (just a couple years ago) the gentrification process had been displacing people for like 15 years.
I don't see why you continue to call these luxury builds, when you've acknowledged they're not luxurious.
Of course a city would support gentrification. That just means that an area is becoming nicer. More money, more resources, less crime, etc, are all good things. Of course a nicer area will be more expensive, but again, that would apply to those old buildings as well. The issue is a shortage of these nice areas, so they all become extremely expensive. Keeping areas poor isn't a good solution to this problem.
Ive been inside some of these building they're certainly luxurious! Definitely five star hotel vibes. Besides, they call themselves luxury, seems only fair that I do.
I think that theres a way to help impoverished communities become less impoverished. I don't think we have to mow them down and replace them with expensive fancy buildings. Maybe like one or two expensive fancy buildings here and there that the community which currently resides in the area could make use of.
Keep in mind that people value new housing more than used housing, even if they were built exactly the same way - so old housing is usually cheaper housing, it's not necessarily replacing Toyotas with Ferraris.
If the price of housing being high is caused by high profit instead of high costs, then the solution is a simple one: more nonprofit housing. Coop housing, for example, but mostly we just need way more public housing.
Perhaps it might be more effective to subsidize construction (supply) than people (demand).(https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/magazine/vienna-social-housing.html?referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm_source=pocket_saves)
Yo I forgot how to get around paywalls isn't it basically just bring up the site through archive.org?
IIRC the cost difference between apartments that are and are not labeled as "luxury" within the same market are within the margin of error.
I could see that if you built two apartments at the same time and called one of them luxury and the other one not, but that's not what's happening.
The old, non-luxury apartments are being torn down instead of refurbished and replaced with high rise mixed use luxury apartments which are 3x the price of the old ones. The old apartments might have been fixed up and the rent might have increased 1.5-2x, and displaced maybe half their tenants, but instead they were torn down and the price was jacked up 3x such that everyone had to leave, and almost no one could come back.
Entire sections of my city have been removed replaced with entirely different groups of people than the people who used to live there, it was really wild to watch. I drive down those roads and honestly have no idea where I am sometimes and I've lived here forever.
I think that you'll find that in the greater scheme of things, this situation isn't happening. I make a mental note of each time I see a mixed-use building with apartments because where I live they are extremely rare. It's much more common to refurbish them, change the names, and with the rebranding call them "Luxury".
I wish most of the buildings were just being refurbished! Instead the people who owned them just let them sit empty for ten years until they could finally justify mowing them down and building new fancy apartments.
My city gives subsidies to build new apartments because of the housing shortage, but the housing shortage is what it is today because between 2008 and 2018 or so, the people who owned properties slowly abandoned them and let them sit empty until there really was no saving them. If the city could have stepped in and given subsidies to repair these buildings as they needed it, we wouldn't be here. Then we would have a good mix of old, cheaper apartments and new fancy apartments instead of just all new fancy apartments.
There's a joke in some economic circles about how "we just need to subsidize demand!" And I'm wondering if those housing vouchers don't fit into that category. The point the economists are trying to make is that the issue with housing in the US and Canada is not that people are too poor to afford homes (subsidize demand), but instead we have a critical supply shortage that will only be corrected by building (subsidize supply).
If the vouchers are ultimately intended to fund/encourage housing development, then it might make the most sense to simply pay housing developers. Though that assumes that developers aren't building due to pricing constraints. Odds are the real root cause is nimbyism and exclusionary zoning that makes it impossible to build enough housing.
Its a good idea and I think its working, most of the homeless in my city have always been the long term homeless who need more assistance than just housing.
The most reported problem I'm seeing with it is that once you have the voucher, theres such a demand for housing that people who can afford it without the voucher get priority than those with one. Even though the land lord is obligated to rent out some percent of units to those with vouchers, people with them are having trouble finding housing.
Re NIMBY-ism, it’s worth pointing out just why property owners defend property values to the extent that they do. In the U.S. housing is used as a savings vehicle, anything that damages the value of a home means owners take a direct hit to their savings. Property taxes are set at that value, so not only are cities incentivized to keep property values high but those values/taxes also direct education dollars to the schools in the area, so anything that damages property values hits city coffers and school budgets.
And changing those factors might not have the desired result. For example, want to delink property taxes as a significant portion of a city’s budget? Then they’ll turn to sales taxes and business taxes to get it, so now your neighborhood will adjust and you might wind up living across the street from a car dealership or a Best Buy. (Funny how cities can suddenly find a way to rezone land when it’s a high tax revenue car dealership, isn’t it?)
So I agree with you about the vested interest in not solving for the need for low income housing, but I don’t think it’s out of selfishness/wanting more money or a lack of caring, it’s that asking people to throw away their life savings is a big ask; telling cities where the demand for government services only grows that their income stream will tank in value is a big ask and so on.
The fact of REITS and house-flipping as a hobby has done more to skew the market in the last decade and create real barriers than NIMBYs and tax structures imho. REITS buy up the cheap land/structures to turn into rentals, same with people making a living house flipping. So even as housing starts ebb and flow, housing stock tightens, the rental market expands, rents rise, then house prices rise, and then I’m back looking at the NIMBYs and property tax that’s paying for everything and well … any solution that really makes a big dent in the problem no matter how partial will have to take all of this into account and to date I’ve never seen that happen. If anyone here knows of some, I’d love to hear about it (and I’ll happily make sure my city council hears about too).
This wouldn't be a huge problem if it wasn't for the housing shortage, which is a result of chronic under-building caused by NIMBYs. A rental house is still an occupied house; these people aren't buying houses to leave them vacant. The only solution is to build more housing. Going after rentals doesn't solve the shortage.
I disagree. I see it as helping cause the housing shortage. In my area, REITS are scooping up all the entry level homes so first time buyers are priced out of the market and remain renters. This keeps an upward pressure on prices making it difficult to find properties to be low income housing. It keeps property taxes high, it keeps the tax base high, which incentivizes only building high end single family homes, NIMBYism by both homeowners and city managers, etc. From my perspective, it isn’t just a simple homelessness is due to “there’s a housing shortage” because “housing starts are down”.
REITs do not have an infinite amount of money. They aren't buying houses to leave them vacant; they're renting them. That they are still profitable shows that there is significant unmet demand for rental houses. This is indicative of, and caused by, a housing shortage.
If we built enough new housing, REITs could not monopolize it.
I’m just going to circle back on this and say, my comments are directed toward why there are barriers to housing starts specifically constructed for the homeless/low income population and how other factors make it economically unfeasible to do so.
It’s not that simple and the economic and political landscape matters. Who is going to build new housing if they can’t make a profit renting/selling it? If they can’t recoup the cost of materials by renting/selling it? If they can’t afford the salaries of the construction crew? No one but the government. So why doesn’t the government do more of it? See my first comment about the barriers that are real whether any of us like the fact of them or not.
I don't exactly see your point here. In the markets where housing is unaffordable in the US, development is profitable and developers want to build! They're generally blocked by restrictive zoning and other processes that limit development.
"Developers won't want to build" isn't an argument to block them from doing so.
The solution to property taxes would be a land value tax. Georgism is a pretty effective way to encourage livable development, and the tax actually reduces blight and speculative investment. The state of Pennsylvania has a few towns and cities that tax land with great results.
It seems like there has to be some kind of correction on this. Doesn’t demand for luxury/overpriced housing have to peak sometime/somewhere?
There's no such thing as "overpriced" in this context. Housing is worth what people are willing to pay. Due to an extreme undersupply, housing in most metro areas is far too expensive, but those are still prices people are willing to pay to live there. Only solution is to reduce demand or increase supply. Obviously it does balance out currently at some point; you can see this with people leaving the Bay Area, for example.
Housing is essentially a captive market. You can't refuse to pay what they ask because if you don't you're homeless.
The argument you're making is very simelar to the neoliberal position on housing, which I disagree with for numerous reasons but it's so complex and outside of my wheelhouse that I will decline to go into details because I find those conversations rather draining.
People often have more options than this. They can get more roommates. They can live with family. They can move to another city.
It's more captive than say, a market for things people don't really need, but there are definitely choices people can make based on housing costs.
Adding more people adds more to your household income; you're still paying what the landlords ask. And how do you expect someone who can't afford to live in the place they are currently living can afford to move to a new city that they most likely don't have an employment agreement in?
I think there are plenty of reasons why it's good to have more high density housing, but you can't just expect everyone to bunk together and live essentially as if they were in a hostel.
If two people were previously paying rent on two separate units, but their landlords increase their rent, so they decide to move in together, now only one of them is paying rent, and the other landlord needs to find another tenant.
As for moving, the people here still do tend to have money, even if they cannot afford to sign onto an expensive lease. Obviously if you are living paycheck-to-paycheck, it is harder to move, but that is not the situation for most people.
This would be a nice solution if society was in any way structured to support this. I wouldn't mind affordable communal housing type buildings that aren't slum-adjacent but that's basically a fantasy.
A few years ago there were some silicon valley housing startups that were basically making capsule hotel style apartments. I haven't heard anything about them since so who knows if they're still operating, let alone successful.
Mostly that kind of "dorm style housing" is simply illegal to build in most of the US. Even if they had a viable business model, it's impossible to get permits and city council approval. San Francisco in particular has some famous NIMBY socialists on the council opposed to basically any development.
Edit: link for the San Francisco council member I was thinking of https://nimby.report/preston
Without regard to the semantics, let me ask the question another way.
Housing is increasingly burdensome expense for an ever growing segment of the population. The young/childless/very affluent have mobility options, and many are exercising them from premier markets to secondary markets, I experience this in my home state of nc with migrants from ne/la/sf/etc. Many who are here are now experiencing financial distress, and are unable to move downmarket. But that’s just a social ill.
My query is, who is replacing the people leaving the more expensive markets? Surely at some point supply/dand adjusts and the cascade stops?
In many cases, no one? New York and California have lost a significant number of people.
Rents have decreased, though not as much as one might initially expect. A lot of this is due to people choosing to have fewer roommates, move out from their parents' place, etc.
So if rents aren’t decreasing with demand, why can we expect increased supply to have any effect? Separate from that, if noone is replacing the emigrants, there has to be a bottom right? I mean, ny and ca are not going to empty out?
Rents have decreased with a decrease in demand. It's just that the decrease isn't as large as you'd expect, due to the pent-up demand for more housing. The same is true of more building; New York and California will need to add millions of more units to significantly reduce housing costs. Fortunately, this isn't that hard if you relax zoning. Plenty of developers are looking to build.
The municipality still has to plan for the additional demands on water, sewer, schools, fire, police, street traffic, etc. It's not as simple as relaxing zoning.
There's an equilibrium point with respect to price. At the current price, NY and CA have their current population. If the price dropped, enough people are interested that the price would return to where it is now.
To change the equilibrium point, we need to increase supply. If you imagine a supply and demand curve, the only way to satisfy demand...is to build more housing to meet demand.
Traditionally the correction would be that people get old and die, leaving their house/land to be recycled back for the next generation. However the past 50 years has seen a massive increase in life expectancy, so that correction is being delayed.
People are living longer than ever and it's one of the reasons why so many developed countries are demographically screwed. Things are so expensive for young people that they can't afford (or they're too pessimistic about climate change) to have kids.
We won't see the true consequences for another 20 years, but they then it will be too late (like climate change). We need to make big changes now.
I wanted to fact check this thinking maybe infant mortality or low birth rates were more responsible than "people living longer than ever". However, it seems there's a lot of truth to this. This article about Sweden shows life expectancy at birth is up about 8-9 years since 1970 and life expectancy at age 65 appears to be up a similar amount in the chart. https://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-projections/population-projections/pong/tables-and-graphs/life-expectancy-at-birth-and-age-65-by-sex-and-projection/
This article about Australia claims "Between 1970–72 and 2002–04, reductions in mortality of people aged 50 years and over have been responsible for 70% of the male and 73% of the female increase in life expectancy at birth"
https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/f7a76dce3f8dc0a3ca2571b00013d99c!OpenDocument
Between this document from 1970 : https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/lifetables/life70.pdf
and this current life expectancy table: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
It looks like male life expectancy in the United States at age 50 is up about 5 years, which is no small feat!
I appreciate you fact-checking me, admittedly it's been a while since I researched this so I didn't remember the details.
At least on the West Coast of the US, demand for land and housing includes demand from real estate investors overseas. My understanding is that some of these properties sit vacant when not in use for visits to the US.
This is a very small fraction of the properties, though.
We have a huge need for housing though. Every unhoused family is a tragedy.
https://www.thestarfishchange.org/starfish-tale
Sure, but "overseas investors" are often used as a scapegoat to avoid solving the real problem: far too few homes in the places people want to live. Addressing any part of this crisis takes political capital, and making the questionable move of barring overseas investment will burn a lot while accomplishing basically nothing.
It's like a ban on plastic straws. Is it marginally better for the environment? Sure, but the energy used to implement that policy would be better spent elsewhere, and it gives politicians an excuse to say "well, we've taken action", when in reality they did basically nothing.
Good article. Thanks.
When I read books with stories about urban life from before the 1930's, boarding houses/rooming houses are just part of the city environment. Even something like Japanese capsule hotels could help so that workers could have their primary home not in the city.
Airbnb has certainly contributed to taking housing off the market.
Also big investment firms have been buying up rental housing and landlords have been using an algorithm to collude to raise prices.
https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithinthewind/landlord-price-fixing-lawsuit-consolidated-in-nashville/article_b6bdbb40-dfa7-11ed-a091-d33e9e2945f0.html
https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-realpage-rent-doj-investigation-antitrust
https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-lawmakers-collusion
This article seems to touch on low-income housing, but what about no-income housing. Either I am not meant to take the headline literally, which means they're not talking about ending homelessness, just ending the most visible parts of it that disrupt cities when too many people are homeless, or if I take it literally, then part of "ending" homelessness has to address people who have no income, not just people who have low income.
They're taking the easy fruit first. Easiest is keeping people from becoming homeless. Next easiest is moving people from temporary housing into permanent housing. Next easiest providing people who are staying with family or friends for a couple weeks with temporary housing. Then you've got the short term homeless and the long term homeless. Short term assistance is a remedy of providing temporary housing, job assistance, child care, help with drug addictions, etc. Long term homelessness is the most difficult, these people often aren't able to care for themselves or function without assistance and most of them should be in long term care housing.
The article talks about the gap that they've got in the "keeping people from becoming homeless" category, which makes no sense because it's the easiest thing to accomplish. That's what they should be focusing on, because it would give the most return for their money. There's an entire industry of payday loans profiting off of this group of people, there shouldn't be, there should be government assistance instead.
Yes. I have seen people claim that public housing should not be tried because it leads to consolidated crime and drug use, but those also occur in homeless encampments.
I read somewhere that there have been discoveries in housing design to reduce crime in public housing, but I can't find the article.
Max (HBO) streams a series produced by David Simon (of The Wire, Treme and Generation Kill) called Show Me A Hero (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_Me_a_Hero) . It is about a local politician becoming mayor of Yonkers, NY in the 80's running on a platform of solving the problem of federally-mandated desegregated affordable public housing. This was based on real events in which he collaborated with a housing designer and produced what basically looked like a block of duplexes with a fenced in front and back yard. They were adjacent to a pleasant neighborhood. Applicants were screened for criminal activity and were told that staying in these low-cost units was dependent on a zero-tolerance for criminal activity or complaints.
The idea was that these units looked and felt like homes and were fenced at the sidewalks like private property. From the standpoint of design, these were completely unlike public housing projects in which public areas such as stairwells and playgrounds quickly became open drug markets. The lack of public spaces was felt to be a crucial element to success. The design concept is referred to as Defensible Space Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensible_space_theory) and still has some currency today.
Public housing also does not have to be 100% low-income tenants.
Vienna's Gemiendebau (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/magazine/vienna-social-housing.html?referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm_source=pocket_saves) are lifetime low cost housing, whose construction is subsidized even if you become wealthier. The mix of tenants is felt to be helpful in reducing crime rates.
New York's Lower East Side, through retirement of a long-term incumbent representing the area, was able to build on three very large tracts of undeveloped land on the south side of Delancey Street leading to the Williamsburg Bridge. This is mixed use including subsidized housing that is intentionally both low-income and market-rate. To my direct experience, there is no high-crime vibe right in front or along Delancey and prices remain reasonable for the area. The adjacent Essex Market offers meals for as little as $4-6 which is pretty good anywhere and especially for Manhattan.
Yes, there is generally pervasive sentiment among advocates, planners, and developers that concentrating low-income housing leads to a lot of the problems that US had with its housing projects in the '60s-'70s. That doesn't necessarily preclude public housing from existing in any meaningful way. In California, a lot of new housing projects restrict some percentage of their units to be low-income housing, which means that rent is capped for its residents while the developer pays (or rather, fails to capture the rent thereof) the cost differential between market rate rent and the affordable rate. A public housing program would only need to pay the affordable rate out. I also tend to agree that heterogeneous income and class distributions encourage more diverse, resilient neighborhoods and push ghettoization back. America has enough class-segregation problems as it is.
The problem is largely one of funding. Governments just don't want to (or don't have the money to) fund public housing. In an inflationary environment where lots of middle-class voters are feeling strapped for cash, it's hard to convince voters to levy the additional taxes necessary to pay for a public housing program (which can be very expensive.) An upcoming Californian bill to increase bridge tolls to fund falling transit revenues has controversy because middle class drivers don't feel that they have the money to fund the poorer populations that depend on transit as a lifeline (they aren't the only users of transit, but are the ones who would be disproportionately affected by deep cuts in transit service.)
Fully funding section 8 vouchers could do a lot without concentrating the extremely poor.
Yes, using Section 8 vouchers is an easy way to do this, but again goes back to the question of funding. The current inflationary environment has made most folks wary of tax increases.
This is where right wing propaganda has been destructively effective. Most folks would not be impacted by a wealth tax etc.
Can someone explain to me why builders aren't just building houses hand over foot non-stop? Its completely free money in my area because there's plenty of space to build, the houses are ALWAYS going to sell at ridiculous prices, and there is still never enough housing.
Depending on the region, it's illegal to build endless tracts of suburbs. Oregon and Washington have Urban Growth Boundaries designed to preserve green spaces around the cities. Denser housing has a lower environmental impact, so the policy does work in multiple ways.
In some areas like Atlanta or Northwest Arkansas or even LA, developers are hitting the limits on reasonable commutes. Cities get choked with traffic and congestion from low density development patterns focused on cars. When someone says they want to buy a home in a city, they usually mean they're looking at places within the city limits rather than an hour drive away.
That said, developers have started ramping up development in many regions, unfortunately the housing isn't located where demand is the highest (Cali, NYC, etc). And around 80% of new housing starts are still single-family houses, so the problems inherent to Anglophone suburban development are still with us. https://www.axios.com/2023/07/07/homebuilding-hot-spots
On paper it would seem like a win/win if they "just built more"--more taxes, more jobs, more disposable income as rent comes down, etc..
However, in reality not every place has infrastructure to meet the demand of 250 new houses in a single area let alone 2000+. Sewer, water, lanes of roads, traffic lights/flow of traffic all need to be thought of and supplied. That can cost political capital even if said houses are wanted because that means raising taxes to pay for those things before the houses are built/occupied. Smaller subdivisions of 50 houses take years to complete once ground is broken.
The Villages in FL, which started in the 80's and is STILL adding multiple sections of hundreds of houses each at a time, was subjected to the NIMBY crowd when they starting buying local farms and ranches. They're subjecting everyone to their own NIMBYism of not wanting affordable housing anywhere near them for the construction workers and employees of all their restaurants, box stores, sub shops, pro shops, fire stations, etc etc. The Village stretch from Orlando to Wildwood (a roughly 40 mile stretch).
(on a side note it makes me so giddy that the leopard is eating faces there since they are mainly staunch DeSantis supporters. They are suffering greatly from the immigrant exodus on all of their unfinished houses. The best part is that The Villages is a special district like Reedy Creek/Disney and one of their special provisions is that ALL houses in The Villages are collateral for a special bond for the builder--even houses that are paid for 100%. This isn't an issue when there is a building boom, but if there are close to a 1000 unfinished houses at various stages just sitting there......)
I think another problem is that even if a near perfect solution was found for homelessness it wouldn't be dupilcated but abused by bad governments until the near perfect system collapsed.
Texas and Florida have been showing their asses for publicity stunts by human trafficking legal immigrants just to "oWn ThE LiBs". If California suddenly developed an effective solution, do you think Texas gov't would suddenly copy that near perfect solution to homelessness or just ship people to CA? They'd even get aroused at the bonus points of being able to point out how "broken" CA is because they're so woke. (Obviously they'd completely ignore their involvement in the system crashing.)
I know it would never happen (and why) but it would be amazing if the federal gov't started closing military bases in places like Texas, Florida and Alabama (Tuberville) and setting up Federal housing programs on the land. Deprive states of the military income as actual consequences of ignoring Federal laws (trafficking immigrants) or when they do anti-american things like talking of suceding or intentionally undercutting our military. Turn the "Make America Great" book against them. The R's willingly let people die at the beginning of COVID since it was affecting blue areas worse at the time. The amount of tantrums from them over saving lives by housing the homeless would implode the space/time continuum. I know it's all fantasy and 150% unrealistic but the "high road" doesn't seem to accomplish much when the side of taking the low road has shown they're willing to let people die just to show up the other side and still "win".
It's weird to say, but Texas actually has some of the most effective anti-homelessness services in the country! NIMBYism is also massively worse in California, and the regulations around building housing push prices way up compared to Texas. I really don't like the state level politics of Texas, but I'm not afraid to admit when they get something right. Even the NPR article you're commenting on mentions Texas as a model state for homelessness.
https://reason.com/video/2023/04/18/why-homelessness-is-worse-in-california-than-in-texas/
I have thought about tiny homes as a viable solution like the Community First! Village from your article link after discovering the Veterans Community Project in their 6 locations. I donate to VCP every year when I get my tax return.
Unfortunately, I can't see that as viable here in Florida due to hurricanes and tropical storms.
As dumb as this sounds, these kind of projects are the top of my list for a serious donation if I ever win any major amount of money in like the lottery or anything. (Ideally I'd set up a fund in perpetuity and donate the interest to them yearly)
I’ll add something a bit late to the discussion: there is no incentive as it does not generate profit.
More and more public goods and needs are falling by the wayside in the US for this simple reason.
Can’t fix bridges, can’t fix potholes, can’t build a bullet train, can’t even maintain existing railways, can’t have public healthcare, can’t solve homelessness because none of this drives a profit and that is all our country cares about anymore.
Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan, and Ronald Reagan.
Please consider reading the article before making a low effort comment. The current housing shortage is connected to 2008 and has much more to do with modern NIMBYism than Reagan.
If the line between Reagan and where we are now was any straighter, we'd have to redefine geometry. I mean, who do you think signed CEQA into law in California, which is abused endlessly by NIMBYs??
You could explain why, you think it is Reagan? I can guess you are referring to closing the inpatient mental hospitals, but I could be wrong and I really don't want to have to guess.
Also the mentally ill are only one subset of the homeless.
Here's an article that gives a thousand-foot view of some of his more impactful choices. I was actually frustrated it didn't mention him killing the Mental Health Services act and all that, so this covers a lot of the other things he did that contributed.
That attitude he brought of "homelessness is a choice" has really stuck, as well, and enables a lot of the Nimby shittiness.
Interesting article. Thanks.
The Mental Health Services Act was killed because of books like One Flew Over The Cuckoo Nest. Residential facilities were often abusive, and they can be traumatizing.
Democrats have had decades to fix Reagan's mistakes. Rather than blaming a dead man, we need to focus on fixing problems.
Reagan killed MHSA because of a book written almost 20 years before MHSA was even passed? Cool.
Mistakes? Cool. Yeah. Reagan didn't do all this by accident, he actively attacked the majority of the country. He laid the groundwork for decades of exploitation, hate, and death. From the AIDS crisis and it's lasting impact on the LGBTQ community to homelessness to labor exploitation and undermining unions and enabling monopolies to the wealth gap to environmental destruction to just some unbelievable international fuckery, we are still living with Reagan's legacy of things he chose to do knowing the consequences full well and not giving a crap because it all helped the wealthy.
We haven't undone Reagan's attacks on this country yet. I mean, certainly that's not the only part of history we haven't gotten past. Like the failure of Reconstruction, for one. We should fix that, too. But right now we're talking about the current homelessness crisis, and until we understand what exactly was done to cause this crisis, much of which started with what Reagan did in office, how are we going to fix it?