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The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

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Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#251

Post by spookthesunset »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #231
techsupporter wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can appreciate that but, to be honest, that's why I'm asking someone who says he or she is currently homeless. I want to know if that position is theoretically true (that is, people who are housed think it is true) or if it really does have bearing on the day-to-day life of someone who is homeless. Put another way, I want to know what someone who's actually going through this would say because the question is sarca…

I spent nearly six years homeless. Long before that, I had a class on Homelessness and Public Policy through SFSU when I was living in Fairfield. Most of my homelessness was spent in California and I actually moved to Washington to get back into housing. I blog about homelessness and still talk with homeless people online and in person. 1. If you are destitute, traveling is a huge barrier to moving elsewhere. There a…

thanks for this post, very helpful!

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#252

Post by cutler »

spookthesunset wrote: post #209
cutler wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple. Put a ceiling on rents. Allow no-one to own more than one home and insist they live in the one they own. In the UK we have a "bedroom tax" but it is aimed at the poor, not the rich as it should be. Make it illegal to discriminate against anyone based on their income source or the state of their health. Build housing exclusively for low-income occupants instead of throwing everything onto the insidious propert…

> Put a ceiling on rents Sorry, but this is the worst possible solution. Source: basic economics. Rent control is one of the most dangerous "solutions" to high housing costs people ever toss out. It would destroy the housing market and make it vastly more expensive than it is now.

Demonstrably untrue. Spend some time in Vienna or Berlin.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#253

Post by cutler »

hackeraccount wrote: post #249
cutler wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple. Put a ceiling on rents. Allow no-one to own more than one home and insist they live in the one they own. In the UK we have a "bedroom tax" but it is aimed at the poor, not the rich as it should be. Make it illegal to discriminate against anyone based on their income source or the state of their health. Build housing exclusively for low-income occupants instead of throwing everything onto the insidious propert…

Regulations increase the value of goods and services by creating predictability. Competition reduces the cost of goods.

So spake Adam Smith. Sorry but the Invisible Hand is a fairy tale.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#254

Post by cutler »

lubujackson wrote: post #220
cutler wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple. Put a ceiling on rents. Allow no-one to own more than one home and insist they live in the one they own. In the UK we have a "bedroom tax" but it is aimed at the poor, not the rich as it should be. Make it illegal to discriminate against anyone based on their income source or the state of their health. Build housing exclusively for low-income occupants instead of throwing everything onto the insidious propert…

This is so illogical. For one, who is going to build these properties for low-income people only? Costs will be almost the same, profits will be way less. So why would a developer bother? In fact, the recent change to require a higher percentage of low income units in new structures has killed the pipeline for new building starts. Even if it seems counterproductive to the goal of helping low income people, historical…

You're thinking purely within a capitalist framework. There is no capitalist solution to this problem. The solution is unprofitable. I encourage you to think outside this framework as humanity itself is at stake not just profits.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#255

Post by AnimalMuppet »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #233
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit more than that. It's also a mindset that, yes, we really will give real money and effort to help people. A government agency could eventually build the social infrastructure (though they might make a mess of it). But building the consensus that we're going to solve this problem, even if it costs us a lot is... difficult. As you said, probably not reproduceable elsewhere. I'm a non-Mormon living in Utah. I…

Thanks. Though, to my mind, the willpower and desire is part and parcel of what I am talking about when I say social infrastructure. That sense of community and social responsibility etc is something we tend to see closely tied to religious groups and tend to not see to that degree for, say, government run social programs.

Ah, I see. Then government almost certainly cannot create that social infrastructure. But if it already exists (Utah and Sweden, for example), then it makes it a lot easier for the government to address this kind of problem.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#256

Post by newnewpdro »

dredmorbius wrote: post #246
newnewpdro wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

References? It's rather simple and obvious math. If your city's population doubles, and the homeless portion started at 1%, and ended at 1%, your number of homeless people on the streets doubled. We like to focus on per-capita figures/%ages because they can make us feel good about ourselves. Except the problems you see on the street are not constant when their incidence %age stays constant, as the population grows. F…

Actually I was referring to the homelessness increasing as population increases. The periods of most rapid population growth in the US were the decade of the 1810s, with a subsequent peak in the 1850s. In the 20th century, the peak decades were the 1900s and 1910s (21% each), then the 1960s (18%). Rates of growth have fallen consistently since the 1960s, with the exception of the decade of 2000 - 2009. As I've posted…

Ok, I was not referring to the rate increasing. I am simply stating that the rate doesn't have to increase for the homeless problem to grow, because it grows in absolute numbers with the population.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#257

Post by Rebelgecko »

flaque wrote: post #166
spookthesunset wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> endless money pits The reason they are money pits is because they aren't something that will be solved by a city or even a state. Any attempt to solve the problem locally in a "humane" way has a high risk of just attracting more folks in the same circumstance to the area. The most effective way for a city or state to "solve" the local homeless problem is to simply pay for one-way bus tickets to somewhere else. But…

> Any attempt to solve the problem locally in a "humane" way has a high risk of just attracting more folks in the same circumstance to the area. This is just provably false. Utah solved it's homelessness problem by just giving people homes. And it was pretty effective.

Based on my experience walking down the street in Utah, I don't think they've "solved" homelessness.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#258

Post by reaperducer »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #248
tomrod wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say it's well developed. It's set up to get people on their feet temporarily. That covers many cases. It's less helpful for cases where chronic issues require ongoing help. Source: former Mormon, used to cut the welfare checks under congregational leadership, saw the inside baseball, politics, sausage-making, etc.

From what I gather from reading stuff on the internet, it appears to be "well developed" relative to what is generally happening elsewhere. Given the state of things elsewhere, it absolutely doesn't surprise me to hear that's a low bar to meet and the perspective from inside seems less than impressive.

From what I gather from reading stuff on the internet

Not to be dismissive, but I think we found the root of the problem.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#259

Post by TomMckenny »

beefalo wrote: post #163
biztos wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of Revenue Management Software. What effect does it have exactly? If you own some apartments, wouldn't you just check the local advertised prices and set your prices similarly, possibly also using whatever your social network of landlords can tell you?

What it sounds like to me is better optimization of vacancy. If you can raise rent by 50% and only lose 25% of tenants, you have increased revenue while also decreasing expenses.

Exactly. And the bottom 25% become homeless.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#260

Post by lacker »

flaque wrote: post #166
spookthesunset wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> endless money pits The reason they are money pits is because they aren't something that will be solved by a city or even a state. Any attempt to solve the problem locally in a "humane" way has a high risk of just attracting more folks in the same circumstance to the area. The most effective way for a city or state to "solve" the local homeless problem is to simply pay for one-way bus tickets to somewhere else. But…

> Any attempt to solve the problem locally in a "humane" way has a high risk of just attracting more folks in the same circumstance to the area. This is just provably false. Utah solved it's homelessness problem by just giving people homes. And it was pretty effective.

Utah is pretty different.

You can’t afford to live in San Francisco on a teacher’s salary. If it were possible for all homeless people to get housing in San Francisco, does that apply for all teachers, too? For everybody making minimum wage? There just isn’t enough housing in San Francisco to provide it to everyone with a low-paying job in the area, regardless of how it is paid for, regardless of whether you overthrow capitalism and institute an all wise dictator.

Either we need to build lots more housing in San Francisco, or house the homeless somewhere else, or accept a permanent homeless underclass in San Francisco.

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