San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
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Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#2[flagged]
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#3But lets continue taking public policy talking points from them. /s
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#4When I lived in San Francisco, the newly built condo building across from me was fully empty (but fully sold) for all the years I lived there. This is a tower in SOMA. There was only one apartment which appeared to be a corporate one that was occasionally utilized.
The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level. San Francisco has felt the brunt of this due to their insanely restrictive development laws.
Frankly, for the 7+ years I was in San Francisco I was always saying they should pass laws to prevent foreign investment in real estate or at a minimum require people live there for X% of the year.
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#5[deleted]
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#6[flagged]
Their numbers look sound to me. Did you read the article?
>The ten most populous Bay Area cities listed above have a combined point-in-time homeless total of 63,527, and, margins of error notwithstanding, a census-estimated 92,800-plus homes vacant, a ratio of about three units for every two persons.
>The census’ annual American Communities Survey defines a home as vacant if there is either no occupant or a temporary occupant—temporary meaning “people who will be there for two months or less.”
>Vacancy rates are estimated by in-person visits to properties or by interviews via mail, email, or phone. The upcoming 2020 census will employ more exact methods and should result in housing and vacancy estimates with less room for error.
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#7> The census’ annual American Communities Survey defines a home as vacant if there is either no occupant or a temporary occupant—temporary meaning “people who will be there for two months or less.”
So this is counting AirBnBs and other short-term rental spaces as vacant.
> Vacancy rates are estimated by in-person visits to properties or by interviews via mail, email, or phone.
I clicked through to the definition from census.gov:
> Mail and computer-assisted telephone and personal-visit interviews. All group quarters responses are obtained by personal visit interview. Most vacant units are not identified until the third month of data collection (the first personal visit). In that month, a 1-in-3 subsample of all addresses for which responses have not been obtained are visited by field representatives.
I'm curious how well you can distinguish permanent residents not being home when field representatives happened to drop by from actually vacant. My house looks like it could be vacant when nobody is home.
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#8When I lived in San Francisco, the newly built condo building across from me was fully empty (but fully sold) for all the years I lived there. This is a tower in SOMA. There was only one apartment which appeared to be a corporate one that was occasionally utilized. The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level. San Francisco has felt the brunt of this due to their insa…
Why should different rules apply to foreigners in this context? An American billionaire buying a few condos and keeping them empty has the exact same effect as a Chinese billionaire doing so.
Rules around vacant homes are good, though, and I strongly support them.
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#9Maybe they should build something other than luxury condos. But that would require SF to change their insane zoning laws. And SF cares more about zoning laws than they do about people.
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#10[flagged]
>that the cognoscenti proletariat should be empowered to confiscate all property and redistribute it as they wish
Or we could, you know, build some cheap housing.