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LA pays $2600 per homeless tent, per month

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Re: LA pays $2600 per homeless tent, per month

#121

Post by CivBase »

et-al wrote: post #99
dcolkitt wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one big way to prevent this downward trend in quality of life is to build more cheap housing One pedantic quibble. It's not necessary to build cheap housing specifically. It's perfectly fine simply to build more housing of any type. Today's new expensive housing will indirectly create more cheap housing in the pre-existing housing stock, by pulling demand out of the market. Throughout all of American history, new h…

I see you've read that CityObservatory article from a few years back [0]. Unfortunately as the Tiktaalik mentioned, we have a housing shortage now . So the trickle-down economics of luxury housing won't work for at least a generation. Also, all the actual luxury housing that ends up being built is bought by wealthy investors buying their third or fourth property. Just look at the housing market in London. > Throughou…

Do we actually have a "housing" shortage, though? I know that supply of stereotypical single-family, detatched homes is massively outstripped by demand in many parts of the US and that's a problem. But is there actually a shortage of "housing" - places to live - including apartments, condos, duplexes, mobile homes, etc?

This is not a rhetorical question, by the way. I'm genuinely curious as I've never been to LA or spent significant time in parts of the US where this problem is at its worse. I live in the midwest and there are plenty of places I could buy or rent here if I needed - cheap and expensive - but I'm lucky enough to have a decent place now so I can be picky about the next one.

Re: LA pays $2600 per homeless tent, per month

#122

Post by klondike_ »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #59

So digging into the report that is linked from the article and other commenters here (link below, search for "Pilot Safe Sleep Site" in that article), some relevant points: 1. The "$2600" number is calculated from the $1,491,410 total cost / 70 spaces / 8 months. 2. Regarding staffing, "The staffing plan Urban Alchemy recommends for a successful program is a minimum staff-to-participant ratio of one (1) to 12." So in…

Deinstitutionalization was a mistake. While the advent of psychiatric drugs in the 60s reduced the need for these massive long term care facilities, there are still (and always will be) mentally ill people who require long term care. The community mental health facilities that were to replace asylums never materialized, and now a majority of these people now spend their life on the street. Some will argue that these facilities were inhumane, but I think it's far more inhumane to just kick severely mentally ill people out on the street with no support resources.

Re: LA pays $2600 per homeless tent, per month

#123

Post by tylerhou »

onion2k wrote: post #106
dcolkitt wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one big way to prevent this downward trend in quality of life is to build more cheap housing One pedantic quibble. It's not necessary to build cheap housing specifically. It's perfectly fine simply to build more housing of any type. Today's new expensive housing will indirectly create more cheap housing in the pre-existing housing stock, by pulling demand out of the market. Throughout all of American history, new h…

Today's new expensive housing will indirectly create more cheap housing in the pre-existing housing stock, by pulling demand out of the market. Only if people actually live in those houses, and they're bought by people living in the cheaper houses right now who then move up in to the new housing stock. If people buy the new houses as investments and leave them empty most of the year then it has no impact on the rest…

What concrete data do you have to suggest that luxury homes aren't being occupied at significantly higher rates than general housing stock?

Re: LA pays $2600 per homeless tent, per month

#124

Post by slg »

dcolkitt wrote: post #78
0xB31B1B wrote: post #57

Posting this because most people in HN have a warped view of what homelessness is, especially in california. First of all, when most people think homeless they think "fentanyl addict out of his mind living in squalor" and while there are certainly a bunch of those people in the homeless population, they aren't even a majority of the homeless. In general, about 2/3 of the homeless are transiently homeless. They will b…

> one big way to prevent this downward trend in quality of life is to build more cheap housing One pedantic quibble. It's not necessary to build cheap housing specifically. It's perfectly fine simply to build more housing of any type. Today's new expensive housing will indirectly create more cheap housing in the pre-existing housing stock, by pulling demand out of the market. Throughout all of American history, new h…

This generally doesn't happen for two primary reasons.

First cities are not closed systems. Places like LA and the Bay Area have a built up demand that exceeds housing. The new housing would have to be added at an extremely high right to keep up with that demand otherwise the city just grows rather than becomes cheaper. When a city simply grows, the cheaper units never flow down to the bottom of the market as someone else will move in who lives outside the city and was previously priced out of the mid-tier housing. We see the same type of thing when designing transportation systems in a city. Adding in a new road can actually increase traffic as it ends up encouraging more people to drive who otherwise wouldn't have.

Also the housing market is not a singular market. The type of person who would live in a 3 bedroom luxury condo is not the same type of person who would live in an SRO hotel that shares a bathroom. Most people have a small window of what housing they consider acceptable and what budget they can afford. When a city gentrifies and knocks down SRO housing and replaces it with luxury condos (something that has happened a lot in both LA and the Bay Area over the last couple decades), the available units at the bottom of the market decreases in favor of the top of the market. That doesn't result in everyone in the city just moving up one rung on the housing ladder. Competition for the affordable units is now even higher because there are less of them available.

Re: LA pays $2600 per homeless tent, per month

#125

Post by alisonkisk »

koolba wrote: post #43
jollybean wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are small-c conservative progressives. They are not into spectacles or aggressive populism, generally correct, a little effete, but are definitely progressive. They are like the 'Vermont' or 'Nice Schoolteacher' or 'Librarian' of Journalism.

Promoting an author who’s book is literally titled, “In Defense of Looting”[1] isn’t progressive. It’s promoting the breakdown of the rule of law. That wasn’t an accident either. [1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178...

The book is about looting as a reaction to the breakdown of the rule of law.

Re: LA pays $2600 per homeless tent, per month

#126

Post by alisonkisk »

wyager wrote: post #48
advisedwang wrote: post #2

> the per-tent cost covers services, meals, sanitation and staffing OK, so $2600 gets a fair bit. Also looking at the report [1] this rate is calculated by dividing the total cost of the pilot by the duration and number of clients. So that is including one-time set up, planning and evaluation in the cost, which is probably a decent fraction of the cost as it's only an 8 month pilot. The recurring cost for extending m…

$31,000/yr is already pretty shit, and it’s even worse when you consider the opportunity cost of not using that space on a person who’s actually going to gain a productivity benefit from living in SF.

You missed some critical details in the story.

Re: LA pays $2600 per homeless tent, per month

#127

Post by alisonkisk »

GartzenDeHaes wrote: post #39
darth_avocado wrote: post #35

I think the main takeaway here is government, as usual, thinking short term and spending more money on bandaid solutions. Yes, the $2600 gets you services, meals, sanitation and staffing. But in reality, you can get a decent 1BR apartment for $1500 that is waaay bigger than a tent, sanitation for free since it is an apartment, and have almost $1000 for groceries left over. And, you can fit more people in the apartmen…

You're misunderstanding the fundamental function of modern government. That $2600 goes to a contractor (political crony, friend, or relative) who then mostly pockets the money through salaries, sub-contracts, and such. This is the purpose of the spending and there was never an intent to help anyone in the first place.

This is completely baseless.

Re: LA pays $2600 per homeless tent, per month

#128

Post by barbecue_sauce »

tylerhou wrote: post #110
et-al wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see you've read that CityObservatory article from a few years back [0]. Unfortunately as the Tiktaalik mentioned, we have a housing shortage now . So the trickle-down economics of luxury housing won't work for at least a generation. Also, all the actual luxury housing that ends up being built is bought by wealthy investors buying their third or fourth property. Just look at the housing market in London. > Throughou…

> Unfortunately as the Tiktaalik mentioned, we have a housing shortage now. So the trickle-down economics of luxury housing won't work for at least a generation. What data are you basing this claim off of? Many people (especially young people in finance and tech) move every few years, and some of them want luxury apartments. That reduces the demand for cheaper housing stock. A 25 y/o moving to SF isn't going to buy a…

A 25 y/o moving to SF isn't going to buy an apartment period.

Re: LA pays $2600 per homeless tent, per month

#129

Post by bcrosby95 »

cactus2093 wrote: post #118
et-al wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see you've read that CityObservatory article from a few years back [0]. Unfortunately as the Tiktaalik mentioned, we have a housing shortage now . So the trickle-down economics of luxury housing won't work for at least a generation. Also, all the actual luxury housing that ends up being built is bought by wealthy investors buying their third or fourth property. Just look at the housing market in London. > Throughou…

Why would you need to wait a generation? More like a couple of months. People who are moving to luxury housing live somewhere now, which is less new. When they move out of there, someone else can move in, etc. and on down the line freeing up multiple housing units one by one at ultimately different prices. It adds to the total housing stock in the city immediately. And no, “all” the luxury housing is not being bought…

> People who are moving to luxury housing live somewhere now, which is less new.

People living a $1mil shithole aren't going to be moving into a $2mil luxury home. You need to find the buyer that can afford a $2mil luxury house. This is why the problem takes so long to work out. Prices are inflated, and luxury homes will be inflated even more - the people that would normally buy them aren't going to be able to move and afford them. Combine this with how people can just sit on homes rather than sell them, it's gonna take a real long time for prices to make their way down.

Re: LA pays $2600 per homeless tent, per month

#130

Post by steve76 »

spoonjim wrote: post #62
0xB31B1B wrote: post #57

Posting this because most people in HN have a warped view of what homelessness is, especially in california. First of all, when most people think homeless they think "fentanyl addict out of his mind living in squalor" and while there are certainly a bunch of those people in the homeless population, they aren't even a majority of the homeless. In general, about 2/3 of the homeless are transiently homeless. They will b…

Whenever I see someone who is quite clearly very recently homeless I give them as much money as I can afford to, like $50-100, because I feel like it can get them out of homelessness. When I see someone completely out of their mind I don’t feel like anything I can do will make a material difference, just get them different levels of stoned for the next 3 hours.

How to cure most social ills:

1. It's illegal to be a victim. Why do you allow yourself to be robbed, or even have a lock put on your door?

2. Penal transport. Since everyone gets to do what they want, I'm rounding up everyone I don't like. I put them on some coast, perhaps one day, the moon. In 10 months, 10 tons of processed materials, like fuel, are waiting on the coast line. If they are one ounce short, the coastline gets microwaved.

It would be impossible to commit a crime. Perfectly legal too. All the law has to do is limit the violence. Mental illness, the worst of it, looks just like intoxication. It takes a very long time to bounce back from it, if you ever do.

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