LA pays $2600 per homeless tent, per month • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by slg » Thu, May 27, 2021, 5:07 AM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #198

slg wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> someone else will move in who lives outside the city I don't really see this as a gotcha. Those would-be new arrivals to the city don't materialize out of thin air. Presumably they left some other place behind, and their migration is freeing up housing stock wherever they leave behind. The underlying dynamic is still the same. New housing increases low-end affordability by soaking up mid-end demand for old housing…

>Unless you place a lot more moral weight on helping Californians than Midwesterners, what's the difference?

The difference is that housing costs take up a much higher percentage of wages in California than Ohio and as a result there are many many more homeless people in California than Ohio.

Sure, if you want to take a holistic view of the entire planet, the people have to come from somewhere and there is a finite demand for global housing. However that just isn't a practical way to look at it when the problems are localized. Different cities and regions have varying levels of desirability. It makes sense to build housing in those cities and regions for a wide spectrum of the population. The solution shouldn't just be "if you are poor, move to Ohio".

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

#212

Post by slg » Thu, May 27, 2021, 5:08 AM UTC

zuminator wrote: post #201

slg wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 3 bedroom luxury condo never becomes an SRO hotel with shared bathrooms regardless of how little maintenance goes into the place. A neglected property will obviously fall down market in terms of desirability, but a place like that will never reach the actual bottom of the market.

I can't provide a counterexample to the specific 3br luxury->SRO scenario, but it certainly does happen on occasion that previously expensive units wind up getting subdivided into cheaper units. I knew someone who lived in a low-end furnished room (with shared bathroom) that had previously been part of a larger unit.

I'm not sure that is an equivalent example. The previous example was housing falling into a lower tier of the market through lack of maintenance. Your example is actively retrofitting a place to be in a different tier of the market. That isn't really the same thing because your example requires new investments and is actively creating new housing at the bottom of the market rather than just allowing a place to deteriorate through inaction.

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

#213

Post by dodobirdlord » Thu, May 27, 2021, 5:09 AM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #203

pseudalopex wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume transiently homeless people become chronically homeless faster than chronically homeless people find homes or die.

That seems like a reasonable assumption does it not?

Percentage wise, few transiently homeless people become chronically homeless. Far more people each year cycle through a period of transient homelessness than the average number of transiently homeless people at any point in time.

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

#214

Post by thethimble » Thu, May 27, 2021, 5:09 AM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #198

slg wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> someone else will move in who lives outside the city I don't really see this as a gotcha. Those would-be new arrivals to the city don't materialize out of thin air. Presumably they left some other place behind, and their migration is freeing up housing stock wherever they leave behind. The underlying dynamic is still the same. New housing increases low-end affordability by soaking up mid-end demand for old housing…

With this logic, it’s not necessary to build housing at all. There’s plenty of extremely low cost housing available in South Dakota.

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

#215

Post by kuang_eleven » Thu, May 27, 2021, 5:10 AM UTC

CivBase wrote: post #121

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…

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 s…

Absolutely. I live in West LA, one of the places in the US worst hit by the housing shortage and it is hard to even find an apartment and vacancies are filled quick.

Luckily, I haven't had to move in a while, but it was bad enough that when I got my place, I signed for it purely based on the opinion of a friend who could go see it for me. If I had waited the extra week to come home from the trip I was on, it almost certainly would not have been vacant.

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

#216

Post by tylerhou » Thu, May 27, 2021, 5:11 AM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #149

tylerhou wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Vancouver https://bc.ctvnews.ca/10-800-housing-units-sit-empty-in-vanc... Manhattan https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/american-h... Seattle https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/luxury-apartments-whos-bu... Melbourne https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/ghost-tower-warn... Boston https://bostonagentmagazine.com/2018/09/11/study-bostons-new...

None of the articles support a narrative that there is an epidemic of vacancies among high-end housing.

Vancouver: The article claims that there is ~5% vacancy rate. This is actually below the normal rate for vacancies in the US. Condos have a higher vacancy rate, but the article offers a reasonable explanation.

Manhattan: Ultra-luxury home vacancies aren't the same as luxury apartment buildings. Most people are not buying $5-$10 million condos. And even if the buildings are unsold, they aren't necessarily unoccupied.

Seattle: Again focuses on "foreign investors" and unsold apartments. No concrete data on how many those apartments are actually empty.

Melbourne: > Prosper Australia project director Karl Fitzgerald said, based on the water data, Melbourne's actual vacancy rate was closer to 7 per cent.

7% is on the high-end of vacancy rates, but if you reduced that down to 5% then the effect on prices would still be low.

Boston: No data on vacancy rates. Again, sale != occupancy. There are plenty of property management companies that build out luxury apartment buildings and directly rent to people.

The real issue is lack of housing, which can be fixed by letting developers build more housing, including high-end housing.

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

#217

Post by belenos46 » Thu, May 27, 2021, 5:13 AM UTC

Google234 wrote: post #144

belenos46 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And "democrat" != "actually liberal". The guy in the white house, sending Israel billions of dollars in aid while the Israeli government massacres civilians is a democrat, for fuckssake.

Imagine supporting a terorist state in Hamas. Fortunately most democrats aren’t regressive leftist - yet.

Big yawn. Imagine suggesting that the hundreds -that we know about- of folks killed while just trying to live their damn lives constitute "a terrorist state"

If I was that bad at basic logic, I'm not sure I'd tell on myself like that.

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

#218

Post by whoknowswhat11 » Thu, May 27, 2021, 5:15 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #204

whoknowswhat11 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One factor in vacancy rates at least in SF / NY - rent control. You really CANNOT rent to someone without a big risk - so if you have an elderly parent who might want to move in in the future, you have kids who might want a place - and are wealthy - you really need to keep place empty. So yes, the rich do leave I think more places empty in some places because they can afford to and because the economic calculation is…

> more places empty in some places Ok, this is a nice story that one could make up. But once again, my point is that vacancy rate is something that is already tracked. In San Francisco, the vacancy rate is about 3.5%. So, in other words, regardless of whatever story you are making up about parents, or rent control or whatever, the actual data shows, that the vacancy rate is very low, and therefore not much of a probl…

I'm not disagreeing at all. But I know of enough unusual vacancies in SF among the rich that it strikes me as a small corner factor. In another city (smaller, parents live there) EVERYONE rents when they are not in their space. I mean, even just for summer if traveling. But when you come back, the tenant must leave (and does).

I know someone who sublet an extra room to someone, a year later her wonderful lease was destroyed, landlord sued her and the women never paid a dime, could not be evicted, claimed she felt unsafe and got a restraining order against the person actually paying rent etc so they ended paying rent on two places, one to live in and one for the women.

I mean - this stuff does turn you off renting a small bit.

That said, supply is REDICULOUSLY constrained around here, red tape is nuts, minimum requirements crazy, affordability payments high etc. So yeah, no question that there is artificial scarcity.

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

#219

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 27, 2021, 5:19 AM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#220

Post by homelesssjw » Thu, May 27, 2021, 5:20 AM UTC

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…

> Posting this because most people in HN have a warped view of what homelessness is

You, good intentions aside, are the one with the warped perspective.

This is social justice warrior nonsense. Advocates love to cite the same self-collected/anecdotal data that just happens to support to their expensive, unhelpful, selfish ”mission”.

What you’re doing isn’t working because you’re not even addressing the symptoms let alone the problem. Jesus Christ. But, as they say, it is difficult to get an advocate to understand their “solutions” suck when their salary depends upon not understanding it.