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I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

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Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#71

Post by DoreenMichele »

proc0 wrote: post #66

How can it be housing when there are so many vacancies? I honestly don't understand this. Obviously they can't afford it, but that's how markets work. When there is high demand, prices go up. It seems to me the solution is just for people to go elsewhere... again, the housing is there, plenty of rentals everywhere, except too expensive for someone who is living on the streets to, all of a sudden, start paying for, ye…

Author here. The short version:

We used to build small homes in walkable neighborhoods where you could live without a car and have reasonable rent. That's mostly gone.

You not only need to cover the cost of a large home, cars are mostly not optional for most Americans. This is a huge additional expense.

The combination is killer.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#72

Post by jdavis703 »

proc0 wrote: post #66

How can it be housing when there are so many vacancies? I honestly don't understand this. Obviously they can't afford it, but that's how markets work. When there is high demand, prices go up. It seems to me the solution is just for people to go elsewhere... again, the housing is there, plenty of rentals everywhere, except too expensive for someone who is living on the streets to, all of a sudden, start paying for, ye…

Most areas (pre-pandemic) did not have enough vacancy to put pressure on the housing market. Most of the vacancy was caused by units being renovated/fixed, places waiting for a leaseholder to move in, etc.

This is even true of low-income housing and shelters. Occasionally people will gripe about shelter vacancies, without realizing it’s really difficult to maintain 100% housing utilization without denying some people housing.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#73

Post by maxlybbert »

rigata wrote: post #25
jefftk wrote: post #12

"Dumping ground" implies other places did this to CA, which isn't substantiated by the article. As it says, the vast majority of CA homeless are from within the state. In the cities of CA, as in other rich cities, homelessness and high housing prices come from the same problem: prohibitive regulations on housing construction.

It’s been a known problem for a while now. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/21/nevada... South Park made an episode about it with the song “California loves the homeless”. https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/California_Loves_the_Homel... California largely has weather that you can survive outdoor in year round and social programs that provide for and policies that show empathy for homelessness.

I believed this when I lived in California. Now I’m not so sure: it is true that people without shelter can easily die in much of the country, but California isn’t the only place with mild winters. Why don’t Arizona, New Mexico, large parts of Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, etc. have the same problem?

Assuming that California will just naturally have a larger homeless population than everywhere else means that nobody will spend much effort trying to solve the problem. Is it possible that California is just unusually bad when it comes to handling homelessness?

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#74

Post by MontyCarloHall »

Waterluvian wrote: post #63
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For existing homeowners this isn't a crisis, it's a free paper money bonanza. Just by living in their houses home "owners" (most are heavily leveraged) "earn" 100k in paper money year in year out - magic! Is this appreciation consistent with the rest of the country, or areas with comparable quality of life? If you only have one home, real estate appreciation only makes you money if it’s higher for your house relati…

For the most part this is an important point. But there is a minor perk that a greatly appreciating house gives you considerably more equity to act as a large rainy day battery via a home equity line of credit or traditional loans backed by home equity. My home appreciated 20% last two years and while I hate the condition of the housing market, this unlocked a lot of equity years earlier than I expected it to.

A HELOC just lets you unlock lower interest rates for accruing additional debt. It’s very different from actually having that additional money in your pocket.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#75

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

yarky wrote: post #28
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is unnecessarily darwinian in its conception. It also ignores that the major NE cities invest more into building shelters because they decided people freezing to death on the sidewalk was unacceptable.

I second the op, it's hard to just be homeless when it gets freezing cold. Put differently, if I had to choose a place to be homeless, I'd start by choosing a place with good weather, that's a (hypothetical) fact.

People start where they are. Hitch hiking and train jumping are both very dangerous. It's no simple matter to "choose a place with good weather."

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#76

Post by epistasis »

LurkingPenguin wrote: post #70
epistasis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California is extremely capable of supporting its current population, and easily 50% more. The only thing stopping this is proper distribution of land and water. We let wealthy people hoard land and water (Prop 13 and our land rights system), rather than allocating them based on market systems or even more fair systems. We have feudalism baked too deeply into our laws.

Even if, for argument's sake, one accepts your claim, it's quite clear that the policies are not going to change. I'm a native Californian who left and now lives overseas, and every visit back has not only provided a stark demonstration of California's decline, but also taught me that many Californians refuse to believe their lying eyes. I have friends and family who in the past 5 years have lost homes to fire, seen…

Things are changing, as the entrenched interests die from old age.

Last year, Prop 15 nearly eliminated the Prop 13 for commercial properties. That this was even within 10% points of passing is such a huge change as to be unthinkable. 15 years ago I would rant about Prop 13 and get nothing but hate from others for my position. These days I'm as likely to find somebody ranting about the evils of Prop 13 as I am to initiate the rants. And the only people I see really arguing for Prop 13 are in the dying our demographics of newspaper comment sections and NextDoor, and nearly no one I meet in person.

We have a huge problem with Boomers and their heirs, but immigration is rapidly changing eh demographics to allow for more sound governance.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#77

Post by lbarrow »

Schnitz wrote: post #26

> Rather than asking "Who can we blame?" maybe we could start asking "How do we fix it?" Nobody talks about the hard truth: The homeownership rate in California is ~55% and therefore over half of Californians are heavily incentivized to keep the housing crisis going. For existing homeowners this isn't a crisis, it's a free paper money bonanza. Just by living in their houses home "owners" (most are heavily leveraged)…

55% is one of the lowest home ownership rates in the country. If high levels of home ownership drive policies that prohibit new construction and drive up prices, how is it that places like Minnesota, with a home ownership rate in the mid-70s, are so cheap to live in?

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#78

Post by betwixthewires »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #48
betwixthewires wrote: post #40

I agree with the premise of the article, that a large proportion of California's homeless move there because it's easier to he homeless for all the reasons listed, but that's about the substance of the article. It blames the problem on detached housing and demands solutions without an inkling of a hint at any. Our homeless problem is the result of 2 things: a mental health problem and to a much lesser extent the perv…

I'm the author. It's really not mostly mental health problems. I've studied this issue for years. I write about homelessness on Street Life Solutions. I try to write about housing and community development stuff elsewhere, like Eclogiselle.com and https://projectsro.blogspot.com/ . This post wasn't intended to be some opus solving everything. I wanted to make one point: California's extreme homeless problem is not so…

So what do you think is the root problem? A national housing shortage? What do you think drives that shortage if so? What do you think are good solutions? I understand it takes more than a blog post but every big problem takes more than a blog post, we can still have a conversation about it here. Could you shed a little light on the issue for us?

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#79

Post by austinheap »

jdavis703 wrote: post #67
austinheap wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can’t solve mental illness with more quarter million dollar condos. I don’t know why this is still being peddled.

A lot of folks enter into mental health crisis from the stress, sleep deprivation and other issues caused by being homeless. Certainly not all. But having gone through a time period dealing with stress and sleep deprivation from the comfort of my home, I can empathize.

“Unhoused” — esp families — are rapidly rehoused in SF. Those experiencing “chronic homelessness” (the ‘visible’ humans, who deserve the same amount of love and respect) are more often tied to mental health…just different things are helpful for the different groups.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#80

Post by jdavis703 »

iJohnDoe wrote: post #56

Of course it is. Does no one remember when other states were paying for bus fares to California to get the homeless out of their state? Does no one remember states paying to fly the homeless to Hawaii? The above might sound ridiculous, but what sounds cheaper? Solving California’s massive homeless problem or simply getting the homeless out of the state on the next plane or bus?

I’ve posted detailed numbers here before, but the overwhelming numbers of homeless people in the Bay Area came from the Bay Area.

Source: https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ExecutiveSu...

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