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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

#141

Post by CheezeIt »

ceh123 wrote: post #44
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)…

Worth noting that according to [0], this is one of the lowest rates in the country, which would suggest to me this has less of an effect than you are selling here. [0] https://blog.stewart.com/stewart/2019/11/05/u-s-homeownershi... * I didn’t vet this source much but it apparently pulls from UC Census data.

Unlike other states, California property tax rates don’t increase with market value.

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

#142

Post by betwixthewires »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #132
betwixthewires wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm right there with you on administrative barriers. What do you think of other housing options more common in the US, such as mobile homes, RVs, duplexes/quadplexes etc? What about ideas like renting rooms, dormitory style housing with shared spaces and things like that?

Mobile homes, RVs and the Tiny House movement are basically hacks to get around a broken system. The first tiny house was put on wheels to get around the zoning codes rather than fight them (I'm old enough, I read some of the earliest coverage of it back when it was a new idea). Those things are proliferating mostly because we won't fix our broken system. Not mostly because people actually prefer that stuff. Dorms, d…

How are they hacks and not solutions? If smaller living spaces for smaller family units is a solution wouldn't they be solutions and not hacks? If people actually want smaller housing and choose these things, aren't they real solutions?

Mobile homes date back to the same time as the modern suburb, were designed to target a similar demographic and are pretty ubiquitous across most of rural US, as are RVs in many places.

I've seen tiny houses on wheels for the reason you state, I actually have neighbors with really beautiful houses like this.

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

#143

Post by seanmcdirmid »

epistasis wrote: post #45
LurkingPenguin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody talks about the harder truth: even with its exclusionary housing policies, California is increasingly not capable of supporting the population it has. The 2021 fires and worsening drought conditions are just a taste of things to come.

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.

Land and water is mostly hoarded by farmers. The wealthy only hoard a bit of land in urban areas.

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

#144

Post by ransom1538 »

sombremesa wrote: post #50
ransom1538 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have described why the housing "crisis" will never be solved in CA. The homeowners will vote down every new apartment complex, every new developer plan, every rezone. It will never end, ever. Current home owners will never vote for less money, ever. The only way CA can fix this is by a state wide vote - demanding housing to be allowed. Home owners in CA love new Panera Breads and new Chipotles - tie any new comme…

I lazily Googled and disproved you in five seconds: > San Francisco and the East Bay should see 7,872 new apartments open in 2021, an increase of 36% from the previous year. It's the highest number of apartments — 13,497 units — added to the region in the last five years. Surprised?

lol. Hilarious. 7,872 new apartments open in 2021. That should cover the bay area housing crisis. I am sure we will see a sharp drop in prices next year - due to those nice apartments in Avalon at Mission Bay. lol. Was this a joke? The bay area has a population of 7.7 million. Ill let you get back to your lazy detective work. You are sarcastic right? Hahaha.

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

#145

Post by DoreenMichele »

betwixthewires wrote: post #142
DoreenMichele wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile homes, RVs and the Tiny House movement are basically hacks to get around a broken system. The first tiny house was put on wheels to get around the zoning codes rather than fight them (I'm old enough, I read some of the earliest coverage of it back when it was a new idea). Those things are proliferating mostly because we won't fix our broken system. Not mostly because people actually prefer that stuff. Dorms, d…

How are they hacks and not solutions? If smaller living spaces for smaller family units is a solution wouldn't they be solutions and not hacks? If people actually want smaller housing and choose these things, aren't they real solutions? Mobile homes date back to the same time as the modern suburb, were designed to target a similar demographic and are pretty ubiquitous across most of rural US, as are RVs in many place…

It's fine that they exist. The problem is we've zoned out of existence other options.

These don't make for car-free living in walkable neighborhoods. And they don't appreciate in value the way standard housing typically does.

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

#146

Post by holler »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #107
proc0 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, yeah the lack of walkable cities does make sense. Almost all cities require cars even with cheap housing, and large cities provide better job opportunities. I still feel we're not factoring in people's motivation for living on the streets, and authorities seem to provide incentives which encourage it. I'm sure there is a percentage of people that could find alternatives like living with a friend or relative, if t…

I was homeless for nearly six years. I hated it. It wasn't actually anything I wanted. Most people on the street don't want to be there. The research points to housing as the primary root cause.

Directly next to where I live there are multiple people living in the hillside.

Each day for the past year+ they park their BMW, Honda Accord, and Toyota Camry on our street, and then walk off into the park, hop a fence, and down to wherever it is their tents are.

It's really perplexing to see someone driving a ~2010 clean BMW while choosing to live in the hillside. My determination is that they're simply choosing that lifestyle for whatever reason.

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

#147

Post by fortran77 »

epistasis wrote: post #92
LurkingPenguin wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope springs eternal in California, but unfortunately water does not.

Lol, I love the slogan, and it may be true. But I will go down fighting this fight, and in my estimation it is getting easier to fight, even if it's not yet clear who will win. I would not blame anyone for leaving, given the current insanity of state and local politics, but I also welcome the growing crowd of politically active young people that have far more skin in the game than the aged "got mine, forget you crowd…

> than the aged

Why do we tolerate ageism on Hacker News?

@dang

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

#148

Post by CameronNemo »

mc32 wrote: post #60
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.

California was a semi desert before we built the canals and aqueducts -which is why it was a backwater with few people till that was done and its fertile soil was able to sustain life. People (city dwellers) came _after_ the farmers. So, it might be in need of an update, but I think you're mischaracterizing how this happened.

This really depends on where in California you are looking. SoCal? Sure, desert. But the San Joaquin valley was full of freshwater lakes and marshes before the invaders started using it for farming.

https://eccentricculinary.com/californias-vanishing-lakes-an...

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

#149

Post by glangdale »

issa wrote: post #112
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)…

You are assuming that having low income housing somehow impacts the price of higher end housing, and I am not sure that this is true. Would a person with a million dollar house be hurt if we built 100,000 more million dollar houses? Yes. Would that same homeowner be hurt if we built 100,000 cheap rental apartments? It certainly doesn't seem like it. However much property values fall due to less people looking for low…

This seems naive. I'm sure the people looking for SROs or other low income choices are not the people buying $1M houses, but they probably have a good deal of overlap with people who are buying houses that are at the lowest rung on the ladder, who themselves have overlap with the next cohort, etc.

It's a market. Changing it in a major way at the bottom will have knock-on effects through the whole market.

Of course, more directly, people with $1M houses might also be highly motivated to avoid "the wrong kind of person" being able to afford housing any where near them, their schools, etc.

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

#150

Post by colinmhayes »

lbarrow wrote: post #77
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?

Prop 13 takes away the normal downside to rising home prices.
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