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Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

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Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#41

Post by t-writescode »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #34
jeffbee wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is run by and for the benefit of the established land owners and they don't want housing, they want excess returns. Simple.

> government is run by and for the benefit of the established land owners Do San Francisco’s renters fail to turn out to vote? (Serious question.)

Alternative question:

* do San Francisco renters turn out to Town Hall meetings, local elections, pester their representatives and put in as much #not-bribery as landowners?

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#42

Post by HWR_14 »

jankyxenon wrote: post #15

Is street homelessness really driven by people who couldn't pay their rent? You would think they'd stay away from drug-addled violent tent cities - and sleep in a car or at a friend's house. Too many ideas seem to be conflated with the umbrella term "homeless"

Street homelessness is more visible, but it is smaller in scale than those who are living in their car/on a friend's couch.

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#43

Post by dionidium »

jankyxenon wrote: post #15

Is street homelessness really driven by people who couldn't pay their rent? You would think they'd stay away from drug-addled violent tent cities - and sleep in a car or at a friend's house. Too many ideas seem to be conflated with the umbrella term "homeless"

It's obviously both. If you're a heroin addict in West Virginia you just rent a trailer with a revolving list of fellow addicts for like $400 month and you beg or steal enough to get by. Plus, you're in a part of town where nobody is really going to notice you.

That doesn't work in San Francisco.

So did the heroin make you homeless or the high prices? It's kind of a silly question. It's both, in some sense.

That's why we see a direct correlation between the cost of rent and homelessness.

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#45

Post by jeffbee »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #34
jeffbee wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is run by and for the benefit of the established land owners and they don't want housing, they want excess returns. Simple.

> government is run by and for the benefit of the established land owners Do San Francisco’s renters fail to turn out to vote? (Serious question.)

Yes, they very much do. The voter turnout gap by housing tenure is about 20 percentage points (e.g. 70% turnout for owners and 50% for renters). Also the voter registration gap is massive because many renters are not eligible to vote or face hurdles registering due to lack of permanent address. Finally, the people who would benefit from new housing construction in a place like San Francisco are often registered to vote in some other jurisdiction. The people who already live in S.F. have no particular compelling interest in a new apartment tower, but the prospective tenants of those apartments who would vote for them aren't all voters in that city.

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#46

Post by JumpCrisscross »

akavi wrote: post #39
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> government is run by and for the benefit of the established land owners Do San Francisco’s renters fail to turn out to vote? (Serious question.)

I don't know about SF in particular, but nationwide, yes, renters turn out to vote at a far lower rate than homeowners[0] (67% vs 49%) [0] https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/renter-voting-prefere...

> nationwide, yes, renters turn out to vote at a far lower rate than homeowners

Wider than I expected. Thank you.

Asking because in New York, renters turn out, and that drives policy outcomes. (They’re also less likely to think supply and demand is a myth.)

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#47

Post by itake »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #14
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason I doubt that developers will be looking to convert that office space into affordable housing.

Why? They don’t like money?

My understanding is commercial real estate operates a bit differently than residential. The value of the property is based on a multitude of factors and the people that invest in commercial are not making an investment in residential.

For example, the value of the property is based on the last or current rent they have received. It is better for the property owner to not have a tenant, than it is to accept a lower lease because it impacts their financing agreements and property valuations.

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#48

Post by anm89 »

jeffbee wrote: post #29
exabrial wrote: post #22

No it is not. Raising rent is a correlated effect, not a causation. All cases of homelessness are highly individualized. They usually follow a pattern such as this: 1. The setup: Some sort of condition or pattern of life choices that isn't intrinsically harmful, but combined with other things, will become overwhelming once the bottom drops out. The lack of community and isolation from a support network are key indica…

This theory is wrong and it is easy to see why. Rates of homelessness are not correlated with "life choices" or "events" at all. Mental illness rates don't vary much geographically and they don't correlate with homelessness. Same with drug abuse and disease. However housing costs are very strongly correlated with homelessness. Great book on the subject: https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/ Edit: prospective reply…

> Rates of homelessness are not correlated with "life choices"

What could this possibly even mean? Someone roles a dice and then somebody materializes on the side of the road with a tent and a shopping cart and a fentanyl addiction?

This person just existed in a choiceless state up until the exact moment where the gained agency and simultaneously became homeless?

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#49

Post by orangecat »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #25
jlmorton wrote: post #17

Imagine you're a municipality like San Francisco. You control all of the zoning regulations, and many of the permitting requirements. You have a AA+ credit rating, and even in today's higher rate environment, you can borrow billions of dollars at 6%. You already own oodles of land. You can build to whatever height you want within reason, because you control the zoning, and you even control many of the ordinances that…

> How is this not the easiest decision in the world? Unfortunately wealthy established homeowners don't want more people to near to them so they vote against any and all change. Welp! This is why higher orders of government need to step in to "force" municipalities to enact some of these sorts of policy changes you describe. This gives the local municipalities cover to enact the good policies that the selfish rich wo…

Unfortunately wealthy established homeowners don't want more people to near to them so they vote against any and all change.

Yes, combined with useful idiot "anti-gentrification" activists who have convinced themselves that the concept of supply and demand is a capitalist myth.

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#50

Post by jeffbee »

joh6nn wrote: post #44

If rents rise to a level that you can't find a home, aren't you by definition impoverished? Is there some aspect of this distinction that I'm not grasping?

But the other thing is not necessarily true. Lots of places have high poverty and little homelessness.
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