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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

#71

Post by fnimick »

dionidium wrote: post #63
jeffbee wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not wrong, though. This is just a rephrasing of the same problem. Imagine two people, one with a family that will take them in in an emergency and another with nobody. They both become heroin addicts. The addiction results in a job loss and a few arrests. Soon they've sold all their possessions, their health is declining, and they're behind on rent. Person A puts their tail between their legs and goes and sleeps…

And what happens when your hypothetical "emergency" isn't due to a personal failing?

There are people homeless in the US right now because of medical debt due to illness, is that their fault too?

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

#72

Post by SoftTalker »

twblalock wrote: post #26
deathanatos wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's "covering risk", and there's tenant lock-in. I have no problem with requiring a tenant to rent for a year, to prevent quick turnover and the risk and costs associated with that. But multiple landlords now have all had the same policy: the lease will never go month-to-month, basically. You can , but e.g., for my current lease, it costs ~60% more to go month to month. This creates bizarre pay-off points, and gr…

I was renting until just a few years ago and I never had a lease longer than 12 months, and it was actually difficult to find one longer than that. I'm not sure where you live, but in a lot of places, a landlord refusing to allow a lease to go month-to-month is illegal.

Yes it probably varies by location. And if housing supply were more plentiful then landlords could compete on more flexible lease terms as well as actual monthly rent. When housing is scarce they can demand whatever price and terms they want.

When I've lived in areas where housing was not scarce, it was reasonably easy to find apartments that would do month-to-month leases right from the start.

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

#73

Post by dnissley »

t-writescode wrote: post #66
JamesBarney wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging from what I've seen of SF politics its much more homeowners, who have far more power, than landlords.

A landlord is, by definition, a homeowner.

In this case the commenter is specifically referring to the class of people who own a home they live in.

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

#74

Post by ROTMetro »

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…

Ah yes, government housing blocks. What worked so well in the past, why did it ever go out of style, I forget?

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

#75

Post by SoftTalker »

jankyxenon wrote: post #23
jrockway wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see where you're coming from, but if you go to the extreme and anyone could have a private room for $1 a month, would anyone be living on the streets?

Absolutely yes they would. I know someone in my extended family on the streets - his problem is addiction. Lot's of people are willing to offer a roof. I know that's anecdata - but you asked about the extreme case.

Yes. Some people just want zero responsibilities and living on the street gives them that. Living in housing always has conditions.

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

#76

Post by SoftTalker »

fnimick wrote: post #71
dionidium wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not wrong, though. This is just a rephrasing of the same problem. Imagine two people, one with a family that will take them in in an emergency and another with nobody. They both become heroin addicts. The addiction results in a job loss and a few arrests. Soon they've sold all their possessions, their health is declining, and they're behind on rent. Person A puts their tail between their legs and goes and sleeps…

And what happens when your hypothetical "emergency" isn't due to a personal failing? There are people homeless in the US right now because of medical debt due to illness, is that their fault too?

Medical debt can be discharged in bankruptcy, there's no reason anyone should become homeless over it.

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

#77

Post by wffurr »

SoftTalker wrote: post #62
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…

Sounds like you're proposing government run high-rise housing projects. Can you name any that are not dangerous, crime-ridden hellholes?

Venice

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

#78

Post by hyuuu »

t-writescode wrote: post #66
JamesBarney wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging from what I've seen of SF politics its much more homeowners, who have far more power, than landlords.

A landlord is, by definition, a homeowner.

i think they are completely separate?

landlord: may or may not own a home, but have a property to rent out, may it be a residential or commercial like a warehouse. They may not even own the home they live in, which is surprisingly very typical to cut cost and deploy money in other ways.

homeowner: own the property they reside in.

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

#79

Post by ROTMetro »

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…

No, just average people, who built the community over time into something desirable, that were promised with zoning laws that it would be the type of community (single family homes, etc) that they wanted, and that then dedicated the majority of their lifetime earning power to purchase a home there.

There are how many acres of land in this country? Why do you have a right to overrule the will of people in one comparatively small community to force that community to be something else, in the name of affordable housing, when there is so much land available elsewhere? You want it, build it, commit your life to it, like they did in paying so much of their lifetime income into their family home. If we were a tiny island country you might have an argument, but there is soooo much land in this country, arbitrarily picking one small area because that is where you want to be is not a right.

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

#80

Post by danjac »

dionidium wrote: post #37
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…

Yeah, the thing I always say about the people who complain about tech workers and gentrification in a place like San Francisco is like, look, if you can't figure out how to gain from an influx of wealthy, highly-educated, low-criminality, nerdy tech workers, then that's really on you. What a gift! Any city would be lucky to have that "problem." You have to actively work to make that a negative (by, say, refusing to a…

Maybe San Francisco is just not suitable any more? There's nothing magic about SF's geography that makes it a tech hub. It's not a mining town that needs to be next to coal or minerals, or a ski resort town that needs some mountains and snow. It's based on work that can literally be done anywhere.

Hollywood, after all, was just a dusty desert town that became the hub of the movie business because it was easier to move there and start a new one than dealing with Edison's lawyers back East, so maybe the tech industry needs to get out of SF, start a new hub somewhere else, and leave the city to the NIMBYs.

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