Inside San Francisco's housing crisis • Hacker News Board

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#31

Post by bequanna » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 9:05 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #13

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #3

Why don't these people just move to more affordable places?

[deleted]

Having lived in other large US cities, I am always astounded by the number, brazenness, and aggressiveness of SF's homeless population.

From my (anecdotal) observations, poor police enforcement appears to be a motivator for homeless people to gather and remain in SF. Walk a couple laps around City Hall and count the number of misdemeanors you can spot in the open and homeless 'tents'. Most other cities don't allow anything of the sort.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#32

Post by DanBC » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 9:05 PM UTC

delluminatus wrote: post #2

Loading extremely slowly for me. Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6m1opf... After reading the article, this quote really jumped out at me: "I was going along, being a good citizen," Todd, now 52 years old, says. "I was a volunteer firefighter, I coached football and baseball, I was saving my money, doing everything you're supposed to do, being a single father, raising my daughter by…

There is a huge amount of stigma around homelessness and poverty. "Those people are irresponsible and they deserve everything that happens". His story just reminds us that what happened to him can happen to most people.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#33

Post by sp332 » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 9:05 PM UTC

beering wrote: post #18

delluminatus wrote: post #2

Loading extremely slowly for me. Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6m1opf... After reading the article, this quote really jumped out at me: "I was going along, being a good citizen," Todd, now 52 years old, says. "I was a volunteer firefighter, I coached football and baseball, I was saving my money, doing everything you're supposed to do, being a single father, raising my daughter by…

These people still remember when you could graduate high school, go to work for GM for a few decades, and have the company pension to depend on in retirement. A suburban house with a white picket fence is somewhere in there too. Nowadays we're much more used to the at-will relationship. The employment only lasts until either the employee or the employer decides that things would be better off if the relationship ende…

What am I supposed to do, live in fear every day of my life that my job might disappear tomorrow?

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#34

Post by pcwalton » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 9:05 PM UTC

smutticus wrote: post #10

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #3

Why don't these people just move to more affordable places?

Why don't people in the bay area allow cheap housing to be built in their community? Why can't we have giant apartment complexes in the bay area?

Any or all of (a) because it keeps housing prices high, working to the advantage of those who own property; (b) because low density is easy to tie into environmental/quality of life concerns; (c) because the culture is deeply distrustful of market-based solutions, such as market-rate housing.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#35

Post by astrocat » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 9:06 PM UTC

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #3

Why don't these people just move to more affordable places?

Many may interpret this as victim blaming but I think it's a valid question: why have we as a country/culture become so much more resistant to moving? I know I've read more comprehensive literature on this before a but a quick google brought up these starting points:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/11/declining_ame...

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/generati...

I understand that we develop local support networks of friends and family and it's easy to understand why moving comes with the fear of having to start in a new place with no such network. But it seems that this fear has become limiting - that we are now refusing to relocate to places where greater opportunity exists because we can't stand the thought of leaving our current network behind. We're stuck, effectively. And it exacerbates the conditions in places like SF.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#36

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 9:06 PM UTC

delluminatus wrote: post #2

Loading extremely slowly for me. Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6m1opf... After reading the article, this quote really jumped out at me: "I was going along, being a good citizen," Todd, now 52 years old, says. "I was a volunteer firefighter, I coached football and baseball, I was saving my money, doing everything you're supposed to do, being a single father, raising my daughter by…

>I don't think you would ever hear those words coming from a millennial. Maybe we've just learned from the mistakes of people like this guy.

Or maybe the world used to be different, and the millennials are being released into a world of unemployment and a largely dismantled safety net. The generation gap has narrowed for them, largely because they're still living with their parents after college.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#37

Post by Oculus » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 9:07 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #25

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #3

Why don't these people just move to more affordable places?

Because cost are going up across the board throughout the Bay Area, and the transportation infrastructure - both automotive and otherwise - hasn't kept up. Moving further means increased commuting cost. For drivers this comes in the form of massively increased fuel costs. For transit users this comes in the form of increased fares, since BART practices distance-based pricing. Commuting daily from Fremont to SF costs…

I don't think they mean move to a place more affordable out side of SF, but move away from SF to another part of the country.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#38

Post by potatolicious » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 9:07 PM UTC

kiba wrote: post #15

So, we got political deadlock in a way that constrains new housing addition. Why is the law not being changed?

Because the people with political clout are the ones that benefit from the housing shortage.

You could be an owner, in which case the skyrocketing value of your property is something you'd like to defend.

Or you could be a high-income renter, in which case you're willing and able to pay the sums necessary to live in a neighborhood of quaint, charming 3-story buildings, damn the consequences to people around you. This would be the "neighborhood character" argument.

Both demographics have a lot more sway at City Hall than the working poor.

What I find sad are the number of working poor who are fighting for neighborhood "preservation", since said preservation serves nothing except helping the rich live in a theme park of a 1930s emulation, a theme park that explicitly excludes themselves.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#39

Post by warfangle » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 9:08 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #33

beering wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These people still remember when you could graduate high school, go to work for GM for a few decades, and have the company pension to depend on in retirement. A suburban house with a white picket fence is somewhere in there too. Nowadays we're much more used to the at-will relationship. The employment only lasts until either the employee or the employer decides that things would be better off if the relationship ende…

What am I supposed to do, live in fear every day of my life that my job might disappear tomorrow?

No, but it might be a good idea to be prepared for that eventuality. Being prepared means also you won't have to be afraid ;)

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#40

Post by jseliger » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 9:09 PM UTC

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #3

Why don't these people just move to more affordable places?

Why don't these people just move to more affordable places?

In many cases, they are: most often to Sunbelt cities like Dallas, Houston, and Phoenix, which are the fastest growing in percentage terms in the nation (See Matt Yglesias at http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/06/14/in_the_future... or http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/23/fastest_growi...).

Yglesias also details some of this in The Rent Is Too Damn High (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&l... -- a must read on these issues, and I usually post a link when discussions like this one arise).

Anyway, lots of cities have dysfunctional political and legal systems that prevent the supply of housing from growing. San Francisco's problems are particularly acute: http://www.citylab.com/housing/2013/10/san-francisco-exodus/... and are exacerbated by rent control, which discourages owners from even utilizing existing space.