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Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

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Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#91

Post by eqdw »

ktothemc wrote: post #85

I was the person who wrote that super-long take on the San Francisco housing crisis in spring on TechCrunch. http://www.techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ I'll just say this. It's four issues compounded. 1) Growth controls enacted in the 1960s and 1970s: Beginning in the late 1960s, the California Supreme Court started making a series of anti-development rulings: for example, one decision ruled that cities didn't…

> The city doesn't know how to police this. How would you build a law or tax around regulating this behavior? New York may attempt a pied-a-terre tax, but no one really knows how to deal with this issue of vacant housing units held as investments. Technologically, it's easy to track who is doing what where at all times. But legally, there are a lot of issues around privacy with policing this if foreign buyers are taking up 1/3 of the new housing stock as investments.

As someone who seems to know way more about this than I do: what about a land value tax? I've heard a few urbanists talk about a land value tax as an incentive not to withhold properties from the market. The reasoning is that with a property tax, if you leave property undeveloped, it will have a low property value and your tax rates will be low. But with a land value tax, the value (and consequently the tax rate) is a function of the value of that location, which in turn is a function of density, nearby amenities, demand, transit connectivity, etc. With a land value tax, someone keeping a property off the market in SF would be paying increasingly large amounts of tax on it, as the value of the land goes up along with the development nearby.

Do you have thoughts on this?

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#92

Post by ktothemc »

eqdw wrote: post #91
ktothemc wrote: post #85

I was the person who wrote that super-long take on the San Francisco housing crisis in spring on TechCrunch. http://www.techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ I'll just say this. It's four issues compounded. 1) Growth controls enacted in the 1960s and 1970s: Beginning in the late 1960s, the California Supreme Court started making a series of anti-development rulings: for example, one decision ruled that cities didn't…

> The city doesn't know how to police this. How would you build a law or tax around regulating this behavior? New York may attempt a pied-a-terre tax, but no one really knows how to deal with this issue of vacant housing units held as investments. Technologically, it's easy to track who is doing what where at all times. But legally, there are a lot of issues around privacy with policing this if foreign buyers are tak…

It would have to be a statewide ballot proposition, and you'd be up against the entire real estate industry, which has large parts of the California State Legislature in its hands. They would spend enormous amounts of money to mis-market it in poor political advertising.

Perversely, two-thirds of the financial benefits of Prop. 13 and its tax freeze went to commercial interests even though it was sold as a way to keep homeowners in their homes. One only-third of its foregone revenues benefit homeowners. A lot of California policymakers have wanted to change this for years, since it really screwed with public school and city finances for decades.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#93

Post by sp332 »

nthj wrote: post #63
sp332 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm a grown adult who is perfectly capable of maintaining a savings account and investing in a network of peers who I could ask for help with acquiring another job. Why should that be my employer's responsibility?

That is demonstrably insufficient. From the article: "I was a volunteer firefighter, I coached football and baseball, I was saving my money, doing everything you're supposed to do". This guy had tons of contacts and a savings account, and he ended up homeless.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#94

Post by anigbrowl »

bequanna wrote: post #31
[deleted] wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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 an…

Yes, they send their homeless people to SF instead. http://www.ksby.com/news/san-francisco-suing-nevada-for-alle...

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#95

Post by squidbot »

bequanna wrote: post #43
drivingmenuts wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why don't these people just move to more affordable places? It's not a viable solution to just "go somewhere more affordable" when you don't have the money to leave and there are no jobs where housing is more affordable. What you save in housing costs would be eaten up or exceeded by the cost of just getting to a job. If you're rich, moving is always an option. If you're not rich or have no financial cushion, you a…

>It's not a viable solution to just "go somewhere more affordable" when you don't have the money to leave and there are no jobs where housing is more affordable. What you save in housing costs would be eaten up or exceeded by the cost of just getting to a job. This just doesn't make any sense to me. So, you're homeless and jobless. You're saying I shouldn't somewhere else because 'it's too expensive to find a job'? T…

I think what the parent was saying was that you literally can't afford to go elsewhere to find a job. When you don't have money to pay your rent, you likely don't have the money to:

- Pay for airfare and a hotel to go out for a job interview (these types of jobs aren't flying you out and putting you in a hotel)

- Have living expenses to cover you for the time it takes to find a new job in the area (the types of jobs we're talking about here don't give you a relocation allowance)

- Rent a truck and gas to move a long distance (certainly not to pay a moving company)

- Pay first and last months rent and deposit

Moving is often "free" for the types of jobs the typical HN reader would have, the company trying to recruit you would pay all of the above. These aren't the types of jobs people discussed in the article have or can get. They are effectively stuck unless they take a huge, potentially even more devastating risk, or are fortunate enough to have some sort of a support network where they are hoping to move to, like family or good friends willing to let you couch surf for a while.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#96

Post by ReadyCollective »

clarkm wrote: post #14
DanBC wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a homeless person afford the travel to a "more affordable" place? (What does more affordable mean when they have no money?) Where do the nurses, teachers, security guards, waiters, shop assistants etc etc live?

Well, the first guy profiled could've used his "his savings and his investments" and his "daughter's college fund" to move instead of spending it all on rent. Downsizing is a pretty common occurrence in most parts of the country, but in SF there's really not much to downsize to.

If you're connected to the community you live in (coaching, etc), your child's doing well in a good school, it becomes easy to extend yourself "one more week" in order to maintain that, hoping things will change - and then past the "oh shit" moment you realize you're past the point of effectively affording to move and restart life. Plus, in 2009, i don't think there were places to move to to get an easy job. The guy did apply to 800 places...

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#98

Post by k-mcgrady »

eqdw wrote: post #87
k-mcgrady wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't live in the US so my view is purely that of an outsider reading about this on HN over the last few years. My problem is this: a lot of tech companies, based outside San Francisco go out of their way to make it easy for employees to live in SF and get to work outside of it. This is bad for the people who have lived there for a long time as they can't compete with the money the tech industry brings to the marke…

> My problem is this: a lot of tech companies, based outside San Francisco go out of their way to make it easy for employees to live in SF and get to work outside of it. This is not accurate, for two reasons. First off: Many of the peninsula cities (where these tech companies are located) make it even harder to build housing, especially for immigrants. Most of the housing in cities like PA and MV are single family ho…

>> "Painting Google busses as "going out of their way to make it easy for employees to live in SF" is (at least as of last month) not accurate"

Ok but as you allude to those buses have been going on much longer than the last month. Also - they aren't public transit. They're private transport. I don't know the specifics of that law but I don't think private transport provided by the company would count.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#99

Post by JoeAltmaier »

squidbot wrote: post #95
bequanna wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not a viable solution to just "go somewhere more affordable" when you don't have the money to leave and there are no jobs where housing is more affordable. What you save in housing costs would be eaten up or exceeded by the cost of just getting to a job. This just doesn't make any sense to me. So, you're homeless and jobless. You're saying I shouldn't somewhere else because 'it's too expensive to find a job'? T…

I think what the parent was saying was that you literally can't afford to go elsewhere to find a job. When you don't have money to pay your rent, you likely don't have the money to: - Pay for airfare and a hotel to go out for a job interview (these types of jobs aren't flying you out and putting you in a hotel) - Have living expenses to cover you for the time it takes to find a new job in the area (the types of jobs…

Thousands of years ago a Chinese gentleman wrote "The wise man must be prepared to abandon his luggage". Still true. Most of the behaviors discussed are 'conservative' meaning they try to keep what little you have and risk nothing. Its often an alternative to just 'get up and go', risking all. You can eat at the Salvation Army, stay with a friend or sleep in the park in a tent. I've known now-successful Engineers that moved to Silicon Valley with their wife and 6mo old child, slept in the national park in a tent while interviewing.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#100

Post by Kalium »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #98
eqdw wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My problem is this: a lot of tech companies, based outside San Francisco go out of their way to make it easy for employees to live in SF and get to work outside of it. This is not accurate, for two reasons. First off: Many of the peninsula cities (where these tech companies are located) make it even harder to build housing, especially for immigrants. Most of the housing in cities like PA and MV are single family ho…

>> "Painting Google busses as "going out of their way to make it easy for employees to live in SF" is (at least as of last month) not accurate" Ok but as you allude to those buses have been going on much longer than the last month. Also - they aren't public transit. They're private transport. I don't know the specifics of that law but I don't think private transport provided by the company would count.

It does. https://commuterbenefits.511.org/#options

> Option 3 — Employer-provided free or low cost bus, shuttle or vanpool service operated by or for the employer.

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