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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

#101

Post by autokad »

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)…

I don't think housing prices are an issue. one part of the homeless are mentally ill. This is a very hard problem and I don't think anyone has the answers for yet, but its not home prices.

Another major group of the homeless is drug addicts. Again, home prices isn't going to change that.

I think its very rare someone goes homeless because their rent went up. if they can't afford it, they usually move.

I'll get down-voted before this but that's how I feel, and I think this 'more affordable homes will solve homelessness' is a waste of time.

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

#102

Post by LurkingPenguin »

webmaven wrote: post #91
LurkingPenguin wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting that you apparently have the belief that such encampments should or need to exist.

All right, what do you think the people populating such camps should do? Where do you think they should go?

Who are these people? Why are they homeless? Where are their families? Do they want to not be homeless? What is preventing them from not being homeless?

Before you try to answer the question of what they should do and where should they go, I think you realistically need to answer these questions.

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

#103

Post by tayo42 »

maxlybbert wrote: post #73
rigata wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s been a known problem for a while now. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/21/nevada... South Park made an episode about it with the song “California loves the homeless”. https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/California_Loves_the_Homel... California largely has weather that you can survive outdoor in year round and social programs that provide for and policies that show empathy for homelessness.

I believed this when I lived in California. Now I’m not so sure: it is true that people without shelter can easily die in much of the country, but California isn’t the only place with mild winters. Why don’t Arizona, New Mexico, large parts of Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, etc. have the same problem? Assuming that California will just naturally have a larger homeless population than everywhere else means that nob…

I think its the second part of the last sentence you missed. California has empathetic social services. But also 4 of those states have harsh summers. Some just have small populations in general. The biggest city in alabama has only 200k people. California has multiple major city areas

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

#104

Post by proc0 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #71
proc0 wrote: post #66

How can it be housing when there are so many vacancies? I honestly don't understand this. Obviously they can't afford it, but that's how markets work. When there is high demand, prices go up. It seems to me the solution is just for people to go elsewhere... again, the housing is there, plenty of rentals everywhere, except too expensive for someone who is living on the streets to, all of a sudden, start paying for, ye…

Author here. The short version: We used to build small homes in walkable neighborhoods where you could live without a car and have reasonable rent. That's mostly gone. You not only need to cover the cost of a large home, cars are mostly not optional for most Americans. This is a huge additional expense. The combination is killer.

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 they really had to, but CA feels forcing people is somehow not being empathetic or something, when really you are enabling them and perhaps setting them up for a lifetime of being on the streets.

I think we should factor in incentives, and also the diverse reasons and motives each person has, as oppose to blaming it all on lack of housing.

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

#105

Post by betwixthewires »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #89
betwixthewires wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what do you think is the root problem? A national housing shortage? What do you think drives that shortage if so? What do you think are good solutions? I understand it takes more than a blog post but every big problem takes more than a blog post, we can still have a conversation about it here. Could you shed a little light on the issue for us?

We need to bring back smaller homes in walkable neighborhoods. We aren't providing the right kinds of housing. Our American ideal is a home designed for a nuclear family with a breadwinner father, homemaker mother and 2.5 kids because that's who had the money to finance the birth of the modern suburb. That was never the majority of our demographics but we've further diversified away from that in the decades since. Me…

I personally live in a very very small home and live minimally and it cost me almost nothing. I'm sure I lucked out compared to the average person.

So what is the reason that these smaller homes aren't more common? I would think that if there were a market for these homes someone would cash in on it, so is it zoning? Is it people's aversion to building their own homes themselves and the service-ification of everything? How do we reverse course and what are the pressures preventing that, in your view?

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

#106

Post by LurkingPenguin »

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…

Political organizations, on both/all sides, are in my opinion a big part of the problem in California. Everything in California is turned into a political issue when it doesn't need to be.

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

#107

Post by DoreenMichele »

proc0 wrote: post #104
DoreenMichele wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. The short version: We used to build small homes in walkable neighborhoods where you could live without a car and have reasonable rent. That's mostly gone. You not only need to cover the cost of a large home, cars are mostly not optional for most Americans. This is a huge additional expense. The combination is killer.

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.

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

#108

Post by bb88 »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #97
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)…

what good is your house doubling in value if all the other houses have also doubled in value?

If your house you purchased for $200,000 20 years ago is now worth $1.4M, say, that's $1.2M in profit.

You could live in a smaller house worth $1M and still get $400k of profit you didn't have before.

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

#109

Post by toomuchtodo »

autokad wrote: post #101
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)…

I don't think housing prices are an issue. one part of the homeless are mentally ill. This is a very hard problem and I don't think anyone has the answers for yet, but its not home prices. Another major group of the homeless is drug addicts. Again, home prices isn't going to change that. I think its very rare someone goes homeless because their rent went up. if they can't afford it, they usually move. I'll get down-v…

The answer to mental illness is quality mental healthcare available to those in need, along with housing first policies to create stability for those seeking care. This has costs of course.

California is the fifth largest economy in the world (Between Germany and the United Kingdom) and yet can’t prioritize this spending (and the spending that is taking place is not very effective or efficient).

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

#110

Post by DoreenMichele »

betwixthewires wrote: post #105
DoreenMichele wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to bring back smaller homes in walkable neighborhoods. We aren't providing the right kinds of housing. Our American ideal is a home designed for a nuclear family with a breadwinner father, homemaker mother and 2.5 kids because that's who had the money to finance the birth of the modern suburb. That was never the majority of our demographics but we've further diversified away from that in the decades since. Me…

I personally live in a very very small home and live minimally and it cost me almost nothing. I'm sure I lucked out compared to the average person. So what is the reason that these smaller homes aren't more common? I would think that if there were a market for these homes someone would cash in on it, so is it zoning? Is it people's aversion to building their own homes themselves and the service-ification of everythin…

We need to remove administrative barriers, like zoning barriers. And we need financing mechanisms.

The easiest thing to finance in the US is single family detached homes. Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of them.

It's quite hard to finance some types of housing popular in other countries, like cohousing.

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