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Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

sfchronicle.com

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Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#181

Post by nielsbot »

encoderer wrote: post #85
shuckles wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it nonsense for the state to fund shelter programs by buying out non-viable businesses (empty motels at the height of the pandemic), bailing out both business owners and building shelter capacity at much lower cost than building it new?

Suppose you buy every hotel in the sfba and move in every homeless person, totally clearing the streets. What happens next? Just no more homeless? No, more homeless will appear. They will fill the same corners and tents that you just cleared the month before. This is not a solution. This is a grift.

Please read this article, I think it might change your perspective a bit: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/01/homeles...

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#182

Post by ryan_lane »

celestialcheese wrote: post #139
Larrikin wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think people with housing would become homeless in hopes of getting a new place?

No, but people are mobile, and the houseless are also people who communicate through the internet and share where assistance is available. If free, safe lodging is available without restrictions, demand will quickly outstrip supply with folks moving from other cities (LA, Seattle, Portland, etc) to fill the available rooms. It's a $50 bus ticket, city officials will likely fund these tickets for them to get to SF to…

Which means every city should do this to reduce their homeless population. The "don't do it because homeless people will move from elsewhere to get this benefit" is a race to the bottom.

Housing homeless people reduces overall homelessness. If we do it enough, everyone will be housed. Part of this is lowering housing prices, another part of this is housing people who can't house themselves (for various reasons).

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#183

Post by ryan_lane »

encoderer wrote: post #119
sterlind wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only to solve homelessness in a city, definitionally, are getting the homeless to move out, or getting them housing. Given the insane real estate prices in the area, $550K seems accurate to buy them housing. Unless you plan to round them up and ship them to camps, or find a way to get them jobs that pay well enough to lease a $550K unit, you're sort of out of options.

Homeless shelters? Seems to be a heck of a lot cheaper and more scalable than putting people up in 300-500k condos?

Shelters are a temporary means of keeping people alive. They are not long-term housing and don't solve the problem. Also, they aren't cheap and they aren't scalable.

We need and want shelters to exist, but only as a means of temporary housing.

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#184

Post by davidw »

nielsbot wrote: post #181
encoderer wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you buy every hotel in the sfba and move in every homeless person, totally clearing the streets. What happens next? Just no more homeless? No, more homeless will appear. They will fill the same corners and tents that you just cleared the month before. This is not a solution. This is a grift.

Please read this article, I think it might change your perspective a bit: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/01/homeles...

That's the same article I posted, above!

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#185

Post by rsync »

danaris wrote: post #171
rsync wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Residential-only zoning is "the bad kind of zoning"." I wish I could mind-meld with you and transmit the memories and experiences of growing up in a residential area with no zoning. You know that sci-fi trope where the empath gets the memory dump and breaks away screaming and crying because they can't handle the trauma that comes through ? It would be like that. You think you'll get cute shops and pop-ups and deligh…

> What you will actually get is half-built cars. Everywhere. You will get mobile homes and immobile RVs. You will get horses. Not rich-people horses, but "Grandma died and she had a horse and nobody knew what to do with it so we fenced part of the front yard" horses. Someone will disconnect from city sewer because they "know how to build septic". Someone will get llamas. a) It sounds like what you're saying is "you'l…

All I am trying to share is that when rules are absent, behavior gets worse than you expect, in ways that beggar belief.

That is not limited to “poor people” (your words).

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#186

Post by pengaru »

astrange wrote: post #58
occz wrote: post #3

Zoning laws broadly are probably still in effect, right? I doubt you could build something industrial in residential zones. It's just the bad parts of zoning that are disabled, if I understood the article correctly. Excellent development in any case. Hope a lot of good dense housing gets built.

Residential-only zoning is "the bad kind of zoning". It wasn't invented to keep factories away from homes; it was /literally/ invented in Berkeley to stop Chinese immigrants from being able to afford homes by running laundry businesses out of them.

Not saying zoning isn't abused, but this is the kind of outcome you get without zoning laws too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdDuHxwD5R4

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#187

Post by samstave »

astrange wrote: post #60
samstave wrote: post #46

This is just a play from high-powered NIMBY SF players to placate the devs, landlords, scumlords and hedgies (like blackRock) Nothing more. REPLY TO BELOW: - If they are not hedge funds, then what are they, BE SPECIFIC.

A mildly funny thing about vacant housing/everything is corporations conspiracists is they can't tell the difference between BlackRock and Blackstone. Though neither one is a hedge fund.

Serious : Would like to learn more about distiction, business model etc between them....

Care to point me somewhere?

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#188

Post by encoderer »

ryan_lane wrote: post #182
celestialcheese wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but people are mobile, and the houseless are also people who communicate through the internet and share where assistance is available. If free, safe lodging is available without restrictions, demand will quickly outstrip supply with folks moving from other cities (LA, Seattle, Portland, etc) to fill the available rooms. It's a $50 bus ticket, city officials will likely fund these tickets for them to get to SF to…

Which means every city should do this to reduce their homeless population. The "don't do it because homeless people will move from elsewhere to get this benefit" is a race to the bottom. Housing homeless people reduces overall homelessness. If we do it enough, everyone will be housed. Part of this is lowering housing prices, another part of this is housing people who can't house themselves (for various reasons).

Giving away $300-500k condos is the race to the bottom.

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#189

Post by encoderer »

ryan_lane wrote: post #183
encoderer wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeless shelters? Seems to be a heck of a lot cheaper and more scalable than putting people up in 300-500k condos?

Shelters are a temporary means of keeping people alive. They are not long-term housing and don't solve the problem. Also, they aren't cheap and they aren't scalable. We need and want shelters to exist, but only as a means of temporary housing.

Yes they should have cheaper housing for everybody. Not expensive housing for homeless.

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#190

Post by astrange »

samstave wrote: post #187
astrange wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mildly funny thing about vacant housing/everything is corporations conspiracists is they can't tell the difference between BlackRock and Blackstone. Though neither one is a hedge fund.

Serious : Would like to learn more about distiction, business model etc between them.... Care to point me somewhere?

They are completely unrelated companies with similar names. There is nothing to compare.

Blackstone is buying houses (though it's more an effect of the housing crisis than the cause of it); BlackRock runs ETFs you can buy in your retirement fund and is known for asking corporations to care about climate change.

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