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A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

economist.com

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Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#331

Post by swearwolf »

kentonv wrote: post #318
JeremyNT wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that's fine, because when you build more high-end housing, then people move up from slightly lesser housing, making that housing available for people to move up to from even lower-end housing, and so on. This eventually makes housing available at the low end of the market for people who couldn't previously afford housing at all -- or perhaps for the government to rent on behalf of homeless people at an acceptab…

If one older unit is being replaced by multiple newer units, that's still a net increase in housing which will cause other old units to become more affordable. Again, it's expected that new developments will always be high-end, but they make other existing housing cheaper in the process. > The roads in these older neighborhoods are ill prepared for increased density Infrastructure is a problem. Many American cities s…

There’s something that I think often gets overlooked about the replacement of old buildings with new ones, and I think it’s pretty important. The lowest tier of housing in a given city is generally accessible to poor people in ways that new construction, or even properly maintained older buildings never will be. Slumlords operate at this level, and while they suck for many other reasons, they are often willing to rent to anyone who can deliver the rent money approximately on time. No background checks, no credit checks, no income requirements, just cash on the barrelhead the first of the month. That’s a hugely valuable service to the poor; no matter how bad the housing might be it still beats living on the street.

There are a surprising number of homeless people who live off of their disability benefits. If they could find such an arrangement as described above, they wouldn’t be homeless anymore. But landlords have no incentive to take that risk with them, and they won’t pass any of the income screening processes that are baked in to the apartment rental process today. As the worst of our housing stock disappears, the fraction of the overall housing market that remains accessible to people like that becomes ever smaller.

Worse, it’s a ratcheting effect: it only works in one direction. Sure, as the new high end units go up, the previously acceptable ones look less desirable, but it takes a long time for a unit to reach the bottom rung. Plus, even if it’s now the least desirable building in town, if it belongs to a landlord unaccustomed that to renting to the poorest segment of society that can technically afford housing, it’s likely that landlord will not want to change their requirements and policies to begin renting to them. The landlord is likely to preferred to sell the property instead, which greatly increases the chances it will be redeveloped into luxury housing, and so on.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#332

Post by zarkov99 »

randomsearch wrote: post #315
zarkov99 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not poverty at all . The issue is addiction. This constant framing of the homeless as dispossessed victims, rather than substance abusers with agency, makes it impossible to solve the issue.

This attitude and it’s logical conclusions are why America has this problem. Compared to most European countries there’s an utter lack of compassion for people less fortunate. Yes, a small part of homelessness is caused by drug issues (far more drug problems are the consequences of homelessness) but you only have to look at the absence of a proper welfare state, health system, and other essential safety nets, to see…

I believe you are misinformed. There is plenty of compassion, specially in the cities discussed in the book, that is not the issue at all, nor is lack of spending at all. Please read the book, or listen to any of the podcasts the author recently did, the Joe Rogan one is good summary. Please, I do not mean to be condescending, just listen or read with an open mind. This is not about compassion vs accountability or left vs right, this is about solving a problem that is destroying American cities.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#333

Post by notfromhere »

snidane wrote: post #287
sien wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sleeping Rough and not affording homes are related. The Bay Area definitely needs to build more houses. However, in San Fransicko and in other places it is pointed out that New York City, that also has astronomical housing prices and also doesn't build enough, has a fraction of the people sleeping rough that SF does. NYC has lots of temporary shelter for people who are homeless. SF doesn't have enough. From https://m…

Needing to build more houses is a myth pushed forward by nimbys and developers. You can achieve the same and more by releasing unused housing back to market instead of sitting idle for speculative reasons. Increasing property taxes seems like a first viable solution, but it has drawbacks. It can apparently br avoided in some cases and they wouldn't affect owners of empty lots or derelict ruins that need the release b…

At some point you literally just need more houses. The Bay Area grew by a million people while still being pretty low density.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#334

Post by ppsreejith »

snidane wrote: post #287
sien wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sleeping Rough and not affording homes are related. The Bay Area definitely needs to build more houses. However, in San Fransicko and in other places it is pointed out that New York City, that also has astronomical housing prices and also doesn't build enough, has a fraction of the people sleeping rough that SF does. NYC has lots of temporary shelter for people who are homeless. SF doesn't have enough. From https://m…

Needing to build more houses is a myth pushed forward by nimbys and developers. You can achieve the same and more by releasing unused housing back to market instead of sitting idle for speculative reasons. Increasing property taxes seems like a first viable solution, but it has drawbacks. It can apparently br avoided in some cases and they wouldn't affect owners of empty lots or derelict ruins that need the release b…

Wouldn't the ultimate effect of land value taxes be to build more housing? (since that's how we can extract the most value out of land for a given tax)

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#335

Post by rsj_hn »

ppsreejith wrote: post #334
snidane wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Needing to build more houses is a myth pushed forward by nimbys and developers. You can achieve the same and more by releasing unused housing back to market instead of sitting idle for speculative reasons. Increasing property taxes seems like a first viable solution, but it has drawbacks. It can apparently br avoided in some cases and they wouldn't affect owners of empty lots or derelict ruins that need the release b…

Wouldn't the ultimate effect of land value taxes be to build more housing? (since that's how we can extract the most value out of land for a given tax)

Yes, but it's not clear how much. One of the biggest, most important insights you can have about economics - and even all social orgnization - is that while there is a subset of people who exploit economic opportunities and do things like maximize revenue, the vast majority do not.

Even though there isn't a lot of free money to be had, that's because a small subset are grabbing the free money, not because everyone is grabbing it. Most don't grab it. Most just don't think about stuff like that and make terrible financial choices. That includes your local restaurant as much as your neighbor.

Thus businesses are efficient to the degree that competition forces them to be efficient. No more. Now in some industries, a few businesses that are really well run are able to take so much marketshare that they became huge megafirms. That happens with tradeables, but much less with restaurants, and much much less with landlords. That is why franchise chains and big property management groups are so successful -- they are so much better run and more professional than the typical small time landlord or family owned restaurant.

Btw, this is really the fatal flaw of communism and other communitarian economic approaches. It's not that the economic calculation problem is too hard -- yes, it's hard but you can get a good enough solution with linear programming approaches. But rather, there was no capital market that would remove capital from inefficient firms and give capital to new rivals. Look at Tesla's market cap and compare to the market cap of GM. In a planned economy, there are no Teslas, there is no force pressuring firms to maximize outputs per quantity of input, or to create products that appeal to people. All of that comes from competition and market pressure. Thus a capitalist economy with all products sold by monopolies devolves into a planned economy. But each house is a little monopoly.

So in those areas that are unconstrained, landlords can be driven out of business to some extent. In constrained areas, they cannot. So many stories of cat ladies sitting on huge mansions, slowly letting the mansions rot. Most of the housing stock in SF has water damage due to landlords not doing basic maintenance to protect their investment. This is because there is no one to drive them out of business.

Now the idea of a property tax is that a high tax rate will force them to put the property into good use or at least sell it to someone else who will. But for that to happen at scale, the tax rates would need to be pretty high - higher than is politically feasible. High enough so that you feel like you are only renting the land from the government, rather than owning it, which really takes away autonomy from all but the very rich.

Thus it will have a positive effect for more efficient land use, but that effect is very small unless those taxes are really high.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#336

Post by pseudalopex »

dandotway wrote: post #211
pseudalopex wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worked with in what capacity?

Became friends with a number of homeless, bought them meals, gave them money, gave them clothing, heard their life stories in their own words, etc. There used to be a lot near where I used to live.

How did you meet? On the street? At a shelter? Most homeless people are homeless under a year in the US. Many have jobs. Many sleep on couches not streets. Or in cars not shelters. And they try to avoid the stigma of homelessness.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#337

Post by paisawalla »

mrobot wrote: post #214
paisawalla wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad for you and your brother. There are a lot of people who don't want help and won't take housing, or other assistance, if it's contingent on getting clean.

Because i know how addicts think, i know that will never work. I used to get all ragey about the way they think and they constantly trying to get stuff through social tricks from whoever is around (usually are very bad at it), but i've gotten over it. The contingency is not a good plan. They crave what they want and it is the most important thing in the world, it gets like hardwired into the brain, but they are still…

In China, they actively discourage (to put it mildly) drug abuse. They may be housing the addicted but they are certainly not permitting them to remain addicts. On the other hand, there is no agreement in US society that we should stop addicts from getting their fix -- if anything, the current progressive regime believes in housing addicts and facilitating continued access to drugs.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#338

Post by int_19h »

systemvoltage wrote: post #193
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll bite, but I think you ought to know that I cannot so far understand you’re reasoning. Who, then, is qualified to speak on these issues? Is only aggregate data through official channels, and not individual experience, relevant to the discussion?

It seems to me that homelessness is a desired state by the far-left progressives. I don't get the sense from talking to people here in Berkeley/Oakland that they want to eradicate homelessness. If you offer a few discussion points about possible solutions, you get sneered at and shot down. The arguments are weak and don't hold up, so they are varnished with emotional appeal (be kind to homeless) and other soft-tactic…

The far-left position on homelessness is simply "let's build enough houses by whatever means necessary" (depending on where one is on the authoritarian/libertarian scale, the list of acceptable means varies).

The difference is in the language. "Clean up our streets" puts the emphasis on the homeless as the problem for everybody else, as opposed to homelessness being a problem for the homeless.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#339

Post by oh_sigh »

skyyler wrote: post #207
oh_sigh wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeless people want to move somewhere warm and dry year-round. For homed people, that is less of an issue. And maybe I'm wrong, but I really doubt housing prices are the reason. You can have adequate shelter for very cheap with roommates, if you don't want to live downtown. That certainly beats the pants off sharing under a bridge with 10 strangers and their tents.

To be real with you, a housing situation where you’re 5+ people in a 4 bedroom house isn’t a solution. “Very cheap” is relative.

So fitting 5 people in a 4 bedroom is not a solution, but sleeping under a bridge is, which currently happens.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#340

Post by Tiktaalik »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #106
Tiktaalik wrote: post #16

> He blames San Francisco’s woes on a culture of permissive lawlessness and a mistaken view of what constitutes moral policymaking. A frequent critique of those that want to solve the homeless problem by sending in the police to crack heads and send everyone to prison. The main goal here of course being to ensure that the homeless "go away" somewhere out of view. In reality most of the "crimes" that people are wringi…

Why should so many people need public assistance at all? When most people can't afford to live somewhere...they move somewhere else.

There's countless reasons why someone may be unable to work and accordingly they'll need income assistance. Disability and Age are significant ones. Mental illness, drug addiction are others.

"Move somewhere else" assumes that there is actually somewhere more affordable to live, (and one has the funds to relocate) which is not necessarily obviously the case. Further flung places with arguably cheaper housing costs add increased living costs in lack of public transportation services and support services.

In the BC context, it doesn't matter how far one gets from Vancouver, there is really no where where $375 satisfies market rents.

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