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I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

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Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#371

Post by sillyfluke »

diet_jerome wrote: post #167

I'd like to advertise deregulating housing construction as a very clear way to help solve desperate housing problems in many countries (such as in the USA). You can check out more about it here https://www.econlib.org/build-baby-build-now-under-construct...

When you have moderate Democrats (who say they want to solve the housing crisis for the poor and lower middle class) and fiscal conservative Republicans both championing "deregulation" and "abundance"(?) in the abstract while being cheerled by the same group of billionaires and private equity firms, you know one of them is the sucker.

hint: its not the fiscal conservatives, billionaires or private equity firms.

Those guys will say, "Hey, thanks for getting these poor folk to vote against their interest. We'll take it from here and proceed to build the luxury buildings that were too annoying to build before instead of those unseemly affordable housing projects."

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#372

Post by tuna74 »

titanomachy wrote: post #353
fragmede wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the extreme end, with absolutely zero zoning restrictions, you could build capsule hotels for people to live in, driving the price for a tiny tiny room to, say $300/month. With a minimum wage of $15, you'd need to only work 20 hours a month to afford that. Double it to account for taxes. Figure they have EBT for food. Assume they're able to use a platform like Reflex to pick up retail shifts (like driving for Uber…

In practice, these hotels become full of mentally ill, drug-dependent, and sometimes violent people, to the point where most people actually do feel safer in a tent. You can police things, but it’s not an easy problem. Where do you draw the line? Zero tolerance? As soon as someone has an angry outburst, or is caught with drugs, they’re back on the streets? Then you get back where you started pretty quickly.

College dorms seem to be able to solve this problem, so it should be doable for adults as well.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#373

Post by scoofy »

johnea wrote: post #361

City of San Diego added over 9000 units last year, homelessness increased 8-/ When a shiny new 2 bedroom apartment is priced at $4200/month, it isn't going to do ANYTHING to resolve homelessness. Outlaw AirBnB! Outlaw empty "investment" properties. There are a lot of things that could actually help. Empowering the California real estate mafia won't do anything for anyone here except the developers.

I mean vacancy taxes will help, but the only reason why “investment properties” even exist is because of the intentional, artificial housing shortage.

Houses are deteriorating assets that only gain their wealth because of the land value appreciation. If you can just build new housing, there is no reason to hoard the existing housing, because your neighbors might try and capture that value before you can.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#374

Post by grugagag »

Tangurena2 wrote: post #321
grugagag wrote: post #229

There’s a disturbing trend of people living im their car who have a job or more and who aren’t doing drugs or have a serious mental ilness aside from the anxiety from the lifestyle of living in their cars. Youtube is full of interviews of these people.

Last year, in my state, the legislature outlawed being homeless by defining it as the crime of "unlawful camping" [0]. It allows for sleeping in your car if and only if the registration and insurance are current AND you move the car every 12 hours. You can also use violence to defend your property against "unlawful campers" and/or squatters and/or people whose lease/rental period has expired. 0 - https://apps.legisla…

I wonder if that unlawful camping legislature can be fought back as it can’t be considered camping if you have no other residence. And camping is by definition outside urban areas… I understand not wanting junkies around but criminalising some poor folks who fell on hard life is just senseless.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#375

Post by kbelder »

camgunz wrote: post #231
edude03 wrote: post #137

I think anyone who has actually been hands on trying to improve the lives of the unhomed know that 1) it’s a gradient between “I get kicked out of x everyday and go back at night” and “I’m sleeping under a bridge” and 2) rarely is it the actual cost of the home that’s the problem. Often it’s mental health / substance abuse / lack of a support system. Heck I think there is enough movies/shows about how people fall thr…

I'm not sure what your experience is. To your 2nd point, I googled "homelessness studies" and here's some stuff I found: The bulk of homelessness is a housing problem [0]. Per-capita rates are the highest in the most expensive places to live. This isn't because homeless people migrate to the places w/ the best homelessness programs either: they're largely long-term residents of their cities [1]. Homelessness is incre…

>Since 2001 incomes have increased 4%, while rents have increased 19%.

Horrible, but despite those increases, there are not rental units going unoccupied in any large number. Cutting prices will not house more people, if all the rentals are already full.

What is supposed to happen is that as rental prices go up, supply is increased to capitalize on it. But that's not happening, in most areas, for various reasons.

The core problem is the curve of population growth versus the curve of housing units. Prices are an consequence of that, not the cause.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#376

Post by sillyfluke »

scoofy wrote: post #366
johnea wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where you live, maybe that could help in your area. But here in California every state law deregulating real estate development has been abused by developers to build more $2M-$3M houses. This does NOTHING to help homelessness...

Yes it does. Every new home adds supply and lowers the price of homes along the demand curve. Not to mention increasing the tax base to fund public housing.

Is this the real estate version of the "trickle down" theory?

You take half the land left in the county for construction and build 5 mil mansions with ridiculous garden acrage instead of more affordable houses. You've now constrained yourself in the number of affordable homes you can build in your county in the future, as land is finite. Maybe you took a few k's off the 10 mil mansions for a short while. Congratulations.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#377

Post by krapp »

CrossVR wrote: post #314
danaris wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi there! I live in the US. I am a leftist. I am in favor of prison abolition, universal basic income, massively increased taxation of the rich, and voting reform. Care to explain why I either don't count or don't really exist?

> prison abolition Can we stop calling reform abolishment? I know it's more fun to call it abolishment because it triggers the people you disagree with, but it's entirely counter-productive. I'm just getting so tired of these constant motte and bailey fallacies in US political discourse.

People use the word "abolition" not to trigger you but because it's the word they mean to use and because they explicitly don't believe in reform.

You may not respect it enough to take it seriously, but it is a position that some socialists hold.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#378

Post by RavlaAlvar »

sillyfluke wrote: post #371
diet_jerome wrote: post #167

I'd like to advertise deregulating housing construction as a very clear way to help solve desperate housing problems in many countries (such as in the USA). You can check out more about it here https://www.econlib.org/build-baby-build-now-under-construct...

When you have moderate Democrats (who say they want to solve the housing crisis for the poor and lower middle class) and fiscal conservative Republicans both championing "deregulation" and "abundance"(?) in the abstract while being cheerled by the same group of billionaires and private equity firms, you know one of them is the sucker. hint: its not the fiscal conservatives, billionaires or private equity firms. Those…

How come housing in red state cities are so much more affordable?

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#379

Post by scoofy »

sillyfluke wrote: post #376
scoofy wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does. Every new home adds supply and lowers the price of homes along the demand curve. Not to mention increasing the tax base to fund public housing.

Is this the real estate version of the "trickle down" theory? You take half the land left in the county for construction and build 5 mil mansions with ridiculous garden acrage instead of more affordable houses. You've now constrained yourself in the number of affordable homes you can build in your county in the future, as land is finite. Maybe you took a few k's off the 10 mil mansions for a short while. Congratulati…

I don't think building high-end housing will completely solve homelessness, no, but it is a non-trivial improvement especially when it comes to tax revenues that can be used to build public housing.

We only build high-end housing in CA because it's wildly expensive to build housing at all. It's especially expensive exactly because the cost of the "affordable" (subsidized) housing that is required for most of these developments has to be passed to the home buyers, not the general public (who should be funding subsidized housing), which means the housing will be wildly expensive regardless.

Again, the idea that building "high end" (market rate) housing does nothing is just wrong. It's part of an approach that honestly deals with the problem of public housing funding, as will as market rates. The if we want the market to start producing housing for the middle class (and we should want that), we'll need to make it inexpensive and accessible to build so that normal people can redevelop their homes, we take the delta in property values, and use that money to fund public housing for those people most in need.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#380

Post by UncleMeat »

18172828286177 wrote: post #192
aqme28 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I buy that to some extent. But according to the studies I've read, the primary driver of homelessness is rising rent, not mental health issues. See e.g. https://www.statista.com/chart/32585/change-in-median-rent-a...

I mean, I hate to be cliched, but correlation does not imply causation. There are many possible confounding factors that could be at play here.

Sure. But that's surely better than your "I think" above that is just based in a hunch.
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