Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How California Homelessness Became a Crisis

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 94 posts

Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis

#41

Post by handmodel »

istillwritecode wrote: post #32
jseliger wrote: post #11

Short answer: CA has been underbuilding housing for close to 50 years ( https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ ) and now has a severe housing shortage, to the point where a parodic response, like "California will try absolutely anything to reduce homelessness, except build more housing" ( https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-will-do-anything-to-en... ) is the only reasonable one. I've worked on Prop HHH and o…

I don't buy the "just build more" approach. More market rate housing isn't guaranteed to make it affordable, and there is even evidence to suggest otherwise. The principle of induced demand seems to occur here. One way that supply and demand helps the problem is that some move elsewhere for better opportunity.

If the population of California were to grow by 35% in the next 30 years but only 5% more housing units were built - do you posit the housing prices would get more expensive or less?

That is pretty much what has happened. It is clear building more lowers the average. Keep in mind that homeless people may not have even been in "affordable housing" five years ago! Imagine how much better financial situation someone who lost their job last year would be in this year if they had been paying $1000 rent instead of $1400 for five years. Sure they would have spent slightly more in other areas - but they also would have saved more on average and have more fallback.

Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis

#42

Post by saas_sam »

angst_ridden wrote: post #21
saas_sam wrote: post #18

There are three kinds of people experiencing homelessness in SF: Drug addicts, who settle in the Bay Area because it is Paradise On Earth for drug addiction. Drugs are cheap and plentiful. Dealers transact unmolested in broad daylight in front of apathetic cops. Needles are provided by the government free of charge. Tents can be pitched on just about any sidewalk. Drug use does not even need to be discreet -- anyone…

I assume you can provide some data to back up the assertion that "it's not even close?"

I wish I did. A city that is so incompetent as to let this situation arise in the first place cannot be trusted to honestly & accurately account for the root cause of the problem. I want a good source for data that doesn't come in the form of a far-left/right propaganda piece. And if I am wrong I will be HAPPY as hell to be wrong.

Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis

#43

Post by mason55 »

handmodel wrote: post #37
jseliger wrote: post #11

Short answer: CA has been underbuilding housing for close to 50 years ( https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ ) and now has a severe housing shortage, to the point where a parodic response, like "California will try absolutely anything to reduce homelessness, except build more housing" ( https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-will-do-anything-to-en... ) is the only reasonable one. I've worked on Prop HHH and o…

I find it offensive when people bring up mental illness and drugs as the cause of homelessness in areas where housing is so expensive. Like - are we expecting people who have been on the streets for a year to be able to get off drugs and instantly walk into a job making 45k a year? Trailer parks get made fun of but they often cost only a few hundred dollars a month so a person can be in and out of work there to eithe…

The real issue is conversations that talk about a single cause or single solution. There are lots of causes that need to be addressed and solved separately.

But what happens is one person says “build more housing” and another person says “the park near me is full of people who intentionally live on the street!” And you just end up with these intractable conversations where everyone talks past each other.

Humans are bad at nuance

Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis

#44

Post by ahelwer »

saas_sam wrote: post #18

There are three kinds of people experiencing homelessness in SF: Drug addicts, who settle in the Bay Area because it is Paradise On Earth for drug addiction. Drugs are cheap and plentiful. Dealers transact unmolested in broad daylight in front of apathetic cops. Needles are provided by the government free of charge. Tents can be pitched on just about any sidewalk. Drug use does not even need to be discreet -- anyone…

There is no strong separation between 3/4 of your categories. People freely move from financial misfortune to mental illness to drug abuse. I'm sure you have the empathy to imagine the toll being homeless takes on your mental health, and in turn the difficulty with holding down stable employment when you have mental health problems. Drug addiction is of course a mental health issue, not something to be moralized - it's long past time to leave the war on drugs mindset in the past. So developing a drug addiction is a similarly high risk factor for the unhoused. Then you're really screwed. Thinking people with severe drug addictions are living in "paradise" in SF is extremely out-of-touch.

All of this is a cycle, of course. Drug addiction will lead to financial misfortune, as will mental health issues.

The solution to homelessness is to build free socialized housing, lots of it, with integrated mental health treatment.

Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis

#45

Post by akira2501 »

jseliger wrote: post #11

Short answer: CA has been underbuilding housing for close to 50 years ( https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ ) and now has a severe housing shortage, to the point where a parodic response, like "California will try absolutely anything to reduce homelessness, except build more housing" ( https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-will-do-anything-to-en... ) is the only reasonable one. I've worked on Prop HHH and o…

I think 2008 had a massive impact on California that hasn't really been accounted for. Add to that, and the article points this out, wages aren't tracking with the price of goods and I think this has an oversized impact in a state like California that has such a high out-of-state and out-of-country interest in living here.

I'm also concerned that Newsom is planning spend $12 billion but barely make a dent in the problem itself; particularly when HUD puts the cost at solving homelessness in the United States as a whole at $20 billion. This is another "consultant giveaway" that Newsom and the state of California are particularly good at.

Meanwhile, the street that our company is on is literally _filled_ back to back with RVs, litter, crime and literal human waste running down the gutters. It's beyond frustrating.

Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis

#46

Post by Flatcircle »

I once toured a homeless shelter in downtown Los Angeles, the guy that ran it said, "see all those people that are sleeping under the awning outside, we're trying to get them to come in and get help, but most of them don't want to come in. Because most of them are addicts and you have to be clean inside here." He said, "I'm on the front lines and I'm telling you right now, 90 percent of the homeless problem is because of drugs and alcohol"

Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis

#47

Post by h2odragon »

okareaman wrote: post #7

I was once homeless in California, strung out on drugs and alcohol, unable to quit or even think about getting treatment for that and my bipolar disorder. It is my opinion that we need to go back to locking people up and forcing them into treatment for their own good. It is inhumane to leave helpless people out on the street because of some abstract concept of personal rights. I understand the motivation of mental he…

Appreciate your speaking up with an unpopular opinion; I fear coerced treatments because individuals vary more than medical practice allows for.

For example, there's people for whom opioids do not provide any pain relief; but try getting a doctor to understand that you're one of those people. You'll get the opiate pills prescribed anyway, and noted as a foolish drug seeker to boot.

Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis

#48

Post by throw737858 »

jseliger wrote: post #11

Short answer: CA has been underbuilding housing for close to 50 years ( https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ ) and now has a severe housing shortage, to the point where a parodic response, like "California will try absolutely anything to reduce homelessness, except build more housing" ( https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-will-do-anything-to-en... ) is the only reasonable one. I've worked on Prop HHH and o…

Most homeless people can build their own houses/shelters. But cities should provide access points for water, electricity and other utilities. And it should be illegal to bulldoze structure where somebody lives!

Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis

#49

Post by handmodel »

angst_ridden wrote: post #19
jseliger wrote: post #11

Short answer: CA has been underbuilding housing for close to 50 years ( https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ ) and now has a severe housing shortage, to the point where a parodic response, like "California will try absolutely anything to reduce homelessness, except build more housing" ( https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-will-do-anything-to-en... ) is the only reasonable one. I've worked on Prop HHH and o…

And yet we also have a massive under-occupancy in some areas of LA cough Venice Beach cough Mar Vista cough where a lot of homes are owned by corporations for occasional use by traveling employees, people in other countries parking finances here, or people who AirBnB them for 180 days/year. In one block where I was working in Mar Vista, four older homes have been knocked down to build McMansions in the past year. All…

I wish they weren't zoning more single family homes but the true vacancy is not a few empty houses but the fact that the houses are not apartment complexes.

The vertical space is the true vacancy. When people say the LA vacancy rate is higher than the homeless rate this implies A) apartments empty because they are switching leases or getting renovated are usable (they aren't) and B) also implies that everyone who wants their own housing has it (not true - plenty of young people are living at home and plenty of people are crammed into apartments with strangers they don't want to be).

Until you build enough housing for everyone who wants a house there isn't enough housing.

Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis

#50

Post by jeffbee »

handmodel wrote: post #41
istillwritecode wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy the "just build more" approach. More market rate housing isn't guaranteed to make it affordable, and there is even evidence to suggest otherwise. The principle of induced demand seems to occur here. One way that supply and demand helps the problem is that some move elsewhere for better opportunity.

If the population of California were to grow by 35% in the next 30 years but only 5% more housing units were built - do you posit the housing prices would get more expensive or less? That is pretty much what has happened. It is clear building more lowers the average. Keep in mind that homeless people may not have even been in "affordable housing" five years ago! Imagine how much better financial situation someone who…

The marginal economic model of housing is much easier to explain. If I were to bulldoze a million houses, what would happen to the price of houses?

Now what happens if I build a million houses?

Post reply on HN