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Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

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Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#641

Post by bryanlarsen »

throwawayq3423 wrote: post #635
bryanlarsen wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California has the most expensive housing in America. That is the primary reason for its larger homeless population.

That doesn't explain how 11% of the population could supply 30% of the homeless. That's impossible if it was a self-contained statistic. I think housing prices does make the homeless problem worse, but it didn't create it. Good climate and numerous public services did.

(0.9 x 30%) / 11% means that California has a homeless rate 2.5X the rest of America. That's not impossible, in fact it seems surprisingly low. California is the land of $3000/month rent. A very significant proportion of the population can't pay that.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#642

Post by verall »

cyberax wrote: post #570
verall wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Austin, where they have aggressively upzoned and built, and now housing prices are down?

Austin is an interesting case. It tripped me up a bit when I saw it. But it turned out that my prediction was correct because the Austin population went _down_ during the pandemic. Population: 2019 - 978,763 2022 - 975,418 2023 - 979,882 The overall Travis County population went up a bit. And the prices, in the places other than Austin, are also up. I can also give a prediction, if Austin population growth recovers (…

Looking at the population of Austin proper is pretty silly here, and similar just looking at Travis. The city proper lost population from 2019-2020 as many cities did during the early pandemic, but grew each year since. The Austin metro area has grown every one of these years.

In every comparable city in the country, housing prices are up. In Austin, they are down.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#643

Post by smcl »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #443
smcl wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright what are the odds that Finland’s famous and much lauded approach to reducing homelessness was actually nonsense, and you’re the first person to tell the truth: that it’s actually because the homeless all just froze to death? That’d mean every news outlet has somehow ignored it, there are no whistleblowers and nobody else has bothered to look at any data on it.

If life taught me something, it's that the brutal answer is usually the right one. The world somehow undeservedly give enormous credit to the social systems of Nordic countries. Simply look at the numbers. Finland for a country larger than Poland and UK has only 5m inhabitants. Another "fun fact" - Sweden has worse wealth inequality than Russia.

So we're really going with "the homeless just froze to death and it's just all a big conspiracy"?

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#644

Post by brailsafe »

cyberax wrote: post #603
brailsafe wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep referring to people who like cities that function as cities as "misery pushers" and then in the same breath doing as much as you can to create an association between increased density and all these hypothetical negative possibilities. Likewise it just seems as though you've developed some level of prejudice based on the negative experience you're contending with in your neighborhood, and then extrapolating t…

> You keep referring to people who like cities that function as cities as "misery pushers" That's an apt description. > in the same breath doing as much as you can to create an association between increased density and all these hypothetical negative possibilities. Why are they hypothetical? Density has long been associated with worse outcomes (higher crime, etc.). I can provide plenty of citations to scholarly liter…

> No. I'm saying that removal of zoning limits to allow increased density does NOT lead to lower prices. It leads to increased density and increased misery as a result.

I never made that claim.

> It's not a public dataset, so I'm replicating my results using public datasets.

You'll need to do better than just comparing real estate sales. If you're going to make a coherent argument based on data, it should at least attempt to show the relationship between more datapoints than just arbitrary sales and time, especially with only a 6 year timespan. Whether there's something there or not, you're not providing a substantial enough analysis to be compelling here.

It's fine if you don't like denser areas. Plenty of people who grow up in denser cities move out because they feel like they're sick of people, but cities wouldn't be cities if they're wasn't a reason to be there, and many people prefer it. There's not a chance in hell I'd move back to a car dependent hellscape, because I grew up in one, and that's true misery to me.

> It increased its density by 25% over the last 12 years, many times leading the nation in the number of active construction cranes. The result? Faster price growth than even in SF.

Again, weird cherry-picked comparison that wouldn't surprise anyone who's aware of the two tech hubs.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#645

Post by throwawayq3423 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #641
throwawayq3423 wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't explain how 11% of the population could supply 30% of the homeless. That's impossible if it was a self-contained statistic. I think housing prices does make the homeless problem worse, but it didn't create it. Good climate and numerous public services did.

(0.9 x 30%) / 11% means that California has a homeless rate 2.5X the rest of America. That's not impossible, in fact it seems surprisingly low. California is the land of $3000/month rent. A very significant proportion of the population can't pay that.

I'm sorry where does your math come from? 1 state having 1/3 of the nation's homeless doesn't represent 2.5x the normal rate. That's 10-15x territory.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#646

Post by throwawayq3423 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #637
throwawayq3423 wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't explain how 11% of the population could supply 30% of the homeless. That's impossible if it was a self-contained statistic. I think housing prices does make the homeless problem worse, but it didn't create it. Good climate and numerous public services did.

> impossible Finland got to 0 by giving everybody a place to live, not by kicking the homeless out of their country.

Finland isn't responsible for all the homeless from Sweden and Denmark. It had a number that makes sense based on it's population and resources, therefore it was able to solve it.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#647

Post by rhubarbtree »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #577
rhubarbtree wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same everywhere, and even China is copying the model. Housing is a fixed asset and everyone needs one, so the moment you allow people to borrow to buy and let then the renters are stuck and the house prices soar. The reason it's the same everywhere is that this model magically creates "growth" and "wealth". My house is worth £100K. House prices increase. So now there is more wealth in the economy (there isn'…

But even economists are aware of the difference between wealth and value : you are describing inflation. Why were you allowed to / it was a good idea to remortgage under ~20% inflation ?

I think inflation is when the value of money drops ie it can buy less of everything. But this is simply the cost of one asset rising.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#648

Post by marssaxman »

toss1 wrote: post #640
marssaxman wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Moreover, saying that zoning in locales like this should be changed to accommodate low-income high-density housing is just stupid. It's a good thing I am not talking about locales like yours, then; unless your small town has a demographically-improbable homelessness problem, akin to the ones you see in big cities whose history of inadequate development due to strict zoning regulation has created a persistent housin…

>>unless your small town has a demographically-improbable homelessness problem...nothing I said pertains to you. Well, the current town has no homelessness problem, but there ARE most definitely laws in place (Massachusetts 40B) that specifically seeks to override local zoning and mandate low-income housing in ALL towns. So, while we agree that what you said should not pertain to me, the people making the actual laws…

Thank you for explaining your situation. I can see why that would be frustrating!

Here in Washington, the state legislature recently passed a law overriding any local zoning which would forbid multi-family housing, but the law does not apply to cities under 25K population, and its strongest provisions only apply above 75K. Oregon has had a similar law since 2019. This approach seems more reasonable to me.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#649

Post by cyberax »

verall wrote: post #642
cyberax wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Austin is an interesting case. It tripped me up a bit when I saw it. But it turned out that my prediction was correct because the Austin population went _down_ during the pandemic. Population: 2019 - 978,763 2022 - 975,418 2023 - 979,882 The overall Travis County population went up a bit. And the prices, in the places other than Austin, are also up. I can also give a prediction, if Austin population growth recovers (…

Looking at the population of Austin proper is pretty silly here, and similar just looking at Travis. The city proper lost population from 2019-2020 as many cities did during the early pandemic, but grew each year since. The Austin metro area has grown every one of these years. In every comparable city in the country, housing prices are up. In Austin, they are down.

> In every comparable city in the country, housing prices are up. In Austin, they are down.

Now compare the population. Travis County population (sans Austin) went up, so the prices are also up. And Travis County actually has _more_ new units than Austin proper.

The driver for the price decreases in Austin is the population drop, not the new construction.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#650

Post by verall »

cyberax wrote: post #649
verall wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the population of Austin proper is pretty silly here, and similar just looking at Travis. The city proper lost population from 2019-2020 as many cities did during the early pandemic, but grew each year since. The Austin metro area has grown every one of these years. In every comparable city in the country, housing prices are up. In Austin, they are down.

> In every comparable city in the country, housing prices are up. In Austin, they are down. Now compare the population. Travis County population (sans Austin) went up, so the prices are also up. And Travis County actually has _more_ new units than Austin proper. The driver for the price decreases in Austin is the population drop, not the new construction.

Population dropped 2019-2020, but population has increased each year since 2020, both in Austin proper and austin greater metro area. Housing prices increased until about 2022 when they started dropping, and (along with rent) have been trending downwards since.

If your point is, "construction has to outstrip population increase in order to decrease prices", then well, yeah, we agree fully.

If your point is that huge amounts of new units going on the market in Austin does not have a significant impact on prices, I don't think that's supported by any evidence or makes any sense.

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