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Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

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Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#71

Post by k-mcgrady »

Kalium wrote: post #45

To those people who believe this is the fault of tech - I have a question. What is the ethical way to move to San Francisco? Or anywhere in the Bay? What do you think is a good solution to this, beyond some variant on tech people owing undefined amounts of money to everyone else?

I don't live in the US so my view is purely that of an outsider reading about this on HN over the last few years.

My problem is this: a lot of tech companies, based outside San Francisco go out of their way to make it easy for employees to live in SF and get to work outside of it. This is bad for the people who have lived there for a long time as they can't compete with the money the tech industry brings to the market. If your job is in SF I think it's perfectly fine to live there no matter what industry it's in. But taking space and driving up the price of space that could be used by someone who NEEDS to live there (e.g. a local butcher/hairdresser/convenience store owner) when you don't is unethical in my opinion. Not to mention that if those people can't live in the city and close down or move their businesses your life there won't be as good. It's not illegal and like all ethical questions the answer will differ from person to person but that's what I think about it.

Edit:

Of course the problem is the mindset of a lot of tech people (evident in this thread). They think logically and love 'the free market'. They're also predominantly young. They don't understand living in a place for 30/40 years and being forced out. They seem to ignore the emotions involved or feel they are irrelevant.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#72

Post by zippergz »

ankurpatel wrote: post #49
delluminatus wrote: post #2

Loading extremely slowly for me. Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6m1opf... After reading the article, this quote really jumped out at me: "I was going along, being a good citizen," Todd, now 52 years old, says. "I was a volunteer firefighter, I coached football and baseball, I was saving my money, doing everything you're supposed to do, being a single father, raising my daughter by…

To add to that in United States even if an employee is laid-off they are given severance package and on top of that they can apply for unemployement benefit and the government happily gives them a pay to survive on for about 6 months. Considering all of this I feel a salary man is in a good position and can find another job in 6 months.

People can and do get laid off in the US with no severance.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#73

Post by [deleted] »

maxerickson wrote: post #65
ps4fanboy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non american looking at this from the outside this whole rental/tenant control looks like legislated communism.

As opposed to what other sort of communism? Also, note that "Prop G" is more or less the opposite of legislative, it's a ballot initiative, direct democracy.

[deleted]

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#74

Post by delluminatus »

jonnathanson wrote: post #60
delluminatus wrote: post #2

Loading extremely slowly for me. Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6m1opf... After reading the article, this quote really jumped out at me: "I was going along, being a good citizen," Todd, now 52 years old, says. "I was a volunteer firefighter, I coached football and baseball, I was saving my money, doing everything you're supposed to do, being a single father, raising my daughter by…

"I don't think you would ever hear those words coming from a millennial." Probably because Millennials grew up knowing there were wolves just outside the gates, and that your employer might throw you to them at any time. We're the first generation of Americans, in quite some time, to have experienced one significant crash or stagnation after the next. There is no "normal" in the job market, the stock market, the hous…

I agree, I didn't call him entitled either. Maybe he lacked training or maybe not, and maybe he saved well or maybe not (he did last for 18 months in SF after he was laid off, after all).

No, I wouldn't call him entitled. If anything, I think he was deceived: he bought in to a social contract and it turned out he was more invested in it than his employer was.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#75

Post by venomsnake »

maxerickson wrote: post #65
ps4fanboy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non american looking at this from the outside this whole rental/tenant control looks like legislated communism.

As opposed to what other sort of communism? Also, note that "Prop G" is more or less the opposite of legislative, it's a ballot initiative, direct democracy.

Three wolves and sheep voting on what's for dinner is also a direct democracy. Just saying ...

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#76

Post by curun1r »

potatolicious wrote: post #25
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #3

Why don't these people just move to more affordable places?

Because cost are going up across the board throughout the Bay Area, and the transportation infrastructure - both automotive and otherwise - hasn't kept up. Moving further means increased commuting cost. For drivers this comes in the form of massively increased fuel costs. For transit users this comes in the form of increased fares, since BART practices distance-based pricing. Commuting daily from Fremont to SF costs…

I think you're reading more into his comment than what was intended. He didn't ask, "Why don't these people just move to more affordable places and still work in San Francisco?"

I live in SF and I find it to be a really nice place, but if I was making minimum wage or anywhere near it, I'd never choose to live here. Those kinds of jobs are available in other parts of the country.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#77

Post by dasil003 »

DanBlake wrote: post #27

There is a interesting anti-correlation between this and Prop G. Prop G will be a retroactive tax applied to anyone who bought a multi unit building in SF in the last few years who would sell it the next few years. Tenants have no problem pushing this bill stating that buying a building does not entitle you to a lifelong contract and that 'things can change' which will negatively effect you. So even though you bought…

The reason for the double standard is obvious though: no once cares about rich people's problems. I say that slightly tongue-in-cheek, but there's a legitimate social problem here. Rents in SF could not grow so out of control without the income disparities also growing. Of course a city is not a closed population, so a good portion of the problem comes from rich people disproportionately moving to San Francisco, but even with that it's clear that on a national level income inequality is increasing in a very de-stabilizing way and SF is a microcosm of those dynamics.

Unlike previous economic booms of the 19th and 20th centuries, there is no mediating factors such as a massive need for human labor or a common cultural belief among the mega-wealthy in a moral duty towards philanthropy, or even just simple taxation. Automation is getting so sophisticated that these days a lot of productivity gains come from deploying capital to automate things (software being a part of this), and not only do all the gains accrue to the capital holders, but the gains are taxed much less than regular income.

So the deck is stacked heavily in favor of people coming in and flipping SF property for massive profits simply by virtue of holding the capital to be able to do so. The fact that they get one unannounced tax curveball thrown their way is not someone that remotely compares to someone choosing a profession and working their whole life only to find that rents quadrupled in a 5-year period. The answer is not "sorry buddy, you should have been a banker or a computer programmer, but I hear Modesto is still pretty reasonable"; there aren't enough such jobs to maintain a middle class that way.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#78

Post by tsotha »

DanBlake wrote: post #27

There is a interesting anti-correlation between this and Prop G. Prop G will be a retroactive tax applied to anyone who bought a multi unit building in SF in the last few years who would sell it the next few years. Tenants have no problem pushing this bill stating that buying a building does not entitle you to a lifelong contract and that 'things can change' which will negatively effect you. So even though you bought…

Meh. The newer landlords will realize what the rest of us have know for years. You'd be crazy to be a landlord in SF.

Which, of course, is part of the problem.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#79

Post by johnny_utah »

DanBC wrote: post #5
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #3

Why don't these people just move to more affordable places?

How does a homeless person afford the travel to a "more affordable" place? (What does more affordable mean when they have no money?) Where do the nurses, teachers, security guards, waiters, shop assistants etc etc live?

One example -> the city of San Francisco offers bus tickets home for homeless people who have relatives or friends in another town who are willing to take them in. The program is called "Homeward Bound."

Source: http://www.sfhsa.org/79.htm

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#80

Post by HarryHirsch »

astrocat wrote: post #35
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #3

Why don't these people just move to more affordable places?

Many may interpret this as victim blaming but I think it's a valid question: why have we as a country/culture become so much more resistant to moving? I know I've read more comprehensive literature on this before a but a quick google brought up these starting points: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/11/declining_ame... http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/generati... I understand that we dev…

it seems that this fear has become limiting

A network of friends and family for such things as childcare and temporary accomodation is worth dollars. If you can leave your son/daughter with their grandmother while at work or can find a couch at a friend's house while between jobs you can put up with lower local wages. To move elsewhere, the new job would have to pay enough for childcare and to allow to build a cushion of savings.

A sympathetic ear and a can of beers is also worth a lot. Often, on this board, we read of burnout and nervous breakdowns.

The decision not to move doesn't seem to come from fear, on the contrary, it's rational, elsewhere life isn't going to be better, and very possibly worse. At the low end of the wage spectrum there is no opportunity left anywhere in the nation.

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