What should the government do about homelessness?

@athousandyoung said
Conclusion so far - CA and the city of SF are in no way responsible for homelessness and it is completely unreasonable to blame these governments for the homelessness in their territory.

Anyone disagree?

The average apartment in San Francisco rents for $3,300 per month. That is a result of CA and SF policies.

@wildgrass said
The average apartment in San Francisco rents for $3,300 per month. That is a result of CA and SF policies.

Please elaborate. What policies are causing this result?

@wildgrass said
I agree. But the thing California has done wrong is not build enough housing.

How is that the responsibility of the State and City governments?

@athousandyoung said
How is that the responsibility of the State and City governments?

Red tape, bureaucracy and particularly unnecessarily strict zoning regulations discourage new development. They need a lot of cheap affordable housing but there's literally nowhere the city will allow new housing to be built.

https://www.vox.com/a/homeless-san-francisco-tech-boom

@wildgrass said
Red tape, bureaucracy and particularly unnecessarily strict zoning regulations discourage new development. They need a lot of cheap affordable housing but there's literally nowhere the city will allow new housing to be built.

https://www.vox.com/a/homeless-san-francisco-tech-boom

There is far more vacant housing in California than homeless people. Developers have no interest in building low income housing. There's no profit in it. They prefer to buy existing housing and keep it vacant.

Which specific laws or policies are you referring to as "red tape" and "unnecessarily strict zoning regulations"?

@athousandyoung said
[quote]https://www.sightline.org/2019/11/22/california-homeowners-have-20-uninhabited-bedrooms-for-every-homeless-person

California’s colossal housing shortage is made worse, ACCE said, by the fact that several hundred thousand units are empty and currently unavailable for sale or rental. In at least some cases, that’s probably because their owners plan to ride the ...[text shortened]... ]

The above suggests that the government defending investment properties is causing homelessness.

BUMP

The above suggests that the government defending vacant investment properties is causing homelessness.

@wildgrass said
Red tape, bureaucracy and particularly unnecessarily strict zoning regulations discourage new development. They need a lot of cheap affordable housing but there's literally nowhere the city will allow new housing to be built.

https://www.vox.com/a/homeless-san-francisco-tech-boom

From your linked article (which you did not in any way summarize, shame on you):

"The problem with high rents is not Google buses or tech jobs. The problem with high rent is the very, very constrained supply of housing, and the housing supply is so constrained because we made it so constrained. The city did it."

That is accurate in that the city is preventing the homeless from living in all the vacant investment housing (see the article I linked earlier).

Apparently the vox article linked above is blaming "measure B" for homelessness.

Yesterday, San Francisco voters handily voted in favor of Measure B. That's a ballot initiative that will make it more difficult to construct tall buildings on the San Francisco waterfront by requiring buildings over a certain size to obtain voter approval via referendum.

Let's assume there was no Measure B and developers could build large buildings on the waterfront without a referendum.

What makes you think they are going to fill up those buildings with homeless? No, they'll build luxury condos and keep them vacant to drive up housing prices so they can make more money.

Where did anyone get the bizaare idea that we should be putting the homeless on beachfront property?!

This argument fails. Measure B is not to blame for homelessness.

@averagejoe1 said
I am stuck on your first sentence....... A wall won't work? Today? I am talking about today, wildgrass. What illegal (undocumented!!) immigrant aliens, and legal ones for that matter, have done up to now is irrelevant. It is May, 2023.
So, starting today, do you think a wall, with an attended gate every 15 miles, would help with our tremendous problems? These people are tearing up South TX, please hurry.

Are you still planning on making Mexico pay for the salaries of those people attending gates every 15 miles across our 2,000 mile border?

@athousandyoung said
From your linked article (which you did not in any way summarize, shame on you):

"The problem with high rents is not Google buses or tech jobs. The problem with high rent is the very, very constrained supply of housing, and the housing supply is so constrained because we made it so constrained. The city did it."

That is accurate in that the city is ...[text shortened]... ng the homeless from living in all the vacant investment housing (see the article I linked earlier).

Um that's close enough to what I wrote ...

@athousandyoung said
Apparently the vox article linked above is blaming "measure B" for homelessness.

Yesterday, San Francisco voters handily voted in favor of Measure B. That's a ballot initiative that will make it more difficult to construct tall buildings on the San Francisco waterfront by requiring buildings over a certain size to obtain voter approval via referendum.

...[text shortened]... meless on beachfront property?!

This argument fails. Measure B is not to blame for homelessness.

I think the idea is that if ample housing exists it drives down rents across the city. You're right there is no incentive anywhere to build affordable housing but that's obviously a city management problem. The city could create the incentive to build, and disincentive actions by landlords that drive up rents.

@wildgrass said
I think the idea is that if ample housing exists it drives down rents across the city. You're right there is no incentive anywhere to build affordable housing but that's obviously a city management problem. The city could create the incentive to build, and disincentive actions by landlords that drive up rents.

Would you elaborate on this please:

disincentive actions by landlords that drive up rents

@wildgrass said
Um that's close enough to what I wrote ...

Not in the slightest!

There is a HUGE difference between blocking development of new buildings and enforcing private property rights. The article you used as your reference specifically blamed Measure B.

You're right there is no incentive anywhere to build affordable housing but that's obviously a city management problem.

Elaborate please. What should the city do to incentivize the building of affordable housing? I ask since you are implicitly blaming the city government for the natural result of the free market.

@athousandyoung said
Would you elaborate on this please:

disincentive actions by landlords that drive up rents

There are lots of possibilities but the vox article mentioned that repealing the Ellis act would help.

Also the thing you mentioned too about landlords who purposefully dont rent properties that are livable. Certainly city/state laws can impose fines for this behavior.