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See, this is a problem with democratic decision making. Individually, you are just looking out for your own interests. Collectively, you are inadvertently choos
by Decade 10y ago
See, this is a problem with democratic decision making. Individually, you are just looking out for your own interests. Collectively, you are inadvertently choosing horrendous alternatives.
In areas like San Francisco and San Jose, there is just not enough housing to house all of the homeless people. There is not enough public funding to create housing for all of the homeless people. And the effectiveness of each dollar keeps going down, faster than inflation.
The article goes into detail, how micro-apartments can be $900 per month each in current market conditions, unsubsidized. But regulations force the cost upwards and the unit count downwards, so both the price goes up (or you do not build until median rent goes up) and the number of low-income people housed goes down.
But, hey, at least the tent city is not directly in your backyard.
- cushychicken 10y agoI'm not saying it's right. I'm saying it's explainable, and that it's complex, and that it's driven by real incentives rather than blind malice. I also think there would be a much better chance of making the changes to allow microhousing if you understood where the opposition was coming from. It's hard to convince someone to your point of you by bashing them over the head with "you're wrong!" I think we have some common ground in that we both think the best solution is not have a tent city in the first place. Homelessness comes with a whole host of other problems that microhousing can't actually solve - like the fact that most homeless people have a hard time applying for housing by virtue of the fact that they have no prior address. So, maybe the better question is: how do we do that?