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Entrepreneurs and companies that get started are utterly desparate for solvable problems to solve. The ideas may seem "stupid" to you, but that's only because

Entrepreneurs and companies that get started are utterly desparate for solvable problems to solve. The ideas may seem "stupid" to you, but that's only because biggest problems have way too many barriers to entry and are typically guarded by rent seeking government lobbying legislation. Take homelessness. I'm sure there's a technical way to build housing for cheap enough to get people back into houses. But, the government legislation makes it a complete non-starter. There are so many rules and regulations, a potential entrepreneur or existing Company couldn't even begin to dream of creating a solution. It's all Locked up. Homelessness is a problem that is illegal to solve, as so many things are. Trust me, if it were legally possible to create housing that was profitable (low enough cost to cover expenses), I'm sure there would be dozens of builders lining up around the block to do it.

smogcutter 10y ago
In what specific ways is homelessness a problem which is illegal to solve?
- wutbrodo 10y ago
  I'm not the parent commenter, but I've heard this complaint before, and it usually boils down to zoning and some types of development limits drastically reducing the efficiency of the housing market (in terms of provision of housing to the most people). AFAICT, it's not really controversial that land use regulation is a big chunk of what's responsible for the craziest housing markets in the country[1]. An illustrative example is the shocking cost-effectiveness of trailer parks. The fact that the land beneath the trailer generally isn't owned means that they're technically free of a lot of the weird distortions of the regular property market, and thus people who would otherwise be homeless are able to avoid the impossible choice of a house they can't afford or living on the sidewalk. [1] http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21647614-poor-land-use-worlds-greatest-cities-carries-huge-cost-space-and-city http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21647614-poor-land-use...
forgetsusername 10y ago
The building of cheap houses isn't the problem. Who maintains them? Who enforces the code? Who insures them? Who is liable for them? These are things that "SV" sometimes ignores. That's why these are bigger problems.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Google "Tiny homes homelessness". The project I'm fond of "A Tiny Home For Good" in upstate NY purchases cheap city lots (or takes land donations), has volunteers build the tiny homes, and then provides them to the homeless to get them back on their feet. The regulations aren't hard. Simply put down your JavaScript framework of the week and go out to do real work that effects change. Prepare to work long days and not get rich, but make people's lives better. But people won't, and that's SVs problem.
  - Animats 10y ago
    That's in Syracuse NY, an emptying city with lots of vacant real estate. How could this work in California? Build a town of tiny houses somewhere with low-value real estate, like San Bernardino or Lodi, and ship the SF homeless there? Add-on feature: free drugs and free training. 1 in 1000 doses is lethal. Everybody is clearly told this up front. In three years, the druggies have been filtered out and the rest have useful training.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      It doesn't work in high cost of living areas without government subsidies; them the breaks of capitalism. I'm not against giving drug users a safe place to use with a roof over their head, as long as they're not a danger to others; I would like to see dedicated social, mental health, and addiction counseling services provided for those who want the help. How do we make land less valuable? That's the question. Where you live should not constrain or restrict your quality of life.
      - NoGravitas 10y ago
mifreewil 10y ago
Homelessness has a multitude of problems, not all are because of government regulation. But yes, in many places (SF and SV), homelessness is at least caused in part by local zoning that mostly comes from entrenched interests (existing homeowners) and blocks most new building of housing. Local zoning in the US seems to be where democracy is at it's strongest, and capitalism at it's weakest, often to detriment of most people (renters).
collyw 10y ago
Regulations didn't stop Uber or Airbnb.
- wutbrodo 10y ago
  It's simply intellectually lazy to assume that that must apply universally. It's usually useful to think through how that happened and what that might imply about when the political will doesn't exist to push back against loopholes. In the case of Uber, the class of people that benefited economically were the kind that wield a fair amount of money and political influence. This means that 1) Uber had enough revenue (and promise of future revenue) that they had the resources to fight legal battles and 2) a reasonably politically influential class of people was likely to be on their side in any potential regulatory battle. As an aside, the perceived minimum reasonable amount of regulation required for housing is a good deal higher than that of transport. This makes forward movement without the co-operation of the regulatory regime much more difficult, since working outside of the regulatory framework exposes you to real problems involving sanitation, fire safety, infrastructure, etc[1]. The homeless unfortunately _don't_ wield these kind of resources or political influence, so efforts to route around housing regulation in a way that benefits the homeless has no economic incentive backing it (and much of the time and money currently dedicated to fighting homelessness generally doesn't think of housing regulation as a problem). This isn't even entirely hypothetical; the article I linked in this comment is about a guy in LA building mini-houses for the homeless that the city keeps tearing down. I'm not even saying that they're necessarily wrong to do so, just that "derp other companies in unrelated contexts weren't stopped by regulation" doesn't even close to approach a sensible response to "regulation might impede improvement of the housing problem". [1] http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-tiny-houses-seized-20160224-story.html http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-tiny-houses-seiz...
otempomores 10y ago
That very same goverment invented resource scarcity to stop people from having houses even if they could afford them..

smogcutter 10y ago

In what specific ways is homelessness a problem which is illegal to solve?

wutbrodo 10y ago
I'm not the parent commenter, but I've heard this complaint before, and it usually boils down to zoning and some types of development limits drastically reducing the efficiency of the housing market (in terms of provision of housing to the most people). AFAICT, it's not really controversial that land use regulation is a big chunk of what's responsible for the craziest housing markets in the country[1]. An illustrative example is the shocking cost-effectiveness of trailer parks. The fact that the land beneath the trailer generally isn't owned means that they're technically free of a lot of the weird distortions of the regular property market, and thus people who would otherwise be homeless are able to avoid the impossible choice of a house they can't afford or living on the sidewalk. [1] http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21647614-poor-land-use-worlds-greatest-cities-carries-huge-cost-space-and-city http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21647614-poor-land-use...

forgetsusername 10y ago

The building of cheap houses isn't the problem. Who maintains them? Who enforces the code? Who insures them? Who is liable for them? These are things that "SV" sometimes ignores. That's why these are bigger problems.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
Google "Tiny homes homelessness". The project I'm fond of "A Tiny Home For Good" in upstate NY purchases cheap city lots (or takes land donations), has volunteers build the tiny homes, and then provides them to the homeless to get them back on their feet. The regulations aren't hard. Simply put down your JavaScript framework of the week and go out to do real work that effects change. Prepare to work long days and not get rich, but make people's lives better. But people won't, and that's SVs problem.
- Animats 10y ago
  That's in Syracuse NY, an emptying city with lots of vacant real estate. How could this work in California? Build a town of tiny houses somewhere with low-value real estate, like San Bernardino or Lodi, and ship the SF homeless there? Add-on feature: free drugs and free training. 1 in 1000 doses is lethal. Everybody is clearly told this up front. In three years, the druggies have been filtered out and the rest have useful training.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    It doesn't work in high cost of living areas without government subsidies; them the breaks of capitalism. I'm not against giving drug users a safe place to use with a roof over their head, as long as they're not a danger to others; I would like to see dedicated social, mental health, and addiction counseling services provided for those who want the help. How do we make land less valuable? That's the question. Where you live should not constrain or restrict your quality of life.
    - NoGravitas 10y ago

mifreewil 10y ago

Homelessness has a multitude of problems, not all are because of government regulation. But yes, in many places (SF and SV), homelessness is at least caused in part by local zoning that mostly comes from entrenched interests (existing homeowners) and blocks most new building of housing. Local zoning in the US seems to be where democracy is at it's strongest, and capitalism at it's weakest, often to detriment of most people (renters).

collyw 10y ago

Regulations didn't stop Uber or Airbnb.

wutbrodo 10y ago
It's simply intellectually lazy to assume that that must apply universally. It's usually useful to think through how that happened and what that might imply about when the political will doesn't exist to push back against loopholes. In the case of Uber, the class of people that benefited economically were the kind that wield a fair amount of money and political influence. This means that 1) Uber had enough revenue (and promise of future revenue) that they had the resources to fight legal battles and 2) a reasonably politically influential class of people was likely to be on their side in any potential regulatory battle. As an aside, the perceived minimum reasonable amount of regulation required for housing is a good deal higher than that of transport. This makes forward movement without the co-operation of the regulatory regime much more difficult, since working outside of the regulatory framework exposes you to real problems involving sanitation, fire safety, infrastructure, etc[1]. The homeless unfortunately _don't_ wield these kind of resources or political influence, so efforts to route around housing regulation in a way that benefits the homeless has no economic incentive backing it (and much of the time and money currently dedicated to fighting homelessness generally doesn't think of housing regulation as a problem). This isn't even entirely hypothetical; the article I linked in this comment is about a guy in LA building mini-houses for the homeless that the city keeps tearing down. I'm not even saying that they're necessarily wrong to do so, just that "derp other companies in unrelated contexts weren't stopped by regulation" doesn't even close to approach a sensible response to "regulation might impede improvement of the housing problem". [1] http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-tiny-houses-seized-20160224-story.html http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-tiny-houses-seiz...

otempomores 10y ago

That very same goverment invented resource scarcity to stop people from having houses even if they could afford them..