6 ms·

This seems like such a roundabout system. We run a program to give people money to build housing and rent it out for less than it's worth to people who don't ha

This seems like such a roundabout system. We run a program to give people money to build housing and rent it out for less than it's worth to people who don't have the money to pay full price for housing. It seems like you could cut out a lot of the complexity just by giving the money directly to the people who can't afford housing. Or, being a little less trusting, pay some portion of their rent directly.

nostrebored 10y ago
That would just cause an increase of low rents.
pc86 10y ago
Paying a portion of their rent would just drive up rent prices.
- mhb 10y ago
  Yes, until more supply is created to meet the increased demand.
- moultano 10y ago
  Some, but enough to entirely eat it up provided that there are lots of unsubsidized renters.
jotux 10y ago
>It seems like you could cut out a lot of the complexity just by giving the money directly to the people who can't afford housing. Or, being a little less trusting, pay some portion of their rent directly. Isn't this Section 8? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing)
- one2three4five 10y ago
  Yes.
sparkling 10y ago
> Or, being a little less trusting, pay some portion of their rent directly. Look at the raise in college tuition prices ever since goverment got involved in student loans. That is precisely what will happen when goverment starts sending landlords paychecks.
- ihartley 10y ago
  This already happens in cities with a large military presence thanks to their housing allotment and it does seem to drive prices up for renters.
- sidlls 10y ago
  Section 8 is basically direct payments to landlords to subsidize low-income tenants. The rent on these places isn't in the same ballpark as "market rate" regarding price increases. Instead what these landlords do is the same thing as we (collectively, as a society) do: treat their low-income tenants like sub-human garbage; a nuisance to be avoided or ridiculed when that isn't an option. They cut corners on maintenance and take liberties with timeliness of repairs and so on, because what are their tenants going to do? Move? Hardly. The government oversight body has to do a lot of work to keep these landlords honest (they can lose their subsidy and suffer other punishments if they don't comply with regulations and minimum standards).
  - ticviking 10y ago
    Sufficiently harsh and prompt punishments would likely solve that problem. But we don't like the idea that the government might seize properties or the like as a punishment. So...
  - nnfy 10y ago
    Perhaps section 8 tenants are treated as "subhuman garbage" (quite an exaggeration, I'd say) because they are more likely to miss payments and destroy property? These evil landlords are not running charities. Maintnence is probably sub par because, as you mentioned, the rent is generally far below market.
cortesoft 10y ago
I always find it funny how much extra tax payers are willing to spend because they don't 'trust' poor people to spend the money wisely. Even if some people spend the money on stupid things, I would rather suffer that cost than waste even more money trying to control what they spend their aid on.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  My guess would be lack of empathy. For some reason, some people don't want to imagine a set of circumstances that would left one in need of aid from the society. Sure, no one I know would deny tax-sponsored help to someone who suffered calamities of biblical Job. But a regularly-looking person receiving help? No, they must be just lazy and trying to steal my hard-earned money! It's ironical that many such people would nevertheless take all aid they are eligible for. In Poland, there's this recent government program called "500+", which wants to encourage families to have more children by offering them 500 PLN (around 125 USD) per month, tax-free, for every child after the first one. When it was introduced, I found myself surprised by all the hate from almost every one I know. For instance, the typical opinion of my cow-orkers is that the primary users of this program are pathological, lazy people who will breed more pathological, lazy people. Note that at the same time, those same cow-orkers admit that if they were eligible for it, they'd obviously take the handout. I just don't understand where all that hate towards other people comes from. And don't get me started on immigration...
- d0lph 10y ago
  A lot of poor people are poor due to bad financial decisions. Things like, you should pay the rent before going to McDonalds. It's the reason many people don't give money to the homeless on the streets.
  - jshevek 10y ago
    Yes. Many people, from all classes, make terrible financial decisions - particularly if they struggle with addiction. Giving such people money usually does nothing to improve their situation. They must first address their addictions and learn to make good decisions before they can really benefit from an infusion of money.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
atemerev 10y ago
This will just contribute to rising costs spiral, as it's already the case with healthcare and education. Such kind of arrangements are only profitable for existing big players in the market. The only sustainable way to make something affordable is to push down the prices. The only way to do it is to increase competition — which, in order, requires dramatically lowering the barriers of entry. But it seems that nobody is actually interested in that, and NIMBY attitude and monetary diversion schemes prevail.
- ThrustVectoring 10y ago
  Of course not. Lowering the cost to build housing benefits developers and people looking to move into the community. Subsidizing rents directly lines the pockets of landowners in the local community, as does restricting supply. Guess who has the most votes for determining local policy?
- bradleyjg 10y ago
  We need a lot more units. That's it. All these crazy schemes with lotteries, vouchers, and set asides are all unnecessary. We just need more units. Remove the laws that prevent building more units and tax the value of the land as opposed to the value of the property as a whole. That second part encourages maximum use of the land, which generally means more units. Other than that, work on the infrastructure to support the new units and get out of the way.
  - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
    How about disincentivizing the centralization of jobs? Then housing wouldn't be ins such high demand in such a small geographic area and prices would go down.
    - nostrebored 10y ago
      Centralization of jobs has worked well for nearly every other non-US city practically forever. Other places have fewer zoning laws etc. that cause an artificial shortage of houses in what would be high-density areas.
SN76477 10y ago
Where ever there is money, there are hands trying to take it.
johnrob 10y ago
Build more inventory. None of these tricks will solve the problem of fitting X families into Y homes, where X > Y. The unspoken constraint in every housing debate is to avoid adding new supply and risk devaluing the existing investments made by constituents.
closeparen 10y ago
The point is to reserve capacity for the demographic you're trying to help, and fix the price at what they can afford. Just giving poor renters a subsidy puts them in competition with middle-class renters for the same units. Middle-class renters can always win that competition by repurposing some of their discretionary income towards rent. Poor renters stay priced out, and middle class renters pay more for the same units. No thanks.
stuaxo 10y ago
We do this in the UK as housing benefit, and it ends up as a subsidy to homeowners. Combine that rents increasing way beyond inflation and it's not good value at all.

nostrebored 10y ago

That would just cause an increase of low rents.

pc86 10y ago

Paying a portion of their rent would just drive up rent prices.

mhb 10y ago
Yes, until more supply is created to meet the increased demand.
moultano 10y ago
Some, but enough to entirely eat it up provided that there are lots of unsubsidized renters.

jotux 10y ago

>It seems like you could cut out a lot of the complexity just by giving the money directly to the people who can't afford housing. Or, being a little less trusting, pay some portion of their rent directly. Isn't this Section 8? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing)

one2three4five 10y ago
Yes.

sparkling 10y ago

> Or, being a little less trusting, pay some portion of their rent directly. Look at the raise in college tuition prices ever since goverment got involved in student loans. That is precisely what will happen when goverment starts sending landlords paychecks.

ihartley 10y ago
This already happens in cities with a large military presence thanks to their housing allotment and it does seem to drive prices up for renters.
sidlls 10y ago
Section 8 is basically direct payments to landlords to subsidize low-income tenants. The rent on these places isn't in the same ballpark as "market rate" regarding price increases. Instead what these landlords do is the same thing as we (collectively, as a society) do: treat their low-income tenants like sub-human garbage; a nuisance to be avoided or ridiculed when that isn't an option. They cut corners on maintenance and take liberties with timeliness of repairs and so on, because what are their tenants going to do? Move? Hardly. The government oversight body has to do a lot of work to keep these landlords honest (they can lose their subsidy and suffer other punishments if they don't comply with regulations and minimum standards).
- ticviking 10y ago
  Sufficiently harsh and prompt punishments would likely solve that problem. But we don't like the idea that the government might seize properties or the like as a punishment. So...
- nnfy 10y ago
  Perhaps section 8 tenants are treated as "subhuman garbage" (quite an exaggeration, I'd say) because they are more likely to miss payments and destroy property? These evil landlords are not running charities. Maintnence is probably sub par because, as you mentioned, the rent is generally far below market.

cortesoft 10y ago

I always find it funny how much extra tax payers are willing to spend because they don't 'trust' poor people to spend the money wisely. Even if some people spend the money on stupid things, I would rather suffer that cost than waste even more money trying to control what they spend their aid on.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
My guess would be lack of empathy. For some reason, some people don't want to imagine a set of circumstances that would left one in need of aid from the society. Sure, no one I know would deny tax-sponsored help to someone who suffered calamities of biblical Job. But a regularly-looking person receiving help? No, they must be just lazy and trying to steal my hard-earned money! It's ironical that many such people would nevertheless take all aid they are eligible for. In Poland, there's this recent government program called "500+", which wants to encourage families to have more children by offering them 500 PLN (around 125 USD) per month, tax-free, for every child after the first one. When it was introduced, I found myself surprised by all the hate from almost every one I know. For instance, the typical opinion of my cow-orkers is that the primary users of this program are pathological, lazy people who will breed more pathological, lazy people. Note that at the same time, those same cow-orkers admit that if they were eligible for it, they'd obviously take the handout. I just don't understand where all that hate towards other people comes from. And don't get me started on immigration...
d0lph 10y ago
A lot of poor people are poor due to bad financial decisions. Things like, you should pay the rent before going to McDonalds. It's the reason many people don't give money to the homeless on the streets.
- jshevek 10y ago
  Yes. Many people, from all classes, make terrible financial decisions - particularly if they struggle with addiction. Giving such people money usually does nothing to improve their situation. They must first address their addictions and learn to make good decisions before they can really benefit from an infusion of money.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

atemerev 10y ago

This will just contribute to rising costs spiral, as it's already the case with healthcare and education. Such kind of arrangements are only profitable for existing big players in the market. The only sustainable way to make something affordable is to push down the prices. The only way to do it is to increase competition — which, in order, requires dramatically lowering the barriers of entry. But it seems that nobody is actually interested in that, and NIMBY attitude and monetary diversion schemes prevail.

ThrustVectoring 10y ago
Of course not. Lowering the cost to build housing benefits developers and people looking to move into the community. Subsidizing rents directly lines the pockets of landowners in the local community, as does restricting supply. Guess who has the most votes for determining local policy?
bradleyjg 10y ago
We need a lot more units. That's it. All these crazy schemes with lotteries, vouchers, and set asides are all unnecessary. We just need more units. Remove the laws that prevent building more units and tax the value of the land as opposed to the value of the property as a whole. That second part encourages maximum use of the land, which generally means more units. Other than that, work on the infrastructure to support the new units and get out of the way.
- TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
  How about disincentivizing the centralization of jobs? Then housing wouldn't be ins such high demand in such a small geographic area and prices would go down.
  - nostrebored 10y ago
    Centralization of jobs has worked well for nearly every other non-US city practically forever. Other places have fewer zoning laws etc. that cause an artificial shortage of houses in what would be high-density areas.

SN76477 10y ago

Where ever there is money, there are hands trying to take it.

johnrob 10y ago

Build more inventory. None of these tricks will solve the problem of fitting X families into Y homes, where X > Y. The unspoken constraint in every housing debate is to avoid adding new supply and risk devaluing the existing investments made by constituents.

closeparen 10y ago

The point is to reserve capacity for the demographic you're trying to help, and fix the price at what they can afford. Just giving poor renters a subsidy puts them in competition with middle-class renters for the same units. Middle-class renters can always win that competition by repurposing some of their discretionary income towards rent. Poor renters stay priced out, and middle class renters pay more for the same units. No thanks.

stuaxo 10y ago

We do this in the UK as housing benefit, and it ends up as a subsidy to homeowners. Combine that rents increasing way beyond inflation and it's not good value at all.