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There is a lot that could be done to fix this crisis that would not even require more government spending -- drastically reform land use regulations, zoning law
by zkms 9y ago
There is a lot that could be done to fix this crisis that would not even require more government spending -- drastically reform land use regulations, zoning laws, and other similar regulations.
Laws that require fire sprinklers, escape routes, and floors that don't collapse aren't the issue -- the issue lies with laws that mandate a certain amount of luxury (like minimum square-footage requirements, occupancy limits, and restrictions on roommates who aren't family).
By mandating a certain level of luxury (and thus, of cost), the only effect is to make sure that people who can't afford it will end up homeless; or illegally subletting, squatting, or some other black-market, unsafe option that leaves them at the mercy of slumlords who know that they are the last option for housing. It's crucial to note that there is no backpressure mechanism at work here -- reducing housing options for people with the least money will not cause the construction of housing that meets those standards. Mandating luxury does not work without mandating supply as well. Such zoning laws ended SROs and rooming houses (by prohibiting any new construction) and such drastic reductions in the cheapest housing options have led us to this.
Mandating any sorts of minimum standards for luxury of housing units without mandating supply will not fix anything. I use the word "luxury" intentionally here -- from the perspective of someone who has had to sleep in homeless shelters, a dry room big enough for a bed and with a door that locks (for which one has the only key) is serviceable housing.
To quote Paul Groth,
> a good hotel room of 150 square feet—dry space, perhaps with a bath or a room sink, cold and sometimes hot water, enough electric service to run a 60-watt bulb and a television, central heat, and access to telephones and other services—constitutes a living unit mechanically more luxuriant than those lived in by a third to a half of the population of the earth. As Dolores Hayden reminds us, many of the world's people would consider an American two-car garage an excellent dwelling in its own right.
Hell, even the smallest commercial office space rentals are much cheaper (i've seen some go for $200/month) and safer (they are in sprinklered buildings) than any housing most USians can access. It is morally abhorrent for zoning laws to criminalise renting a room inside a sprinklered building when the alternative is living on the street or in a homeless shelter.
- geezerjay 9y ago> Laws that require fire sprinklers, escape routes, and floors that don't collapse aren't the issue -- the issue lies with laws that mandate a certain amount of luxury (like minimum square-footage requirements, occupancy limits, and restrictions on roommates who aren't family). If you believe that enabling unsanitary 3rd world hellholes, just because you assume that would make housing a tiny bit less expensive, represents any type of progress... Perhaps you should rethink your priorities.
- linkregister 9y agoI think you are mischaracterizing the parent poster's statement. You're imagining that they're referencing 3rd-world hell holes, but they're not. Look again. > a dry room big enough for a bed and with a door that locks (for which one has the only key) is serviceable housing. What they're referring to is a boarding house with common lavatories and eating areas, which was deemed sufficient for most U.S. congressmen staying in Washington for the nation's first 80 years. The case isn't being made that this is a good permanent solution. However, boarding houses are much better than the streets, which is the next lowest rung from long-term motels.
- ThrustVectoring 9y agoIf building a bedroom breaks even at $1000/mo in rent, and there's folks who can only afford to pay $250/mo in rent, there's two options: either they shack up four to a room, or they go on the streets. How is four people living in a room more of an unsanitary 3rd world hellhole than four people sleeping in the streets?
- candiodari 9y agoWell, easy: for a lot of people, they will improve their situation until they have a basic minimal luxury available to them. So by rising that minimum level of luxury they want, you're making them work harder. The result is that the ratios are out of whack. By creating 2% homeless instead of 0.2%, you're massively increasing average luxury, and therefore making sure 20% don't live in shared housing with it's problems (e.g. everything gets stolen, especially from the weak, and of course women have some extra issues). Your argument assumes that by lowering standards you can fix things. You can, but only by creating other problems (sanitation standards going down by a lot, for one thing, which WILL result in consequences). It's pretty hard to see this until you've lived in both situations. If you want to avoid this: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/17/asia/china-beijing-rat-tribe/ http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/17/asia/china-beijing-rat-tri... then you need to accept that you're also creating homeless in the process. Better solution is to ease up on the limits on expanding supply. It's not like it's construction costs preventing new buildings from going down.
- 9y ago
- ThrustVectoring 9y agoMaybe I'm just super cynical, but reducing housing options for people with the least money seems like it's the entire point. Like, the NIMBY types have also opposed building mass transit lines to link up their community more cheaply, often hinting that it'd bring the wrong sort of people into their community. Local neighborhood groups don't have the power to make people not be poor, but they do have the power to make people not be poor near them, and that's good enough in their books.
- ticviking 9y agoI'm sad that this explains so many issues I've had with transit in my community.