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If you don't constrain the prices or increase as well then the prices will go up forever and your subsidies will get higher and higher. Student loans work like

by lovich 8y ago

If you don't constrain the prices or increase as well then the prices will go up forever and your subsidies will get higher and higher. Student loans work like this currently. There is not enough housing for everyone who wants to live in SF to live in SF. Some people are going to lose. If it's left to market forces then the losers are going to be the people with the least money. If you do it randomly it's going to be arbitrary. If you let the government pick and choose who gets in your going to get discrimination as people's biases sneak in. Every approach has advantages and disadvantages so SF is going to have to pick which trade-off it wants unless it builds more housing

sp332 8y ago
Well, instead of companies paying employees money which goes to rent, the city could tax those companies to subsidize the housing instead. That would make similar amounts of money available but the city would have more control over who gets the rent money. Unforeseen consequences abound, I'm just pointing out that rent doesn't have to go up forever.
- lovich 8y ago
  I don't see how that will prevent rent from going up forever unless you put a cap on prices. Salaries in SF keep going up because rent is going up. The subsidy would have to continue to grow forever. If you are looking to just have certain groups of people to live there without concern for rising rents, just mandate rent control instead of the layers of indirection
  - sp332 8y ago
    Yeah just speaking mathematically, that rent has to come out of a new employee's paycheck. And if the companies are being taxed to pay the subsidy to a different employee, that puts a cap on how high rent can be. Assuming people are coming to the city to work and not buying a 10th home as a "pied-a-terre" using money earned elsewhere.
    - lovich 8y ago
      Theoretically there is a cap on rent through the forces you are describing, but we have no idea where that cap is and have yet to see it in reality. If its arbitrarily high it may as well be infinite for how it affects budgeting. Rent control will achieve the same pros and cons as your system but with a known value that people can plan around instead of seeing just how much money is going to be passed around in tax

by lovich 8y ago

sp332 8y ago

Well, instead of companies paying employees money which goes to rent, the city could tax those companies to subsidize the housing instead. That would make similar amounts of money available but the city would have more control over who gets the rent money. Unforeseen consequences abound, I'm just pointing out that rent doesn't have to go up forever.

lovich 8y ago
I don't see how that will prevent rent from going up forever unless you put a cap on prices. Salaries in SF keep going up because rent is going up. The subsidy would have to continue to grow forever. If you are looking to just have certain groups of people to live there without concern for rising rents, just mandate rent control instead of the layers of indirection
- sp332 8y ago
  Yeah just speaking mathematically, that rent has to come out of a new employee's paycheck. And if the companies are being taxed to pay the subsidy to a different employee, that puts a cap on how high rent can be. Assuming people are coming to the city to work and not buying a 10th home as a "pied-a-terre" using money earned elsewhere.
  - lovich 8y ago
    Theoretically there is a cap on rent through the forces you are describing, but we have no idea where that cap is and have yet to see it in reality. If its arbitrarily high it may as well be infinite for how it affects budgeting. Rent control will achieve the same pros and cons as your system but with a known value that people can plan around instead of seeing just how much money is going to be passed around in tax