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The original sin in California is Prop 13. Nearly all of our budget and housing issues can be traced back to that god awful ballot proposition. With high housi

The original sin in California is Prop 13. Nearly all of our budget and housing issues can be traced back to that god awful ballot proposition. With high housing costs comes increased homelessness, higher wages for public employees, larger pension liabilities, and on and on.

centimeter 6y ago
There is zero evidence that homelessness is caused to any substantial degree by high housing costs. The kind of people who are chronically homeless at $3000/mo/1br are also chronically homeless at $1000/mo/1br. They usually have some kind of mental problem or drug addiction, not just “they can’t afford rent”. The people at the margins of being able to afford housing usually just move elsewhere, rather than end up on the streets.
- mikeyouse 6y ago
  Zero evidence? That charging more for housing increases the number of people that cant afford housing? It’s tautological... The majority of San Francisco’s homeless are from San Francisco and were recently homed.. if not for cost, what’s causing people with stable housing to end up on the streets?
- cheriot 6y ago
  High housing costs make people financially vulnerable. Then all it takes is illness or an unexpected bill to miss rent and get evicted. High housing costs mean housing vouchers cover fewer people with its budget. > They usually have some kind of mental problem or drug addiction, not just “they can’t afford rent”. I suspect you're making assumptions based on the more visible homeless people you see, but if there's any data to back that up I'd love to see it. calmatters.org does some of the best reporting on housing and homelessness topics. For example https://calmatters.org/explainers/californias-homelessness-crisis-explained/ https://calmatters.org/explainers/californias-homelessness-c...
  - refurb 6y ago
    SFgov 2019 survey on homelessness (page 70) [1] "Do you have any of the following health conditions?" Drug or alcohol abuse - 37% Any psychiatric or emotional condition - 35% Those are the top two health conditions identified. There is obviously overlap since the total of all of the answers is >100%. [1]https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDReport_SanFrancisco_FinalDraft-1.pdf https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep...
    - DanBC 6y ago
      If the argument is how people become homeless, rather than why they stay homeless, we need to be a little bit careful with causal direction. Some people become homeless because they are mentally ill and can't maintain a tenancy. Some people develop a mental illness after becoming homeless because it's living on the street is pretty stressful.
gwright 6y ago
I think this illustrates a weakness of legislation via ballot propositions. It is too easy for the resulting statutes or articles to be contradictory or become out of sync with new realities/data and there is no legislative mechanism to adjust. In reading up on the process, I realize that there is a mechanism to sort our explicit conflicts, but that doesn't mean everything that is passed works well together in practice.
remote_phone 6y ago
The original sin was politicians spending the state into oblivion and then raising property taxes year over year. Prop 13 was in direct consequence to this and a way to protect taxpayers from politicians that keep raising taxes to solve their problems. It is great for homeowners and I love knowing that my property taxes won’t go sky high and force me out of my house when I retire. High housing costs are directly because of the stock market and tech employees becoming inordinately wealthy. Prop 13 was around for decades and housing only became unaffordable in the last 10 years because of the rise of FANG.
- tdeck 6y ago
  If politicians are "spending the state into oblivion", surely the solution is to limit spending. Limiting revenue doesn't help balance the budget (although it does help landowners who are relatively wealthy and use property as a tax shelter).
  - Simulacra 6y ago
    I have not found many proposals from the legislature that curtails or limits spending.
refurb 6y ago
Nearly all of our budget and housing issues What budget issues? SF budget is tops across almost all US cities in per capita spending.
- mikeyouse 6y ago
  Mainly because these comparisons are never apples to apples - SF is a City/County so the budget includes normal County expenses where many other city budgets don’t (eg the entire Sheriffs office and jail system). Also SF’s budget includes the Port of San Francisco and one of busiest airports in the country - both of which are net profitable to the city but whose expenses should be backed out if you’re doing a $$$ spent per capita calculation. I’m too lazy to do it myself but I’d love to see “cleaned up” numbers that take this stuff into account.
  - refurb 6y ago
    I don’t disagree that’s not an apples to apples comparison, but Philadelphia is an “ok” comparison since they cover county costs and an airport (but not ports). They are ~50% of SF’s per capita spending. Regardless, I think the argument that SF just “needs more money” isn’t a particularly strong one.
    - mikeyouse 6y ago
      I think a large part of California's issues come down to an inflationary spiral led by the absurd housing costs. I don't think it's unreasonable for city workers to want to be able to afford to live in the city that they work in. E.g. the average SF police officer should be able to afford to live in SF. What this has meant in practice though is that we keep giving city employees raises on raises on raises to keep up with housing costs which means everything else is crowded out and the long-term pension costs of these now inflated salaries is astronomical. If a 2-bedroom apartment were $1,500/month instead of $3,500/month, the 'fair' cost to a city worker would be much lower and by virtue our entire tax base could shrink. As they say though, wages are sticky in the downward direction, so even if California were to flip a switch and do a 180 with their housing policies, these costs will be with us for a very long time. Property tax reform paired with lowered income taxes would be a good first step though.

centimeter 6y ago

There is zero evidence that homelessness is caused to any substantial degree by high housing costs. The kind of people who are chronically homeless at $3000/mo/1br are also chronically homeless at $1000/mo/1br. They usually have some kind of mental problem or drug addiction, not just “they can’t afford rent”. The people at the margins of being able to afford housing usually just move elsewhere, rather than end up on the streets.

mikeyouse 6y ago
Zero evidence? That charging more for housing increases the number of people that cant afford housing? It’s tautological... The majority of San Francisco’s homeless are from San Francisco and were recently homed.. if not for cost, what’s causing people with stable housing to end up on the streets?
cheriot 6y ago
High housing costs make people financially vulnerable. Then all it takes is illness or an unexpected bill to miss rent and get evicted. High housing costs mean housing vouchers cover fewer people with its budget. > They usually have some kind of mental problem or drug addiction, not just “they can’t afford rent”. I suspect you're making assumptions based on the more visible homeless people you see, but if there's any data to back that up I'd love to see it. calmatters.org does some of the best reporting on housing and homelessness topics. For example https://calmatters.org/explainers/californias-homelessness-crisis-explained/ https://calmatters.org/explainers/californias-homelessness-c...
- refurb 6y ago
  SFgov 2019 survey on homelessness (page 70) [1] "Do you have any of the following health conditions?" Drug or alcohol abuse - 37% Any psychiatric or emotional condition - 35% Those are the top two health conditions identified. There is obviously overlap since the total of all of the answers is >100%. [1]https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDReport_SanFrancisco_FinalDraft-1.pdf https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep...
  - DanBC 6y ago
    If the argument is how people become homeless, rather than why they stay homeless, we need to be a little bit careful with causal direction. Some people become homeless because they are mentally ill and can't maintain a tenancy. Some people develop a mental illness after becoming homeless because it's living on the street is pretty stressful.

gwright 6y ago

I think this illustrates a weakness of legislation via ballot propositions. It is too easy for the resulting statutes or articles to be contradictory or become out of sync with new realities/data and there is no legislative mechanism to adjust. In reading up on the process, I realize that there is a mechanism to sort our explicit conflicts, but that doesn't mean everything that is passed works well together in practice.

remote_phone 6y ago

The original sin was politicians spending the state into oblivion and then raising property taxes year over year. Prop 13 was in direct consequence to this and a way to protect taxpayers from politicians that keep raising taxes to solve their problems. It is great for homeowners and I love knowing that my property taxes won’t go sky high and force me out of my house when I retire. High housing costs are directly because of the stock market and tech employees becoming inordinately wealthy. Prop 13 was around for decades and housing only became unaffordable in the last 10 years because of the rise of FANG.

tdeck 6y ago
If politicians are "spending the state into oblivion", surely the solution is to limit spending. Limiting revenue doesn't help balance the budget (although it does help landowners who are relatively wealthy and use property as a tax shelter).
- Simulacra 6y ago
  I have not found many proposals from the legislature that curtails or limits spending.

refurb 6y ago

Nearly all of our budget and housing issues What budget issues? SF budget is tops across almost all US cities in per capita spending.

mikeyouse 6y ago
Mainly because these comparisons are never apples to apples - SF is a City/County so the budget includes normal County expenses where many other city budgets don’t (eg the entire Sheriffs office and jail system). Also SF’s budget includes the Port of San Francisco and one of busiest airports in the country - both of which are net profitable to the city but whose expenses should be backed out if you’re doing a $$$ spent per capita calculation. I’m too lazy to do it myself but I’d love to see “cleaned up” numbers that take this stuff into account.
- refurb 6y ago
  I don’t disagree that’s not an apples to apples comparison, but Philadelphia is an “ok” comparison since they cover county costs and an airport (but not ports). They are ~50% of SF’s per capita spending. Regardless, I think the argument that SF just “needs more money” isn’t a particularly strong one.
  - mikeyouse 6y ago
    I think a large part of California's issues come down to an inflationary spiral led by the absurd housing costs. I don't think it's unreasonable for city workers to want to be able to afford to live in the city that they work in. E.g. the average SF police officer should be able to afford to live in SF. What this has meant in practice though is that we keep giving city employees raises on raises on raises to keep up with housing costs which means everything else is crowded out and the long-term pension costs of these now inflated salaries is astronomical. If a 2-bedroom apartment were $1,500/month instead of $3,500/month, the 'fair' cost to a city worker would be much lower and by virtue our entire tax base could shrink. As they say though, wages are sticky in the downward direction, so even if California were to flip a switch and do a 180 with their housing policies, these costs will be with us for a very long time. Property tax reform paired with lowered income taxes would be a good first step though.