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How can it be housing when there are so many vacancies? I honestly don't understand this. Obviously they can't afford it, but that's how markets work. When ther

by proc0 5y ago

How can it be housing when there are so many vacancies? I honestly don't understand this. Obviously they can't afford it, but that's how markets work. When there is high demand, prices go up. It seems to me the solution is just for people to go elsewhere... again, the housing is there, plenty of rentals everywhere, except too expensive for someone who is living on the streets to, all of a sudden, start paying for, yet they can't live anywhere else? Also politicians where talking about an exit tax for people who leave, or something like that. You can't have it both ways: be the most popular destination and also have affordable housing. It's either/or, and people who can't afford simply need to go elsewhere that they can afford. How can that not be an option for people? It seems to me everyone just ignores individual incentives when talking about this problem. What are these people on the street motivated by? What do they want? And why can't they decide to go to a less popular, and cheaper place to live and work? I honestly would not stay in CA if I couldn't afford it, and would at least find a cheaper place to be homeless in, just to have a better chance to afford a place. When are we going to start factoring in these people's agency and incentives? They are people with desires, motivations, and plans.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
Author here. The short version: We used to build small homes in walkable neighborhoods where you could live without a car and have reasonable rent. That's mostly gone. You not only need to cover the cost of a large home, cars are mostly not optional for most Americans. This is a huge additional expense. The combination is killer.
- proc0 5y ago
  Ok, yeah the lack of walkable cities does make sense. Almost all cities require cars even with cheap housing, and large cities provide better job opportunities. I still feel we're not factoring in people's motivation for living on the streets, and authorities seem to provide incentives which encourage it. I'm sure there is a percentage of people that could find alternatives like living with a friend or relative, if they really had to, but CA feels forcing people is somehow not being empathetic or something, when really you are enabling them and perhaps setting them up for a lifetime of being on the streets. I think we should factor in incentives, and also the diverse reasons and motives each person has, as oppose to blaming it all on lack of housing.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    I was homeless for nearly six years. I hated it. It wasn't actually anything I wanted. Most people on the street don't want to be there. The research points to housing as the primary root cause.
    - proc0 5y ago
      I mean the housing IS there, just maybe not in the high demand areas. Is is that we need to have a bunch of excess housing so it lowers in price? I had a couple friends who were homeless in SF, and slowly got out of it. Places like SF are just limited in square footage, it's like an island basically, yet people are living on the streets there for decades... shouldn't they try a different city if they really didn't want to be on the streets? I mean years outside in the same city seems suspicious to me that it's really housing.
    - holler 5y ago
      Directly next to where I live there are multiple people living in the hillside. Each day for the past year+ they park their BMW, Honda Accord, and Toyota Camry on our street, and then walk off into the park, hop a fence, and down to wherever it is their tents are. It's really perplexing to see someone driving a ~2010 clean BMW while choosing to live in the hillside. My determination is that they're simply choosing that lifestyle for whatever reason.
      - DoreenMichele 5y ago
        A 2010 auto is likely paid off. The carrying costs are low. That doesn't mean they can afford rent. It just means they have some income, but probably not enough to support a middle class lifestyle.
      - reillyse 5y ago
        Ah high percentage of people living homeless in Los Angeles, (in the region of 60% if I remember from the survey) have at least one job. They get paid money, just not enough money to rent somewhere. There is no "lifestyle" to choose.
jdavis703 5y ago
Most areas (pre-pandemic) did not have enough vacancy to put pressure on the housing market. Most of the vacancy was caused by units being renovated/fixed, places waiting for a leaseholder to move in, etc. This is even true of low-income housing and shelters. Occasionally people will gripe about shelter vacancies, without realizing it’s really difficult to maintain 100% housing utilization without denying some people housing.
- proc0 5y ago
  Right, but is this in the high demand areas only? Are there no other nearby cities with cheaper rent and also potential jobs? I still blame the authorities for allowing areas with high concentration of homeless people, since that discourages them to find solutions and instead enables them to settle down with other people outside, when perhaps they could try their luck in a less expensive, less dense area.
  - mjevans 5y ago
    Cheaper rent is relative. I invite you to pick any major city, particularly one on the west coast with a population over 500K for their metro area who's name you recognize from any news or professional setting. Look up the rents in the downtown area. Then look at a traffic map for around rush hour in the morning / evening; the worst part of that period. Take a sample of suburbs an hour, maybe even two hours out to form some rings. The price of rent goes down a little, but the price in fuel and taxation on a commuter doesn't. MOST of these cities also, if they even have it, will have mass transit optimized to a mega-downtown hub with spokes, for peek commuters only. Even that will still suck about as much as traffic, but costs less. Pre-pandemic, when I last looked at numbers, Seattle wanted around 3000+ a month for like a single room apartment, maybe a bit less if it was a really crummy place. A rundown suburb an hour or so out cost about half of that for a little more, or for a tiny bit less you could rent a house, including a covered garage.

by proc0 5y ago

DoreenMichele 5y ago

Author here. The short version: We used to build small homes in walkable neighborhoods where you could live without a car and have reasonable rent. That's mostly gone. You not only need to cover the cost of a large home, cars are mostly not optional for most Americans. This is a huge additional expense. The combination is killer.

proc0 5y ago
Ok, yeah the lack of walkable cities does make sense. Almost all cities require cars even with cheap housing, and large cities provide better job opportunities. I still feel we're not factoring in people's motivation for living on the streets, and authorities seem to provide incentives which encourage it. I'm sure there is a percentage of people that could find alternatives like living with a friend or relative, if they really had to, but CA feels forcing people is somehow not being empathetic or something, when really you are enabling them and perhaps setting them up for a lifetime of being on the streets. I think we should factor in incentives, and also the diverse reasons and motives each person has, as oppose to blaming it all on lack of housing.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  I was homeless for nearly six years. I hated it. It wasn't actually anything I wanted. Most people on the street don't want to be there. The research points to housing as the primary root cause.
  - proc0 5y ago
    I mean the housing IS there, just maybe not in the high demand areas. Is is that we need to have a bunch of excess housing so it lowers in price? I had a couple friends who were homeless in SF, and slowly got out of it. Places like SF are just limited in square footage, it's like an island basically, yet people are living on the streets there for decades... shouldn't they try a different city if they really didn't want to be on the streets? I mean years outside in the same city seems suspicious to me that it's really housing.
  - holler 5y ago
    Directly next to where I live there are multiple people living in the hillside. Each day for the past year+ they park their BMW, Honda Accord, and Toyota Camry on our street, and then walk off into the park, hop a fence, and down to wherever it is their tents are. It's really perplexing to see someone driving a ~2010 clean BMW while choosing to live in the hillside. My determination is that they're simply choosing that lifestyle for whatever reason.
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      A 2010 auto is likely paid off. The carrying costs are low. That doesn't mean they can afford rent. It just means they have some income, but probably not enough to support a middle class lifestyle.
    - reillyse 5y ago
      Ah high percentage of people living homeless in Los Angeles, (in the region of 60% if I remember from the survey) have at least one job. They get paid money, just not enough money to rent somewhere. There is no "lifestyle" to choose.

jdavis703 5y ago

Most areas (pre-pandemic) did not have enough vacancy to put pressure on the housing market. Most of the vacancy was caused by units being renovated/fixed, places waiting for a leaseholder to move in, etc. This is even true of low-income housing and shelters. Occasionally people will gripe about shelter vacancies, without realizing it’s really difficult to maintain 100% housing utilization without denying some people housing.

proc0 5y ago
Right, but is this in the high demand areas only? Are there no other nearby cities with cheaper rent and also potential jobs? I still blame the authorities for allowing areas with high concentration of homeless people, since that discourages them to find solutions and instead enables them to settle down with other people outside, when perhaps they could try their luck in a less expensive, less dense area.
- mjevans 5y ago
  Cheaper rent is relative. I invite you to pick any major city, particularly one on the west coast with a population over 500K for their metro area who's name you recognize from any news or professional setting. Look up the rents in the downtown area. Then look at a traffic map for around rush hour in the morning / evening; the worst part of that period. Take a sample of suburbs an hour, maybe even two hours out to form some rings. The price of rent goes down a little, but the price in fuel and taxation on a commuter doesn't. MOST of these cities also, if they even have it, will have mass transit optimized to a mega-downtown hub with spokes, for peek commuters only. Even that will still suck about as much as traffic, but costs less. Pre-pandemic, when I last looked at numbers, Seattle wanted around 3000+ a month for like a single room apartment, maybe a bit less if it was a really crummy place. A rundown suburb an hour or so out cost about half of that for a little more, or for a tiny bit less you could rent a house, including a covered garage.