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TL;DR - Homelessness is a supply and demand problem. The next hurdle seems to be that supply and demand itself is governed by market forces. No one is going to

TL;DR - Homelessness is a supply and demand problem. The next hurdle seems to be that supply and demand itself is governed by market forces. No one is going to build affordable housing in areas where supply is already high, thus making them attainable. They’re building them in high-demand areas which means they’ll be competitive and make money. Am I missing something here? This doesn’t seem obvious other than the cause. Solving market forces seems a lot more difficult.

spacemadness 4y ago
You are missing that the market is not allowed to work where policy disallows housing from being built regardless of demand.
deanCommie 4y ago
Yes, but you have to go deeper. Why is nooone willing to increase the level of supply unless they can make a lot of money and so optimizing for luxury housing? Because housing is expensive to build. Why is housing expensive to build? Because there is a lot of red tape and regulations. Why is there a lot of red tape and regulations? Because of existing home owners lobbying for it to resist the increase of supply. Why are NIMBYs fighting more housing? Because more housing decreases their own house prices and investment. Why are people so preoccupied with their house prices - is it greed? No, because for an entire generation of people, their house price is the only retirement investment they can rely on. Why? Because the social safety net in North America has eroded and if you disrupt the housing supply you're just going to have a different problem of a retiring generation that we cannot take care of.
- theGnuMe 4y ago
  The logic breaks down here: >Because more housing decreases their own house prices and investment. This is actually not true. Density will raise baseline prices. For example, your house gets bought for $1m and turned into 4plex of $500k condos.
- deleted 4y ago
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spacemadness 4y ago

You are missing that the market is not allowed to work where policy disallows housing from being built regardless of demand.

deanCommie 4y ago

Yes, but you have to go deeper. Why is nooone willing to increase the level of supply unless they can make a lot of money and so optimizing for luxury housing? Because housing is expensive to build. Why is housing expensive to build? Because there is a lot of red tape and regulations. Why is there a lot of red tape and regulations? Because of existing home owners lobbying for it to resist the increase of supply. Why are NIMBYs fighting more housing? Because more housing decreases their own house prices and investment. Why are people so preoccupied with their house prices - is it greed? No, because for an entire generation of people, their house price is the only retirement investment they can rely on. Why? Because the social safety net in North America has eroded and if you disrupt the housing supply you're just going to have a different problem of a retiring generation that we cannot take care of.

theGnuMe 4y ago
The logic breaks down here: >Because more housing decreases their own house prices and investment. This is actually not true. Density will raise baseline prices. For example, your house gets bought for $1m and turned into 4plex of $500k condos.
deleted 4y ago
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