4 ms·

Good housing first programs do not cluster beneficiaries but try to integrate them into "normal" neighborhoods and provide them with ongoing support by social w

by tfourb 3y ago

Good housing first programs do not cluster beneficiaries but try to integrate them into "normal" neighborhoods and provide them with ongoing support by social workers, medical attention, etc. Just dumping a couple of dozen homeless people in a motel is not a great way to approach this, I agree.

pyuser583 3y ago
NY requires low income housing to be distributed among middle-class neighborhoods. It’s helpful, but creates massive backlogs. Plenty of homeless people are on waiting lists. It makes it impossible to convert money into housing. You have to wait until you find a vacancy in middle class neighborhood. They can’t just buy a place and put people there - which is how housing usually works.
- tfourb 3y ago
  Why can't they? Municipality-owned housing is a thing in many places around the world and is generally cost-covering even when rented out to low-income housesholds. In many places (i.e. Germany and Austria), even some of the most desirable middle-income housing is owned by local governments so it's nothing that has to come with stigma attached to it. Housing always needs planning permission and that is something local governments have huge sway over. You can easily imagine that to get planning permission, developers have to cede 15% of the land to the local municipality or have to construct housing that has 25 years of priority for municipality-nominated tenants. It has been done.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - pyuser583 3y ago
    How does the city owning the land improve things?
    - tfourb 3y ago
      private landlords maximize profits or personal utility (if they live in the property themselves). Usually that means creating middle-income detached housing or large apartments with very high rental values or conformant to some idealized middle class image. When housing is tight, it also drives up rents enormously, because landlords will increase rents even if the cost of running the apartments doesn't rise and pocket the difference as profit. Municipalities as landlords can focus their investments differently. They can build low-cost housing designed for low-income or lower-middle-class families/individuals and rent them out at cost. This gives local politics huge leverage over the housing market and enables them to prioritize certain groups (i.e. families or homeless people) for preferred access to affordable and well situated housing. In Vienna for example, around 220.000 units are publicly owned, offering space for a large share of the 1.8 million inhabitants of the city. If managed well, the city can strongly influence rent prices and conditions for certain segments of the population. In my view, every city should aspire to own at least 30% of the total housing stock and more than 50% of the housing stock for low-income tenants.
      - pyuser583 3y ago
        Why not just require landlords to have dedicate units to whatever class they want to favor?
        tfourb 3y ago
        That’sa possible alternative but the experience here in Germany shows that landlords will use every loophole available to get back to profit maximizing = just rent to upper middle class. Or alternatively they’ll just let low cost units rot away without the required maintenance. The effort to enforce this system is arguably better spend on simply running it yourself.
        pyuser583 3y ago
        I definitely agree there’s a point where it’s easier to run the system directly than to regulate it. In America, this just isn’t done. I’m trying to think why. I guess part of the issue is that building/maintaining structures is high risk, while owning land is low risk. So even if an American city owned lots of land, they would just do a long term lease to a property developer who would take on the risk of developing and maintaining it. So the tax payers would get revenue, but not be on the book for any losses. Actually playing the real estate game means making and losing money. Trump spent decades in real estate, didn’t beat the returns on SP500, and was often bankrupt. Most citizens don’t want the government engaged in high risk speculation. I could easily see an American municipality owning lots of land, but not actually developing and maintaining the real estate themselves. What happens in Germany if real estate falls through? I had assumed you were Austrian because you mentioned Vienna. Vienna has a reputation for being very affordable, while Berlin is reputed to be expensive. Is that true?

by tfourb 3y ago

pyuser583 3y ago

NY requires low income housing to be distributed among middle-class neighborhoods. It’s helpful, but creates massive backlogs. Plenty of homeless people are on waiting lists. It makes it impossible to convert money into housing. You have to wait until you find a vacancy in middle class neighborhood. They can’t just buy a place and put people there - which is how housing usually works.

tfourb 3y ago
Why can't they? Municipality-owned housing is a thing in many places around the world and is generally cost-covering even when rented out to low-income housesholds. In many places (i.e. Germany and Austria), even some of the most desirable middle-income housing is owned by local governments so it's nothing that has to come with stigma attached to it. Housing always needs planning permission and that is something local governments have huge sway over. You can easily imagine that to get planning permission, developers have to cede 15% of the land to the local municipality or have to construct housing that has 25 years of priority for municipality-nominated tenants. It has been done.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pyuser583 3y ago
  How does the city owning the land improve things?
  - tfourb 3y ago
    private landlords maximize profits or personal utility (if they live in the property themselves). Usually that means creating middle-income detached housing or large apartments with very high rental values or conformant to some idealized middle class image. When housing is tight, it also drives up rents enormously, because landlords will increase rents even if the cost of running the apartments doesn't rise and pocket the difference as profit. Municipalities as landlords can focus their investments differently. They can build low-cost housing designed for low-income or lower-middle-class families/individuals and rent them out at cost. This gives local politics huge leverage over the housing market and enables them to prioritize certain groups (i.e. families or homeless people) for preferred access to affordable and well situated housing. In Vienna for example, around 220.000 units are publicly owned, offering space for a large share of the 1.8 million inhabitants of the city. If managed well, the city can strongly influence rent prices and conditions for certain segments of the population. In my view, every city should aspire to own at least 30% of the total housing stock and more than 50% of the housing stock for low-income tenants.
    - pyuser583 3y ago
      Why not just require landlords to have dedicate units to whatever class they want to favor?
      - tfourb 3y ago
        That’sa possible alternative but the experience here in Germany shows that landlords will use every loophole available to get back to profit maximizing = just rent to upper middle class. Or alternatively they’ll just let low cost units rot away without the required maintenance. The effort to enforce this system is arguably better spend on simply running it yourself.
        pyuser583 3y ago
        I definitely agree there’s a point where it’s easier to run the system directly than to regulate it. In America, this just isn’t done. I’m trying to think why. I guess part of the issue is that building/maintaining structures is high risk, while owning land is low risk. So even if an American city owned lots of land, they would just do a long term lease to a property developer who would take on the risk of developing and maintaining it. So the tax payers would get revenue, but not be on the book for any losses. Actually playing the real estate game means making and losing money. Trump spent decades in real estate, didn’t beat the returns on SP500, and was often bankrupt. Most citizens don’t want the government engaged in high risk speculation. I could easily see an American municipality owning lots of land, but not actually developing and maintaining the real estate themselves. What happens in Germany if real estate falls through? I had assumed you were Austrian because you mentioned Vienna. Vienna has a reputation for being very affordable, while Berlin is reputed to be expensive. Is that true?