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Public housing can work in places where people consider themselves part of a society. A lot of Americans don’t. They see any kind of collective societal effort

Public housing can work in places where people consider themselves part of a society. A lot of Americans don’t. They see any kind of collective societal effort as a negative—something you might have to tolerate, but that you certainly don’t want to encourage. We collected every individualist outlier from all over Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, everyone who wanted to escape from society and strike out on their own. We’re reaping the cultural rewards of that now.

mullingitover 3y ago
You can achieve the result without necessarily labeling things as 'public housing,' though. California already has something like this: it's determining the state's housing needs at the state level. If regions don't realistically create plans for hitting their allotted target, a 'builder's remedy' is triggered. Developments which check certain boxes, and one of them is a percentage of affordable housing, override local zoning blockades. All you really need to do is go a step further and offer developers subsidies to increase their percentages of affordable housing in their plan. The thing that makes other countries' public housing succeed is that it's not a monolith of low income residents - the mixed incomes in the development create a more cohesive community that makes them successful. No reason we can't do it here, and no reason it has to be overtly labeled as public housing.
- ksenzee 3y ago
  I truly love the idea of single-development mixed-income housing, but I just don’t see it working in the US. Either the subsidized units are poor quality, leading to the same stigma as our current public housing, or they’re the same as the unsubsidized units but only a few lucky people can get them, which would really not fly here.
  - mullingitover 3y ago
    > I truly love the idea of single-development mixed-income housing, but I just don’t see it working in the US. It's already working[1] in California. This is happening through the California Housing Finance Agency[2]: > The CalHFA Mixed-Income Program (MIP) provides long-term subordinate financing for the new construction of affordable multifamily developments throughout California that provide housing with units restricted at all income levels between 30% and 120% of the Area Median Income of the county in which the development will be located. So while it's not outright subsidized, the state is providing the financing for these projects. [1] https://www.calhfa.ca.gov/multifamily/mixedincome/approved/index.htm https://www.calhfa.ca.gov/multifamily/mixedincome/approved/i... [2] https://www.calhfa.ca.gov/multifamily/mixedincome/index.htm https://www.calhfa.ca.gov/multifamily/mixedincome/index.htm
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- RhysU 3y ago
  These forced developments deals are meh. Our school district is dealing with planning for such state-mandated growth. The state-level representatives approve an influx of residents despite the local communities not wanting the growth. The developers want sweetheart deals. New residents want the new residences. Who loses? The actual property owners, who see their local tax dollars stretched thin by the growth (as the new residences are less expensive than the established ones), the congestion rise, and their votes diluted. As an analogy, the rest of the US should not vote to reduce property prices in NYC at the expense of NYC taxpayers. It would be absurd. But that exactly is what the state-level policies achieve at the state-vs-community level.
  - mullingitover 3y ago
    > New residents want the new residences. Who loses? The actual property owners, who see their local tax dollars stretched thin by the growth If we're talking about California, good news: the new homeowners will pay far more in taxes than the entrenched property owners under the Prop 13 system. Also, the single family residences are more of a burden on finances in terms of infrastructure maintenance costs than high-density residences.
    - RhysU 3y ago
      True, but I am not talking about California. It's its own beast. Well-managed towns of single family homes are not an infrastructure burden. Sure, they're not as per capita efficient but recall people move to such towns, and pay taxes accordingly, in part for the density decrease.

mullingitover 3y ago

You can achieve the result without necessarily labeling things as 'public housing,' though. California already has something like this: it's determining the state's housing needs at the state level. If regions don't realistically create plans for hitting their allotted target, a 'builder's remedy' is triggered. Developments which check certain boxes, and one of them is a percentage of affordable housing, override local zoning blockades. All you really need to do is go a step further and offer developers subsidies to increase their percentages of affordable housing in their plan. The thing that makes other countries' public housing succeed is that it's not a monolith of low income residents - the mixed incomes in the development create a more cohesive community that makes them successful. No reason we can't do it here, and no reason it has to be overtly labeled as public housing.

ksenzee 3y ago
I truly love the idea of single-development mixed-income housing, but I just don’t see it working in the US. Either the subsidized units are poor quality, leading to the same stigma as our current public housing, or they’re the same as the unsubsidized units but only a few lucky people can get them, which would really not fly here.
- mullingitover 3y ago
  > I truly love the idea of single-development mixed-income housing, but I just don’t see it working in the US. It's already working[1] in California. This is happening through the California Housing Finance Agency[2]: > The CalHFA Mixed-Income Program (MIP) provides long-term subordinate financing for the new construction of affordable multifamily developments throughout California that provide housing with units restricted at all income levels between 30% and 120% of the Area Median Income of the county in which the development will be located. So while it's not outright subsidized, the state is providing the financing for these projects. [1] https://www.calhfa.ca.gov/multifamily/mixedincome/approved/index.htm https://www.calhfa.ca.gov/multifamily/mixedincome/approved/i... [2] https://www.calhfa.ca.gov/multifamily/mixedincome/index.htm https://www.calhfa.ca.gov/multifamily/mixedincome/index.htm
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
RhysU 3y ago
These forced developments deals are meh. Our school district is dealing with planning for such state-mandated growth. The state-level representatives approve an influx of residents despite the local communities not wanting the growth. The developers want sweetheart deals. New residents want the new residences. Who loses? The actual property owners, who see their local tax dollars stretched thin by the growth (as the new residences are less expensive than the established ones), the congestion rise, and their votes diluted. As an analogy, the rest of the US should not vote to reduce property prices in NYC at the expense of NYC taxpayers. It would be absurd. But that exactly is what the state-level policies achieve at the state-vs-community level.
- mullingitover 3y ago
  > New residents want the new residences. Who loses? The actual property owners, who see their local tax dollars stretched thin by the growth If we're talking about California, good news: the new homeowners will pay far more in taxes than the entrenched property owners under the Prop 13 system. Also, the single family residences are more of a burden on finances in terms of infrastructure maintenance costs than high-density residences.
  - RhysU 3y ago
    True, but I am not talking about California. It's its own beast. Well-managed towns of single family homes are not an infrastructure burden. Sure, they're not as per capita efficient but recall people move to such towns, and pay taxes accordingly, in part for the density decrease.