
The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities - kimsk112
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/the-homeless-crisis-is-getting-worse-in-america-s-richest-cities
======
sharkweek
Long-time Seattle resident here who volunteered for several years in the
homeless community. Homelessness has always been a _thing_ in Seattle, but has
definitely become a much larger issue in the past five years.

I'll spare my thoughts on any number of reasons as to why we got here as a
city, but will say I think we are doing a terrible disservice to actually
finding a solution by lumping "anyone who doesn't have a home" into the
"homeless crisis."

There are so many nuanced issues across a variety of problems here. There are
drug abuse issues, mental health issues, physical health issues, cost of
living issues, etc., and not to mention the varying cocktail of comorbidity,
that to bulk "people without permanent housing" all under the umbrella of
"homeless crisis" is not going to get us anywhere. Trying to assist the single
mother with children who lives in her car because she lost her job is a VASTLY
different issue than trying to assist the drug addict sitting in an alley
passed out in their own feces. But at the end of the day, they're both human
beings, and it breaks my heart that either of them are in that situation.

Several separate issues, that need to be subdivided and approached in distinct
ways if any progress is to be made on any of them. Smaller, subdivided
problems should feel more solvable, too.

Unfortunately, a lot of the solutions are expensive and frankly politically
toxic. Despite Seattle's deep blue on most things, suddenly we get very "every
person for themselves" the second homelessness has a price tag.

~~~
crooked-v
> suddenly we get very "every person for themselves" the second homelessness
> has a price tag.

A confounding factor involved here is that many government strategies for
dealing with the homeless are endless money pits without noticeable results. I
think a lot of people would be more comfortable with their tax dollars going
to that purpose if they didn't feel like nothing was actually happening from
it.

~~~
spookthesunset
> endless money pits

The reason they are money pits is because they aren't something that will be
solved by a city or even a state. Any attempt to solve the problem locally in
a "humane" way has a high risk of just attracting more folks in the same
circumstance to the area.

The most effective way for a city or state to "solve" the local homeless
problem is to simply pay for one-way bus tickets to somewhere else. But that
doesn't solve the actual problem.

Homelessness is a systemic problem that can only be meaningly addressed in a
humane way by the federal government.

~~~
Alex63
I'd be interested to hear how homelessness can be meaningfully addressed in a
humane way by the federal government (especially if it is constitutional).

~~~
cutler
Simple. Put a ceiling on rents. Allow no-one to own more than one home and
insist they live in the one they own. In the UK we have a "bedroom tax" but it
is aimed at the poor, not the rich as it should be. Make it illegal to
discriminate against anyone based on their income source or the state of their
health. Build housing exclusively for low-income occupants instead of throwing
everything onto the insidious property market. Ban property markets altogether
and replace them with government-regulated allocation. No. Thought not. No-one
is really serious about solving the world housing crisis. So long as
politicians rely on the comfortable middle-class for their survival nothing
will change.

~~~
lubujackson
This is so illogical.

For one, who is going to build these properties for low-income people only?
Costs will be almost the same, profits will be way less. So why would a
developer bother?

In fact, the recent change to require a higher percentage of low income units
in new structures has killed the pipeline for new building starts.

Even if it seems counterproductive to the goal of helping low income people,
historically new building starts have always been aspirational. Which makes
sense - everyone wants a new car, but if you have little money you are better
off getting a reliable used car. It is exactly the same for housing. When
someone moves into a new condo that opens up a unit (and lowers the price
incrementally) for someone who has less to spend.

Would it make sense to force carmakers to build cheap cars that only low-
income people are eligible to buy?

~~~
cutler
You're thinking purely within a capitalist framework. There is no capitalist
solution to this problem. The solution is unprofitable. I encourage you to
think outside this framework as humanity itself is at stake not just profits.

~~~
com2kid
Capitolist solutions exist to this problem, democracy keeps voting them down.

Remove the majority of zoning, and the free market will solve the housing
problem quite quickly.

Sure houses will be up next to each other, and they'll be smaller, and the
yards will cost even more than they do now, but housing will be affordable.

~~~
idontpost
> Remove the majority of zoning

Sure, factories with toxic waste in residential neighborhoods are a great
idea!

> Sure houses will be up next to each other

And we learned nothing from the massive urban fires othe 17th, 18th, and 19th
centuries apparently.

All these onerous regulations you whinge about exist because thousands of
people DIED from the conditions they outlaw.

~~~
com2kid
Majority of the rules, not all.

Remove set backs, get rid of minimum yard requirements, loosen height
restrictions.

The rest of the world has houses right next to each other, as do America's
most prosperous cities.

Manhattan, the dense parts of SF, Boston, Chicago, etc.

The regulations about minimum grass and 4 foot of set back and no more than 1
or 2 stories, have nothing to do with fire regs and everything to do with long
disproven ideas about suburban design that hark back to 1950s ideals.

Visit a modern dense city, Tokyo and London don't have massive fire outbreaks
(sprinklers and modern fire codes still work even at density), but they do
have an insane about of economic activity in the dense neighborhoods.

Want to solve the housing crisis and get people off the streets? Dump 50% more
houses on to the market, heck have cities subsidize their construction if need
be, and watch housing prices plummet. Watch mass transit become the life blood
of a city, and watch entire new types of jobs become available. (People in NYC
may be annoyed at bike messengers, but it is a job created by density!)

------
exogeny
I will go to my grave not understanding why this is so complex and difficult
for people to understand and politicians to fix.

Wages are stagnant, save for a handful of sectors, in which they're growing
quickly. Housing prices are rising due to limited supply and backward policies
towards new construction. Inequality therefore expands exponentially, creating
a city of haves-and-have nots.

Either reduce inequality through taxes and social re-distribution programs, or
build more housing supply. Preferably both.

~~~
DanHulton
I mean, I think you're missing a key factor here: politicians require money to
be elected. The poor (the folks most affected by these issues) don't have the
money to donate. The rich (the ones you propose taxing) do. Thus, the only
ones who can get elected are catering to an audience that does not want this
problems solved in this way (and indeed, one could argue, does not care to
have it solved at all).

Until the problem of money in politics gets fixed, your "simple" problem is
largely unfixable.

~~~
timb07
In a properly-operating democracy, politicians require _votes_ to be elected;
money helps, but isn't sufficient.

The 1% may have 50% (or more) of the money, but they only have 1% of the
votes. The 99% (or rather, those members of the 99% who vote as if they're in
the 1%) need to exert their power at the polling booth.

~~~
51lver
The 1% own the media companies which are happy to tell you what a winner looks
like, and there is a general belief that voting with your heart is inferior to
voting for a probable winner.

~~~
simplify
The latter problem would be solved with approval voting at least
[https://ncase.me/ballot/](https://ncase.me/ballot/)

------
apo
In the late 1980s I attended a talk at a political gathering in San Francisco.
The speaker asked the audience members to think about the scores of homeless
people they saw walking to the event. The speaker then made a statement that
I'll never forget:

"This is what a modern depression looks like."

When most people think of a Depression, the image that comes to mind is black-
and-white photos of mobs of people standing in bread lines.

What if 1930s-style depressions are no longer possible? Central banks
intervene in every crisis no matter how small, handing out freebies to banks
and financial institutions. However, these groups can only spend so much money
on themselves. A little gets spent on frivolous crap like vacations, boats,
and watches, a lot gets spent on ridiculous startup ideas and other terrible
speculations, and the vast majority gets parked in the stock and bond markets
where it grows and grows with each new infusion of fake money.

What if modern central banking has made a repeat of the Great Depression
impossible?

Consider the possibility that the US has been in the modern equivalent of a
Depression since the 1980s. It doesn't feel like a Depression because most
people have housing and jobs, and GDP goes up. But focusing on these metrics
ignores three very annoying pieces of information:

1\. wages have been flat for many years

2\. inflation for essential goods/services (housing, health care, child care)
has outpaces inflation year after year

3\. the homeless problem just keeps getting worse

------
gre
I stayed a night in LA a few weeks ago at an AirBNB in a condo in a prime
location near Little Tokyo and can't stop thinking that society would be
better off if this condo were owned and occupied by a family instead of being
basically a for-profit hotel.

I don't know how to stop this de facto rezoning except by imposing huge taxes
on housing that is not the owner's primary residence and closing all the
loopholes that come along with that. This would free up more properties for
people to own as a primary residence, and AirBNB users et al could still rent
out rooms in their primary residence.

It doesn't solve actual homelessness, the solution for that seems to be build
more housing.

~~~
prostoalex
It’s ironic considering that DTLA of all Los Angeles sub markets is the one
with virtually no zoning restrictions and has some of the highest numbers of
construction cranes in the nation.

But before we all go onto AirBnB rampage, have you looked at any available
properties in that zip code? The schools are complete garbage (an elementary
school kid was recently stabbed by a homeless drug addict), the crime rate is
high, public transport is next to non-existent, and there’s feces of various
origins in the plain view on the sidewalk.

Downtown LA officials have been trying to revitalize the neighborhood by
expanding the convention center, permitting more hotel rooms, making business
rent cheap and attracting more visitors like yourself, not pitching the
neighborhood that’s adjacent to Skid Row to a suburban nuclear family with 2.2
kids.

~~~
gre
I don’t know about the schools there, but imagine if families instead of
rentals occupied the condos—I bet the schools would shape up real fast. I
admittedly haven’t researched/thought about how to fix schools, but getting
parents raging seems obvious to start.

~~~
prostoalex
School financing flows through property taxes, and they’re the same whether
the property is occupied by a family, childless couple, an absentee out-of-
town owner or an investor.

Schools currently enjoy 100% of the money with nowhere near 100% of load,
which in theory should result in smaller classes and excellent teacher-to-
student ratios.

In reality though LA Unified School District has been cutting so many sweet
pension deals to the previous employees (and current retirees) that most of
that money is appropriated by pension funds long before the current employees
(or kids) see any of it.

Combined with decreased enrollment across the board (people intent on having
kids and large families tend to move _out_ of LA more than they move _into_
LA) and increased life expectancy of most retirees, things are not exactly
looking bright for parents considering LA Unified for their education needs.

~~~
gre
Just read an article about it from June, what a tough problem! No amount of
complaining from parents can make enough pension money appear. Thanks for
writing about it.

------
thomasfl
My favourite Richard Branson quote: «Clients do not come first. Employees come
first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the
clients.»

The same goes for cities. For a city, the inhabitants come first. Take care of
the inhabitants, and the inhabitants will take care of business. Ensure
inhabitants have a safe place to live and give them higher education, and the
inhabitants will give a return on the investment.

------
code_duck
I hang out in an area of Denver where they can’t seem to build $500,000/2,500
a mo. condos fast enough, and a couple blocks full of homeless people sleep
1/4 miles away. A coffee shop I visit at had its portapotties taken over by a
homeless band who informed us they were sleeping there and we should donate.
Turned out they were also smoking crack. So far it seems the city’s plan is to
keep pushing them around the city - Denver is privatizing alleys, for
instance. I imagine that at some point the food missions will be moved towards
Sun Valley, Valverde, Commerce City, North Aurora or the like.

In Eugene it was a more intense issue. I swear the two cities have equal
communities despite the populations differing by an order of magnitude. Bands
of homeless people rove the streets with bicycles with trailers, collecting
recycling to fund their lives at the insane meth/bicycle thievery park
downtown. My girlfriend’s daughter took out the trash and said “there’s a guy
in the dumpster”.

Clearly a lot of people need psychological services and job counseling - if
they were in homes, they could not sustain them. Given that the US doesn’t
even seem to be likely to devote proper care of our aging relatives in
residential care over the next 30 years, it seems unlikely.

------
dr_dshiv
Living in Amsterdam, it is very rare to encounter homeless people or
panhandlers. It wasn't always this way -- so I really credit the policy
designers. They build these really cute social housing centers for a range of
subsidized apartments -- and always include a petting zoo in the middle
because, I guess, it saves money in the end. Doing nothing is way more
expensive.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
When I was in Amsterdam a few years ago I faced pretty aggressive panhandling
/ scamming; it was that fine line between panhandling and robbery. On the way
from central station to my airbnb, I had someone try to follow me and get my
address. Another night I had someone waiting outside of my place.

I live in Denver, Colorado and although we have a huge homeless population,
I've never had a problem with them. It's mostly just people sitting around
asking for money, but I've never been followed or aggressively approached like
I have in European cities (Italy was awful).

------
pastor_elm
For most of industrialized history in the West, poor people lived crammed in
tenements and multi-family apartments where they didn't get much beyond a
room. This is still the case in much of the developing world.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that spacious living spaces for everyone in
every city simply isn't tenable? It worked for a couple decades, but that was
a different time and these cities were different places.

------
throwaway112018
Gentrification and skyrocketing rents are clearly creating a crisis in many
cities that impact people who need housing most. Families, elderly, those with
chronic illness, etc. They need housing, and the government should prioritize
this population.

The problem is, these articles and homeless advocates never differentiate this
sympathetic population from the hardcore drug users, aggressive panhandlers,
and people engaged in theft and violent crime. I don't blame local neighbors
from opposing shelters that attract this element. My city recently relocated a
shelter to a new neighborhood and surprise surprise, street crime, used
needles, prostitution, and everything you might expect from this group showing
up en masse followed.

There are also lifestyle street people who enjoy the lifestyle for the freedom
it offers. Do they deserve services and free apartments? They're there by
choice. You can see videos all over YouTube celebrating this lifestyle:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFAu5dzHq3BJvZsO58N8fXA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFAu5dzHq3BJvZsO58N8fXA)

------
partisan
I was walking through Manhattan on Sunday along Broadway north of Union Square
Park and I saw at least 2-3 homeless or panhandlers _per block_ along the way.
I was directly asked for money a few times as well.

I grew up in NYC. I spent high school and college in Manhattan. This is the
worst I have seen it. There is no cushion for people living on the margins of
society anymore. Not here, at least. When I was a kid, my mother was able to
raise three of us on her one paltry salary. Good luck doing that on several
salaries now.

And as someone with a good income and two earner household, I can’t help but
feel that I am one recession away from struggle. I don’t have a home my
parents will leave to me in flyover country that I can retreat to if shit hits
the fan.

~~~
electricslpnsld
> I grew up in NYC. I spent high school and college in Manhattan. This is the
> worst I have seen it.

What up, Astoria native (then Stuyvesant then Columbia) checking in. The
current level of (visible) homelessness in NYC is _nothing_ compared to NYC in
the early 2000s, let alone the 90s. Even in the late 90s the parts of upper
Manhattan I frequented had burned out car husks and people shooting up in the
streets. Hell, when I was in school you couldn't walk through Morningside or
Riverside park without tripping over homeless people. Manhattan is downright
bucolic compared to they way it used to be. The state of things isn't perfect,
now, but it is orders of magnitude better than it used to be.

------
jakelarkin
"Houston, the fourth-most-populous city in the nation, has cut its homeless
population in half since 2011, in part by creating more housing for them."

~~~
jbob2000
Houston is also in Texas, which has habitable land area greater than most
countries.

Toronto is kind of stuck at the moment because if we want to build more
housing, we have to bulldoze the Oak Ridges Moraine, which we can’t do because
it’s critical to our water supply (though conservative governments often try).
So our only option, like many cities, is to build up. Which is expensive and
requires expensive maintenance. Which nobody wants to pay for to give to
people who are unlikely to contribute back (debatable).

~~~
jeffreyrogers
Houston also doesn't have zoning laws, though having lots of land helps with
that.

~~~
2RTZZSro
Houston has deed restrictions, which effectively work the same as zoning.

There is zero land available for you to live in a safe neighborhood near
downtown. All new housing is located in dangerous areas. You _ABSOLUTELY MUST_
use a car to get around unless you want to risk being assaulted, robbed, or
worse.

The homeless population in Houston is out of control and has gotten worse in
parts of town.

Vehicle break-ins, burglary, rapes, and armed robbery are completely out of
control. The only actually safe places in the entire city are Jewish
neighborhoods such as Rice Village. The police are absolutely useless and
crime is _VASTLY_ under-reported. Police hung up on me multiple times and lost
my reports each time after I was a victim of a hit-and-run, burglarized
vehicle three times, my apartment door was kicked in, and my apartment was
burglarized. My neighbor's guns were stolen from his truck and his apartment
was burglarized. He was a Houston police officer at the time. Everywhere I
lived the same things happened REGULARLY. My neighbor was a wheelchair bound
young woman and her door was kicked in around noon, 6 feet across the hallway
from the leasing office. All of these places I mention are in gated
communities. I lived in three apartments less than a mile off the tram red
line over three years.

Houston is a living hell for law abiding citizens. Not only is it incredibly
criminal, ALL infrastructure is CRUMBLING and there is trash literally
everywhere aside from Rice Village and River Oaks. Utterly disgusting.

Police and landlords have told me: "It's just a big city, crime happens. We
can't do anything about it, just have insurance." (i.e., socialize the cost of
having criminals around while doing NOTHING to reduce criminality). People who
think like this deserve everything they get when it backfires on them. Maybe
they enjoy being repeatedly raped like a form of Stockholm Syndrome. I, for
one, do not enjoy being raped of my hard work and time by criminals or living
under the constant threat of my hard work, time, and life being robbed from
me. If you live in Houston and don't constantly carry a fully loaded handgun,
you are taking your life in your hands.

Screw that. I don't want to live in a literal hell. Such is life in Houston.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyMY2JnVUDE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyMY2JnVUDE)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj3XO3HopsM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj3XO3HopsM)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0diH5fNLYmU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0diH5fNLYmU)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gctMJhFezE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gctMJhFezE)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZQDwXT71_E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZQDwXT71_E)

------
Zdup
In San Francisco is equally bad. In the morning @7am you see so many people
sleeping on sidewalks like sardines, it's pretty sad considering it's a rich
city.

~~~
dawhizkid
Equally bad compared to what? As an SF resident I would argue SF has one of
the worst homeless situations in the country - not necessarily in terms of
overall numbers (LA/NY have more), but in terms of what I see as severe mental
health issues and drug use among many (but not all) homeless people I see
here.

~~~
biztos
I remember being impressed by how many apparently high-functioning homeless
people I saw out near Venice in LA a few years ago. I managed to avoid Skid
Row, I guess that's where you'd go to see SF-style homelessness but in a
more... integrated? boxed-in? tolerated? style.

------
TaylorGood
Orange County, CA is not a city per se, but a runoff river trail that leads to
the ocean quickly became a community of homeless. When the tent area was
finally disbanded (1), here are the stats:

– 700 - 1,000 homeless

– 215 tons of trash or debris

– 1,165 pounds of hazardous waste, including human and pet feces

– 5,115 needles

– 1,000 stolen bikes (2)

(1) [https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/01/see-before-and-
after-p...](https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/01/see-before-and-after-photos-
of-the-santa-ana-river-trail-with-homeless-people-gone-and-trash-cleaned-up/)

(2) [https://www.ocregister.com/2017/11/16/a-half-loaded-gun-
an-u...](https://www.ocregister.com/2017/11/16/a-half-loaded-gun-an-
underground-bunker-and-1000-hidden-bikes-found-at-fountain-valley-homeless-
camp/)

------
steve918
100% of the public parks and ~80% of the remaining greenspace in downtown
Portland has become permanent homeless camps. Anywhere there is a 5x5ft patch
of grass there is a tent.

------
jammygit
I've known a few people who might have ended up homeless, at least for a
while, without their family or friend support systems. 'Society' just assumes
everybody has that support I guess.

------
booleandilemma
I think part of the problem is that there is a certain percentage of homeless
people that are just completely irredeemable.

Anyone that’s spent some time riding on the NYC subway can attest to this. No
matter how much money you throw at them, they will keep begging or acting
crazy.

Short of locking them up, what do you do with those people?

~~~
anigbrowl
Irredeemable? Have they committed some awful moral transgression? Certainly
some people are chronically incapable of looking after themselves, but please
avoid such prejudicial language.

~~~
booleandilemma
I’m talking about the people who will never be functioning members of society,
no matter how much support we give them (monetary or otherwise).

If you don’t understand what I mean you haven’t met enough homeless people.

~~~
anigbrowl
I have met plenty of homeless people, and yuor objection is not responsive to
the criticism I made.

------
CryptoPunk
The US spends far more now on social welfare than it did in the 1950s, 60s or
70s.

Social assistance to drug addicts concentrated in neighourhoods where a
disproportionate number reside, combined with reluctance to institutionalize
them, or otherwise force them to stop doing drugs, creates ghettos where drug
abuse predominates, that perpetuate drug use lifestyles.

From the other end, restrictions on housing construction, like zoning by-laws,
and limitations on private property rights, like rent control, lead to housing
scarcity, which pushes more people to the margins where they are more likely
fall through the cracks.

------
blancheneige
homelessness is the societal manifestation of the lower end of the bell curve.
period. anyone who's interacted with homeless people knows this. yes there are
exceptions, and no they do not make up the bulk of the distribution.

putting your hand in the sand and blaming "slow wage growth" or some other
secondary factor instead of pointing out the obvious is a disservice to those
people. and before you call me harsh, know that I mean this in the complete
opposite way: acknowledging the problem with pragmatism is the first step
toward its resolution.

~~~
andrewmcwatters
being a serf is the societal manifestation of the lower end of the bell curve.
period. anyone who's interacted with peasants knows this. yes there are serfs
who fell out of wealthy families, and no they do not make up the bulk of the
distribution.

putting your hand in the sand and blaming "aggressive royal taxation" or some
other secondary factor instead of pointing out the obvious is a disservice to
the peasantry. and before you call me uncouth, know that I mean this in the
complete opposite way: acknowledging the problem with honor is the first step
towards its resolution.

~~~
blancheneige
not sure what point you where trying to make with this analogy. hierarchies
are an emergent property of every self-assembling structure -- we all started
from the same unicellular organisms after all.

------
TomMckenny
A big part of the problem is the use of Revenue Management Software to set
prices. This obviously ends up working like a cartel.

I note that:

-Even when nation wide vacancies were at their highest in 30 years, rental price rose.

-Even as home prices plummeted, rental price rose.

-Rent has risen 30% _nation_ wide just since 2013 so zoning an limits on building can't be the main cause.

[https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf](https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf)

~~~
biztos
I've never heard of Revenue Management Software. What effect does it have
exactly?

If you own some apartments, wouldn't you just check the local advertised
prices and set your prices similarly, possibly also using whatever your social
network of landlords can tell you?

~~~
techsupporter
RMS is what airlines use to price tickets and have done almost since the
automated calculating computer was invented. Use of that kind of software has
spread to all kinds of industries.

Large rental property management companies absolutely use RMS. You can see it
in action if you go to the rental sites for a large apartment development (if
you want one in real life, search for "Thorton Place Apartments" in Seattle).
Every possible amenity or detail about the apartment is factored into the
overall rent, including which direction it faces, floor, whether it's recently
been painted, along with how many of this particular type or in this building
are left over, and then your particulars like how long of a lease you want,
whether you're bringing a pet[0], and even what employer you work for.

That all gets crunched and a number falls out that sometimes has a
relationship to what the glossy marketing copy also had printed on it. Rents
for each unit can and will vary day-by-day as apartments are rented and
notices handed in.

0 - Thorton Place doesn't do it but another apartment building in Lake City
absolutely does bump up the base rent by around $17 if you pick "with pet"
versus "without pet," in addition to lumping in a $45 "pet rent" fee.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Yeah, I see this on cruise ship cabins now too. There are different classes,
but the cabin pricing varies a decent amount within each class based on all
kinds of minor factors. Midships vs forward or after, close to elevator,
what's above / below you, size of balcony, adjoining room, pullout couch,
obstructed view, etc, etc. Kind of annoying in that you used to be able to
"get lucky", but it's more efficient in a competitive market (which cruising
definitely is) to be able to select exactly what you want and only pay for
that.

------
paxys
The only way to fix the housing crisis is to build more houses. It isn't
rocket science, but every conversation or debate about this issue seems to go
on and on in every direction without people actually facing this fact. The
same people who vote to increase taxes to fix homelessness will simultaneously
vote down every new housing project. Just seems so bizarre to me.

~~~
Tokkemon
You can build them all day long, but then you have to have people who can live
in them and pay for the cost of building that house, either through mortgages
or taxes to the government.

And we all know how well the public housing projects went and still go to this
day...

~~~
CryptoPunk
Prices always reach their market clearing level. More housing == lower prices,
when all other factors are controlled for.

------
orliesaurus
We can build companies that will change minds of voters but we can't provide
homes to those who can't afford them. Mind blown.

------
mooman219
I believe a key fact that's ignored is that the cities where this is happening
are the most hospitable. Above freezing all year, plenty of areas to setup
camp that are protected by the city, and poor enforcement for street crimes
(there's no money in jailing a homeless person unless they're committing a
felony). Homelessness in Seattle is much worse than New York for a number of
reasons, but the fact that camping outside in New York during winter would
kill you helps work the numbers a bit too. If it's too cold to be outside,
you'll opt for a homeless shelter where you're required to follow rules that
inevitably help you to get back on your feet.

------
llamataboot
Just paying for housing is a surprisingly cost effective and simple solution
that is empirically backed as more cost effective and better outcomes for the
individuals involved in nearly every study.

Housing first, then figure out what support looks like for other issues.

~~~
baroffoos
You can't just throw a house at someone and expect everything to be alright.
You need to give these people support to return to functioning lives. A lot of
those free houses would end up trashed.

------
reading-at-work
> It’s not bad everywhere. Houston, the fourth-most-populous city in the
> nation, has cut its homeless population in half since 2011, in part by
> creating more housing for them. That’s dampened the effect of rising rents,
> Zillow found.

This seems like a quick and practical solution that would provide effective
assistance while more nuanced factors like mental health are debated about.
Why aren't more cities increasing the housing supply given the obvious
benefits of doing so?

~~~
phil248
In part because building housing in places like San Francisco and NYC is
incredibly expensive. Trying to house people with the least means in the most
expensive corners of the planet doesn't make a lot of sense to be frank about
it.

Houston may be more of a middle ground in terms of building cost and access to
land.

------
PHGamer
i remember cases where some guy tried to build tiny homes for the homeless in
LA and the government shut him down. I know here in another part of the
county, there was some land freed up for new development but a preservation
society sued to prevent development unless certain conditions were met. Less
housing ending up happening as they could demolish everything. Government is
getting in the way of cheap housing.

------
accelerateruina
Homeless hacker chiming in. Throw away acct for pseudo anonymity. I been
homeless in LA for 2 years now. Previously, I worked as a developer for 15
years. The closest I ever got to touching "success" was that one time standing
before the porcelain King in the Men's Room right next to Bezos at Amazon.
It's rather surreal to see where I am now and think that I once pissed into
the same hole in the ground as the Richest Man on Earth. c'est la vie.

This whole article is just Liberal hand wringing bullshit. Every reply in this
thread is just more Liberal Do-Gooder handing wringing bullshit. Not a single
one of you here understand what it's really like to be ejected from the
Economy and forced to live as a leper underneath Metropolis among the Morlocks
in Tent City, and not a single one of you have a realistic idea to "solve" the
problem of homelessness in society. But you'll think you know it all, and that
if only your dumb idea XYZ was adopted, it would be the silver bullet to solve
a pathologically non-linear societal system of thousands and millions of
discontinuous variables.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends
on his not understanding it." ― Upton Sinclair

"Homelessness" isn't a "problem" that can be solved and wrapped up with a
pretty red bow because you all are Sinclair's man in the street. You all are
the problem. The phenomenon of homelessness is not an effect--it's a
consequence. It is not a disease in itself, it is the symptom of a much
greater syndrome. How can you begin to solve a "problem" when you haven't even
identified the root of the problem?

Look around you. What's happening isn't rocket brain surgery. This shit is
just Malcolm X's proverbial "chickens coming home to roost." America is sick.
It's dying. Your society is decaying. Your cities are slums, your economy is
fake, fewer and fewer fat cat asshole thieves scheme to take bigger and bigger
slices of the diminishing pie for themselves, all the while inviting in every
illiterate 3rd World "Shitholer" peasant illegal immigrant to take the
resources of your Native Born neighbor. Your Govt is literally being run by
elderly senile cartoon characters who are too busy squabbling over WWF
wrestling plot minutia while the real power--the Deep State and the Military
Industrial Complex continues business as usual and is radar phased locked onto
expanding more and more Wars fighting for Israel and for Tyrants of Oil
Fiefdoms, damn the consequences, and damn the American boys dying for it. Your
Financial Industry of empty suits only care about kicking the can and off-
shoring and out sourcing every last warm body that can be replaced by a Drone
in order to shave operating costs to earn their myopic bonus for inflating
their revenue by .0001% and priming the pump of their stock price through even
more corporate buy backs. Your economy was blown the fuck up 10 years ago, and
the Federal Reserve inflated the money supply by printing tens of trillions of
fiat to soak up housing and all property to prop up already outrageous
astronomical prices.

Why am I and 500,000 Americans homeless while 500,000 houses sit empty across
America? Oh yeah, that's right, those houses are "investment vehicles" which
must be protected because muh Free Markets, and because God forbid any
policies resembling a Nationalized Socialism take root in America and blow
away the illusion that a self-coherent Capitalism even exists. Meanwhile, We
The People are depreciating assets and "not economically viable."

Here's why. If you hate Trump, just wait until you see the next cartoon
character we meme into the Presidency. You may be baffled "why is the Alt-
Right smarter than us and why do they keep winning against all fake odds?" The
answer has been staring you in the face the whole time. Next time, there's
going to be a guy running for President and he's going to hit all of notes and
promise the right things to fix everything and punish everyone who deserves
it, and his name will be something like "Adolf" and me and 70 million voters
are going to elect him and then maybe you'll sit down and seriously challenge
your whole reality and everything you thought you knew and ask yourself "how
did we end up here?"

It might make you feel better to just ignore what I'm saying by discounting it
as "oh that guy is mentally ill, that's why he's homeless to begin with, just
ignore the crazy man and keep being apathetic and don't try to do anything and
leave it for the Govt to Do Something About It."

But don't feel bad for me. I feel bad for you. Because I have enjoyed a head
start prepping for the coming systemic collapse that is going to rip America
apart to its foundations and shovel dirt over the grave of our little 242 year
long "Grand Experiement." I know how Extended Involuntary Urban Camping, I
know how to live off canned food and the bare minimum of resources, I know how
to steal water and electricity and whatever else I need, I know how to live
little better than an animal with no consciousness about "next week" or "next
month", because I live in the day-to-day. I have learned it's survival of the
fittest. You have not. One day soon you'll wake up and your Soylent fridge
will be empty, your Googley Bus won't be there, your Googleplex will be empty
and picked apart by tweakers for scrap metal and everything you thought was a
permanent fixture of Civilization will be gone. I'll be fine. I didn't need
the majority of that shit anyways. Your mind will be blown when you see how
little you truly Need to get by just to survive.

As for my future, I don't waste my time with such a luxury. Chop wood, carry
water--that's Zen. I hate the entire Computing Industry by the way. Yes, you
too. Why would I want to get back into the Hamster Wheel? Why would I want to
rejoing being part of the problem again? Programming Blinken Light bullshit
for bullshitters does not interest me in the slightest anymore. This industry
has changed since I remember it in the Dotcom era. I no longer recognize it.
The only "fun" I find these days in programming is in leveling up in Reverse
Engineering to break as much software as I can and attack it as broadly and as
devestating as possible with the explicit goal of dumping 0days to put as many
of you out of business as I can and try real hard to roll Computing Inc as far
back into the pre-Internet Dark Ages of the 1960's and 1970's as I can.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Not going to lie, this was genuinely thought-provoking. I'm curious about a
few things though:

1\. The second part of your comment makes it sound like you're homeless by
choice, but the beginning makes it sound like you've just fallen on some very
rough times. I'd like to hear more about your story and how you came to be
where you are.

2\. The middle part of your comment about Trump and what comes next really
does concern me. I think we're at a crossroads right now, but I'm a lot less
convinced than you that we're going to go down the wrong road. If I look back
at points in America's history like the Civil War, Great Depression, World War
II, Vietnam, etc, this doesn't seem like we're at our most dysfunctional. We
managed to pass through those eras without societal collapse. Doesn't mean we
will this time, but what makes you so sure we won't?

3\. The final couple paragraphs of your comment remind me of what I've read of
stoicism. I commend you for realizing how little of our modern creature
comforts are truly necessary, and being willing to honestly weigh them against
their costs, both to you and to broader society. But you seem convinced that
those who currently live a more "normal" existence will be paralyzed and
helpless in the event of societal collapse. Why can't they adapt if you have?

------
weeksie
Fix the high price of housing. Expensive places push more people into
homelessness. Sure, services are still needed but by fixing housing you'll
make the biggest dent and do good for the most people. We need to upzone the
near ring suburbs of these cities at the very minimum.

------
nwah1
This is a very old problem. In 1879, Henry George called it the paradox of
progress and poverty. Prosperity causes land values to go up, and this
inevitably creates a class of winners and losers. Some of the losers can't
afford rent at all.

------
atemerev
You mean, in the bluest cities?

~~~
tropdrop
All dense cities are blue. When you live next to an immigrant neighbor with a
radically different lifestyle, and you two become friends, you start adopting
some blue political leanings. Compound that with density.

Over the past 10 years I frequently visited some suburbs near Ogden, Utah (I
lived there before). 10 years ago there were _no_ homeless panhandling
anywhere outside of downtown SLC. Now, they're not only in Salt Lake City and
Ogden - I see them in the tiny towns of Clinton, of West Point, outside of
Walmarts in extremely red, extremely religious, extremely suburban areas. All
while the state's official story is how they've "eradicated" [1] homelessness.
The visual record, just driving in all these places, does not support that. It
looks like what they've done is eliminate shelters, spread people out over the
whole state (sometimes by force via operation Rio Grande), then introduced new
"numbers" showing how great they've done.

Observing Utah is when it first began to dawn on me how national of an issue
homelessness is.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/27/utah-
homeles...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/27/utah-homeless-
shelters-housing-first)

------
intralizee
The majority of people in society have a herd mentality. Thinking patterns
such as one adopts the social norms and never questions them. These people
observe homeless, subconsciously consider them outsiders, and treat them as
not part of the herd with disconnecting from the problem belonging to
everyone. Nothing will change until people stop seeking to blame Government or
the Rich. Everyone has to take the blame for something to get done. I
personally think everyone has become sociopaths to some degree compared to
previous generations when it comes to people down on their luck.

------
newnewpdro
The homeless problem _always_ gets worse when a population grows, like most
problems.

Even if you hold the homeless % constant, the problem got worse.

~~~
dredmorbius
References requested.

~~~
newnewpdro
References? It's rather simple and obvious math.

If your city's population doubles, and the homeless portion started at 1%, and
ended at 1%, your number of homeless people on the streets doubled.

We like to focus on per-capita figures/%ages because they can make us feel
good about ourselves. Except the problems you see on the street are not
constant when their incidence %age stays constant, as the population grows.
For them to stay constant, the %age must shrink in proportion to the growth,
which is practically impossible.

Growth applies to everything, including your problems.

~~~
dredmorbius
Actually I was referring to the homelessness increasing as population
increases.

The periods of most rapid population growth in the US were the decade of the
1810s, with a subsequent peak in the 1850s. In the 20th century, the peak
decades were the 1900s and 1910s (21% each), then the 1960s (18%). Rates of
growth have fallen consistently since the 1960s, with the exception of the
decade of 2000 - 2009.

As I've posted elsewhere in this thread, use of the term "homelessness" took
off in the 1980s, during a period of modest population growth, by historical
standards.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States)

See also: [https://tradingeconomics.com/united-
states/population](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/population)

~~~
newnewpdro
Ok, I was not referring to the _rate_ increasing. I am simply stating that the
rate doesn't have to increase for the homeless problem to grow, because it
grows in absolute numbers with the population.

------
jdlyga
To the barricades!

------
DoreenMichele
I fairly often comment on the topic of homelessness. I am routinely told on HN
that the high cost of housing is unrelated to the rise in homelessness. This
article states otherwise and I quoted it here:
[https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-
clear-c...](https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-clear-
connection-between-housing.html)

Some things I routinely talk about:

This country tore down up to 80 percent of SROs over the course of a couple of
decades, probably because the Baby Boomers didn't need that kind of dirt cheap
housing when they came of age. We never rebuilt.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy)

[https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/02/the-rise-and-fall-
of-...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/02/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-
american-sro/553946/)

The American concept of "proper housing" is rooted in the housing boom that
followed soldiers coming back home from WW2 and most of our current policies,
financing mechanisms, etc are rooted in that era. The default expectation was
that it was housing for a nuclear family and we are still being haunted by the
ghost of those expectations, though they don't really serve us well anymore
for a variety of reasons.

So when people talk about the need for "affordable housing," most people seem
to hear _government subsidized housing_ , _The Projects_ , and _poverty
housing_. I'm not sure how to get around that. It absolutely isn't what I
mean.

I mean we need to develop demographically appropriate housing, such as SROs
that a single person working at Taco Bell could afford. We also need that
housing to be viable without a car. The reality that you basically _need_ a
car to get around in large parts of the US and the cheapest housing typically
requires a car is part of the problem here.

For most Americans, housing is their single largest expense and a car is their
second largest. This is in the process of changing as Millenials give push
back against such expectations, but it is still largely the norm here.

I don't know of any good terms that already exist for trying to make such
distinctions. They might need to be invented.

So, first, we need a variety of housing options that effectively and
appropriately serve lifestyles other than _nuclear family with kids, a full
time homemaker and a primary breadwinner_. We currently are trying to force-
fit people into such housing who don't live that way. For example, we assume
that the answer for single young people is to rent a place designed for a
family and then get enough roommates to fill up all the bedrooms and make the
place affordable.

And this is a nightmare option for many people. Rooming with total strangers
is inherently problematic.

Second, we need housing that doesn't de facto assume that you own a car and
have a driver's license and all that. We need housing that serves people who
don't want to have a car or who can't do that for some reason, whether cost or
age or disability.

I don't really know of terms in common usage for either of those concepts.
Those are some of the things I have in mind when I talk about a need for
"affordable housing," but it isn't what other people _hear_ when I say that.
They hear "Craptastic slums that no one wants to live in and no one wants in
their neighborhood" or they hear "socialism where we just hand people homes
they can't afford" or something. And that's absolutely not what I am going
for.

~~~
asdff
I don't know why you are _vilifying_ government housing, it is very obviously
the solution. Housing initiatives have always been a target for budgetary
looting by politicians looking to solidify their legacy with more glamorous
and superficial endeavors, but properly managed they are the only way for
affordable housing to happen in cities that are already grossly affordable
even for full time workers.

The market will never fix this, either. Why should a developer spend money to
build something and wait far longer (if ever) to recoup their initial
investment from affordable rental rates, when they can just price right along
with the market and be out of the red sooner? Real estate booms and crashes,
no one wants to wait for their goose to lay its first egg a decade after the
local real estate market cools off. The market always favors the most rapid
turn around on investment, and in cities like SF where tech companies gladly
hand 22 year olds more money than they've ever seen, the quickest and safest
buck for a developer are these cheap, fast, luxury builds that can command
rents at the top of the market because the units smell like new paint.

The current favorite strategy among local governments is to offer developers
large tax incentives to tack on a small percentage of low income units along
with the luxury build. It is hardly even a half measure, as the rest of the
luxury build will surge the rest of the local real estate market. Instead of
offering tax incentives to attract luxury developers, local governments should
instead let the market dictate what level of luxury building will be
profitable, and focus on building low income municipal housing that is
properly managed, and it's budget protected from raiding. Maybe something
modern, and modular such that a family unit can be cheaply reconfigured into
studios as demand dictates. In my city, the downtown YMCA has low income
apartments in the dozen or so floors above the recreation facilities, and it
works to keep these residents off the streets and employed.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I'm not vilifying anything. I'm just saying that I don't have any convenient
phrases that handily sum up the kinds of things I intend and using the phrase
"affordable housing" means something to other people that I'm not intending. I
keep saying "affordable housing" and it keeps going bad places and I'm
realizing that it does so because it is not the right expression to
communicate what I have in mind.

------
negativez
Since this a crazy hard problem that won't be solved in a comments section,
how about playing with a completely silly idea instead:

> Outlaw rental housing - force everyone to own their residence

The people we're most interested in helping are those pushed out by rising
rents. Rents can't rise if they don't exist. New migrants can't drive rent up
if rent doesn't exist - to the contrary, they would be increasing property
value for all residents.

I'm confident we can make this work, people.

~~~
jakelarkin
so instead of rent you pay interest, various property taxes, and hoa,
maintenance, or property management. Most of which are still subject to
inflation and price/wage disparity.

a better high level discussion would be how to reform the policy goal of
owning housing as saving mechanism and store of personal wealth, since it
can't be both a great investment for the prior generation and affordable to
the next one at the same time (if wages are stagnant)

