
Growing homeless camps contrast with West Coast tech wealth - fishcolorbrick
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-isnt-alone-homeless-crisis-stretches-up-and-down-the-west-coast/
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cvwright
Or, you know, we could allow construction of housing that people can actually
afford. Portland's _Willamette Week_ free newspaper had a great writeup of the
issues last year:

[http://www.wweek.com/news/2016/09/28/portland-needs-to-
build...](http://www.wweek.com/news/2016/09/28/portland-needs-to-build-
thousands-of-affordable-apartments-heres-why-it-keeps-coming-up-short/)

But apparently if we allowed houses that people could afford, then the housing
might not all be in sufficiently trendy neighborhoods. And some of it might
not be pretty enough. And some of our buddies in the "affordable housing"
nonprofits might miss out on the funding. The horrors!

So instead we leave people to live in tents under highway bridges. Good job
Portland.

When _Willamette Week_ is calling you out for being too anti-corporate, you
know you have a problem.

~~~
Top19
Was at a city council meeting where I live for a developer to build 380
apartments. It was a very nice deal, the apartments were mid-range in costs,
they were going to include a park, and there was going to be shopping on the
1st floor. It would replace a 40 year old legacy strip-shopping mall.

Jesus Christ the people of Austin, Texas fought this thing like it was a toxic
waste dump for disposed of Ebola Virus experiments. Also the city council
meeting was just dominated by OLD PEOPLE, I truly never had any idea how much
politics was generational until that night.

Ultimately the city council isn’t stupid and voted to allow the developer to
rezone, so I guess it worked out, but still such a haunting image of
selfishness.

~~~
hkmurakami
I've been an observer an impacted neighboring resident for a development in my
neighborhood (fwiw I'm pragmatic about these things and have a cooperative
relationship with the developer).

Can attest that the council's and committees are 95% old people. And tbh the
workload burden to review a development proposal is pretty heavy, and you'd
basically have to be semi retired to want to do this.

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pc2g4d
Another example of people left behind by a fast-moving, dynamic economy. Along
with former steel workers and others in industries that have been sent
overseas, they pay the price of the transition from yesterday's economy to
today's economy.

Arguably it's good for our economy to be able to adjust to new technologies
and geopolitical trends, but the human cost is immense. How could we
systematically compensate for the costs incurred by those who were just in the
wrong situation at the wrong time? Or how can we help people avoid getting
into those wrong situations to begin with?

~~~
zodiac
I understand that we should consider the human cost in this sense, but if
you're going to appeal to the empathy I have for the people who lose jobs, you
can't ignore the people which benefit from the "industries being sent
overseas" by receiving those jobs. Of course I'm sad when I see a homeless
person in the US, and yes some of them are homeless because their jobs "moved
overseas", but those jobs might have helped a few really poor Chinese farmers
attain a higher standard of living as factory workers. How do we account for
that?

~~~
zardo
>How do we account for that?

Don't forget which one gets to vote in your elections.

------
tenpoundhammer
I don't think it's a coincidence that these are democratically dominated
cities who heavily favor regulations. Portland in particular has been trying
hard to wave or temporarily relax many of it's regulations in order to deliver
more housing, but a more sustainable solution would be to permanently end some
of the less useful regulations. The irony of the situation though is that the
heavy regulations are part of the reason why these cities are so desirable
because certain regulations make it a nicer city. It's hard to strike a
balance on regulations.

------
NTDF9
For CA, they need to get rid of Prop 13 and use that money for infrastructure
projects (thus spreading the wealth a bit). Removing prop 13 also has the
benefit of reducing house prices a bit since the property tax will cause some
downward pressure on prices.

Seattle: Just tax capital gains in the State.

------
nerpderp83
If we give them Chromebooks and free WiFi, they can learn to code in 20 weeks.

~~~
drharby
Hoping this is stale bait

~~~
nerpderp83
Does it take more weeks than that?

~~~
drharby
Eh - 30 weeks, you have to remember these homeless have a handicap factor
because of all the hepatitis and crack

~~~
nerpderp83
So maybe VR headsets and microdoses of LSD and Cocaine?

Sounds like we are working on a script for a remake of Lawn Mower Man [0]

[0]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104692/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104692/)

~~~
drharby
Lawnmower man remake by key and peele is something i would pay 15 bucks for at
the matinee

------
john_teller02
This will continue as long as homeless folks are given a one way bus ticket to
land up in west coast from the red states.

~~~
paulddraper
IIRC, it was Nevada (an eternally blue state) sending it's homeless to SF

