[brudgers]

Denstitutionalization had a significant impact on the demographic composition of the homeless population. But urban renewal in the years following the Second World War reduced the stock of cheap housing. Single room occupancy and boarding houses became rare. In many places they became extinct.

The quality of housing at the left of a price histogram became higher. But so did its minimum cost. There's less transient and temporary housing. The overall population is larger. Hope VI continued the removal of the least expensive housing under the rubric of urban renewal policy right up to the twenty-first century.

[DoreenMichele]

This is a huge part of the problem. I've been researching the history of US housing for at least two decades at this point and I feel clear that this is a consequence of WW2, post-war prosperity and the existence of the Baby Boom generation that mostly grew up with unprecedented wealth, didn't need cheap housing and essentially imposed it's ideas of "minimal, acceptable housing" on the nation as a whole.

Then demographic and economic reality changed, but we've been both reluctant to rebuild the cheaper accommodations that got demolished and we face serious logistical barriers to recreating such. Cheap housing tends to be older housing. New construction is generally built for the middle class or the wealthy. Poor people don't finance new construction.

So we currently have a huge shortage of housing that works for lower income people. It's not just a factor of rent price per se. We also have created a situation where most Americans cannot live without a car, which is de facto another substantial financial burden and logistical barrier for anyone with physical barriers to being able to drive. On top of that, we just straight up do not have a lot of decent housing options for anyone who prefers a smaller home for some reason.

I'm still trying to figure out out how to document and communicate the shape and extent of the housing problem. Using the term "affordable housing" fails to be helpful in talking about the issue. In fact, it's counterproductive.

But the huge loss of entry-level housing is a large part of this problem space and the period of its active destruction coincides with the findings by dredmorbius that at some point our terminology changed in a way that suggests the issue of homelessness fundamentally changed such that it is inherently more serious, problematic, chronic and long term.

[brudgers]

The stigmatization of poverty is an Anglo-American tradition going back at least as far as the 1536 English Poor Laws.[1] Among it's intellectual benefits is a convenient absence of necessary inconvenience upon the wealthy.

Stigmatization of poverty is not the only tradition at play in America. San Francisco's namesake advocated poverty and homelessness. The city was literally established by homeless men who lived in poverty.

The "affordable housing" problem limits solutions to those meeting some criterion for "economically deserving." It precludes pursuit of universal shelter security free of relative political disability. Affordable housing allows eviction from public housing when a family member is criminally charged. Affordable housing allows assistance disqualification for past drug offenses fully paid. Affordable housing is premised on scarcity not abundance.

At the macro-economic scale affordable housing has the delusional premise that there's a housing market that exists in an independent way. The delusion that there's a housing market that can reach equilibrium. Housing is not just one among many alternatives for achieving returns on real-estate investment.

It's one of the worst because conversion of real-estate to housing is sticky. Conversion of housing to more productive commercial, industrial, and agricultural uses ranges from hard (rental trailer parks) to near impossible (multiple single family fee simple lots). Politically, housing houses voters. Economically, homeowners have an incentive to hold out during aggregation.

Real-estate investment is primarily a vehicle for preserving wealth. It's long term. Cashing out is only rational when the returns are high. Cashing out into housing only makes sense when the cash value of the housing at time of delivery exceeds the potential long term value of other uses minus the increased risk from liquidating a perpetual real property title into goods, chattels, and/or financial instruments.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_laws

[DoreenMichele]

Your use of the term "affordable housing" suggests you are talking about government run poverty relief programs, aka The Projects. I am not. This is one of the reasons it isn't useful terminology for my purposes.

I see our current homeless crisis as a crisis that emerged out of the success of past generations, much like London burned to the ground because as big cities finally emerged from a growing population, it wasn't obvious beforehand that thatched roofs and the like would be a disastrous detail when building a lot of housing under conditions of population density that had not been previously seen.

I am aware that classism and other evils exist. I experienced classism first-hand while homeless.

But I don't find it constructive to focus overly much on that and I don't feel that framing is particularly accurate. I think the majority of the problem is due to factors like blind spots on the part of the privileged.

In a case where you have a mix of root causes, it's generally better to focus your effort on the more readily resolved pieces of the problem. When one of those pieces is prejudice, addressing other pieces of the problem is an effective means to combat prejudice.

Condemning people for their prejudice tends to entrench the problem, not remedy it. Casting light on the fact that their assumptions are incorrect is far more productive.

I believe that this problem exists not because most people in power actively desire to be abusive assholes punishing the lower classes for existing but because they don't have good answers. I think the best thing I can do is do the research, figure out how to effectively communicate it and make it freely available on the internet for anyone interested in the topic.

That still leaves me with an unresolved question of how to pay my own bills. I'm off the street, but I still struggle to make ends meet. I'm currently nearly broke and facing a week where I am likely to go hungry for a few days.

This is an all too common occurrence in my life. Ads are "dead" so to speak and I don't know how to get enough tips and/or Patreon supporters to turn my writing into a middle class income for me.

But other than the detail that it isn't paying enough, I feel pretty confident that this model of 1. Do the research and 2. Put out good info for free is our best hope for finding a viable path forward on some of our current hard problems.

Thank you for your participation in this discussion. Your comments have been enormously helpful for me.

[brudgers]

Sorry for not being clear. I agree that "affordable housing" is not a particularly useful starting point for addressing housing insecurity in a meaningful way. I agree that it is a way of maintaining wealth and power.

I think in the context of homelessness, "affordable housing" is used to muddy the waters. "Affordable housing" gets people off on the tangent of home ownership and the American Dream expectations of FAANG engineers. And when that connotation starts to gain traction, "affordable housing" can be used to derail that conversation by bringing homelessness into the mix. No matter what I mean, "affordable housing" has another meaning that can be used to derail my point.

I am really glad you are writing what you are writing and sharing it on HN. It makes Hacker News a better place.

My perspective on housing has developed over the thirty years since I studied architectural drafting at vo-tech and later an MArch. I worked nearly exclusively in housing from 2001 until just a few years ago. With and for developers and homebuilders plus some time in government as a planner and building plans examiner. I watched Hope VI go down in grad school. I worked on some Tax Credit housing projects when I had an independent practice.

Anyway, if I can help, my email is in my profile. Thanks for making HN better.

[DoreenMichele]

Anyway, if I can help, my email is in my profile.

Thanks.

I did write you about my latest project. If you don't see an email from me, check your spam folder.