[seriesf]

Hrmm, what is a way to solve the problem of HOMElessness, other than throwing people in jail? Trying to think here, just brainstorming. Here's my list of top solutions to HOMElessness:

1) Zone 90% of the city for detached single-family homes? 2) Mandatory decade-long design review for every new home? 3) Lots of parking lots? 4) Designate every extant building a "historical resource"?

Some combination of those policies should eventually solve the housing crisis, I think.

[gamblor956]

You're confusing the underhoused with the homeless. The underhoused cannot find affordable housing near their places of work. This is a serious problem in CA, and even with the intense residential building of the last 3 years CA is not making much headway.

But homelessness of the kind at issue in this case is a very different thing. The vast majority of these homeless are mentally ill, drug addicts, or both. Re-zoning single-family lots won't do anything to address this problem, because most of them have families with homes who've simply given up on trying to take care of them.

[seriesf]

Wait, I only just noticed where you said “intense residential construction”. You must be joking. Current rates of construction across the state are far below historic norms. The only people who think this is a building boom are those who haven’t glanced at a fifty-year housing starts chart.

[gamblor956]

CA is a huge place. Yes, across a gigantic state housing starts aren't great.

But within 7 miles of me in any direction, more than 100,000 new units have come online in the past 2 years, and more than another 100,000 are expected to come online in the next 2. Across LA, there are a few hundred thousand more units in the pipeline, some of which would already be built and occupied if not for NIMBYs in single-family houses opposing the construction.

And quite frankly, even if we could build at the speed of historic norms, there simply isn't the available land. You'd end up with housing tracts hundreds of miles from their associated job centers.

[seriesf]

I'm sorry but there is no way your characterization is accurate for any given point on the map. The entire Los Angeles metropolitan statistical area only authorizes about 2500 new dwellings per month, and not all of them get built. Prior to 1990, the rate was normally above 5000 dwellings per month. This is despite the fact that Greater LA has grown more than 22% in population since 1990.

So, my point stands. The only people who believe this is a boom haven't looked at this graph: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LOSA106BPPRIVSA

[gamblor956]

Across the street from me are 3 new apartment buildings which collectively house 1500-2000 people.

Down the street are two new apartment buildings which house another 1000-1500 people.

Two blocks away from that are a cluster of apartment buildings which collectively house more than 10,000 people.

And quite frankly, you are simply wrong about the statistics you are citing.

The pre-1990 figure is primarily residential single-family homes, so each structure was on average capable of housing just 4 people. Current residential construction is primarily multi-unit residences, so each structure represents residential capacity, on average, of several dozen people.

So my point stands, and I would strongly recommend you take a statistics course.

[seriesf]

Permits for single and multi-unit buildings are reported separately. The report I cited above is all UNITS i.e. the sum of all apartments in all buildings.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LOSA106BP1FH

The breakdown of permits issued in 2018 in Los Angeles was as follows:

1 Unit: 10042 2 Units: 1528 3-4 Units: 522 5+ Units: 17432 Total: 29524 Source: https://www.census.gov/construction/bps/txt/tb3u2018.txt

As you can see from the total, this is not anywhere near 50000 units per year, as you initially claimed. These 30000 units are also spread across an area with diameter far greater than the 14 miles you started with.

Also, in addition to being wrong about every other aspect of this debate, you are quite wrong about this one. By FAR the majority of PERMITS go to single-family homes.

When you are very ignorant about a topic, it would be helpful to type less and read more.

[seriesf]

So they need supportive housing. I endorse building a lot of housing of all kinds, everywhere, as fast as we can. SF has by far the highest municipal revenues per capita in the nation and it can afford to build.

[alistairSH]

The vast majority of these homeless are mentally ill, drug addicts, or both.

Citation? That's a much repeated trope, but I've yet to see actual numbers to support it.

[gamblor956]

Walk down LA's Skid Row and count the number of homeless people you see who aren't (a) on drugs or drunk, or (b) mentally ill.

Thousands of homeless live on or travel to Skid Row each day, but most people who attempt this challenge don't get to double digits.