[wilg]

The TL;DR here is that California has a housing crisis, which caused homelessness, which caused people to look into a bus stop design which doesn’t serve as a proper shelter.

Here’s a data-driven argument that homelessness is a problem with lack of homes, more so than mental health or drugs or whatever else: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-...

Fixing housing will have a lot of great downstream effects.

[tmnvix]

I'm not going to argue that building more housing will not help the situation, but I think it would also be worth looking at some of the underlying reasons for the lack of available housing.

I would bet my bottom dollar that the proportion of residences that are not used as a primary residence is higher today than it was 30 years ago.

A few reasons that this would be the case in my opinion:

- A second home (holiday home, pied-à-terre, land-banked, etc) used to cost you money, but with capital gains as they have been for the past few decades now makes you money - so naturally more people will take advantage if they have the means to.

- Investing in housing has advantages that other types of investments don't (residential mortgage rates are lower than rates for business loans, leveraging, tax advantages, etc).

- Short term renting is now incredibly convenient and lucrative.

I think any government that is seriously interested in addressing the housing crisis should start by determining how much of the housing stock is not used as a primary residence.

Sure, build more housing, but there are some simple regulatory changes that could improve the situation with little effort in my opinion.

[wilg]

A lot of people think this, but it's not a meaningful counterargument, nor do I think there are simple regulatory changes that would help much. https://journal.firsttuesday.us/californias-distinctly-low-v...

[tmnvix]

Thanks for sharing this link. It's rare to see people acknowledge the difference between the actual vacancy rate and the vacancy rate as measured by the proportion of properties in the rental market that are currently unoccupied.

9% as stated in the article is a lot in my opinion. That roughly one in every ten houses is not currently a primary residence points to a big problem (as I suggested in my earlier comment).

Could you elaborate on why you suggest this figure (or the content of the linked article) makes my argument not meaningful?

[wilg]

Here's a better link about vacancies, actually: https://socketsite.com/archives/2022/02/there-are-not-40000-...

I just don't think the numbers hold that second homes and short-term renting account for the problem. Remember, California needs to build four million new homes just to deal with existing demand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_housing_shortage

IIRC also Vancouver (which is I think even more expensive than SF) tried to tax vacant homes and stuff and I don't think it made a dent. https://vancouversun.com/business/real-estate/three-years-in...

I'm not sure why people are so resistant to the obvious solution, but it seems to me no matter how you look at it, you just end up coming back to the most effective thing to do is going to be to get more housing built.

[Pigalowda]

What’s with these “data-driven” nonsense posts? You live in a west coast city? Go outside! Use your eyeballs! You think the naked guy who’s floridly psychotic and taking a dump on the sidewalk would be A OK with a cheap dwelling?

The people smoking fentanyl at the train station and on the buses? They just need a little house and they’ll be fine? Such utter neoliberal nonsense.

[Avshalom]

Well if they had houses they'd be naked and shitting in their house, if they had housing they'd be smoking fentanyl in their house. So at least y'all'd stop going on and fucking on about "open air drug markets" and "the city looks like something out of mad max". It might not solve their problems, but it would solve yours.

[Pigalowda]

No - it doesn’t solve anything. Some cheap crappy collection of houses that are “maintained” by whom? The psychotics and fentanyl users? The “solution” creates a ghetto that has to be maintained by city expenditure. And after that dumb expensive mess fails, then what?

Maybe that’s your neolib solution this entire time - ghettos. Typical.

[Avshalom]

neoliberalism is (broadly) an ideology that markets are/will-find the optimal solution for everything. Giving people housing, not being a market-based-solution, is not neoliberalism.

Also yes, maintained by city expenditure, it's been shown time and time again that housing is way fucking cheaper than a combination of policing and emergency medicine.

that's not even to touch the moral/ethical imperative that human life has intrinsic value and we should strive to provide everyone with the resources and dignity that they need.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome, lacking clothes and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me.

If it fails, then what is the question you need to answer, because my answer is: keep trying.

[Pigalowda]

Yes yes very righteous and unproductive.

My answer: 3 strike rule and semi permanent sequestration by the state.

You get your cheap housing after all.

[Avshalom]

"sequestration"

Incarceration.

Slave labor.

Because you saw a penis three times.

[wilg]

This is, obviously, intellectually lazy. The article discusses mental health and drugs and why they cannot be the main issue. Anecdotes don't really change that, hence why people use data instead of their emotions to solve problems.

[Pigalowda]

Yea, I’d rather be “intellectually lazy” and grounded in reality.

These people aren’t using “data” to solve problems. What a joke.

Here’s what’s going to happen - voting citizens will eventually get tired of the drugs, property crime, and homeless and they’ll elect a mayor who is “tough on crime”. There will be a crack down and the public spaces will improve however eventually regress back. Then the cycle repeats. And a new academic group says if there were more cheap housing all the problems will be solved.

[wilg]

Why are you outright denying that the data exists? And you're calling it being "grounded in reality"? Seriously? That's lunacy. The data I provided demonstrates you are wrong about your theory of homelessness. I can't do anything else for you.

[Pigalowda]

The data sucks and so did that blog. As if West Virginia and Mississippi are good comparisons! They don’t have as many homeless because their urban centers are minuscule, can’t support large homeless populations with limited social services, and with populations/laws less tolerant of vagrancy.

And yea, I’m grounded in reality - you are not. I don’t care about your silly data which captures multiple cohorts of homeless populations and tries to foist them into and analyze them as 1 population. Before you try doing “anything else” for me why don’t you try going outside and seeing for yourself. Or better yet, go work in the county Emergency room in a big city! Why don’t you try that? Maybe talk to a social worker there or case manager? That might be scary for you. Better put on your big boy pants if you have any.

[wilg]

I'm no longer interested in engaging with you on this (or any) topic.

[Ferret7446]

There's a reason for the saying: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics".

[cwalv]

Intellectually lazy, maybe, but funny and easy to relate to.

Of course, a cheapo home won't help that guy. But without the 'data', we also don't know how much of the overall homeless population is like that. And regardless, that guy will still be there with more housing, so it'd be hard to call the problem solved.

[wilg]

A cheapo home probably would help that guy a lot. This is called a housing-first approach. It's easier to get off drugs when you're not, you know, homeless. But yes, other approaches are needed for serious drug problems. But we know that drug problems aren't the biggest factor in homelessness.

[jjtheblunt]

i bet homelessness arises from more reasons than a housing crisis, with drug addiction and mental illnesses examples.

[Clubber]

I suspect it's mainly drug and alcohol addiction. Alcohol addiction isn't talked about as much as drug addiction, but it's just as bad, probably worse. Once you get your first few DUI's, you now have a record, you can't drive, and you have a much harder time finding meaningful work, much less getting there. Now you're depressed and you know what will make you feel better. Now you can't even hold a job because you're drunk all the time because you're depressed because you can't find meaningful work. I've seen it first hand, it's not pretty.

[wilg]

No need to bet, just look into it. I provided some reading on it.