[thebooktocome]

Imprisonment is far more expensive than housing. SLC ran a pilot program years ago proving the concept.

Of course, if one is the retributive sort, nothing grinds one’s spleen more than someone worse off getting something “they don’t deserve”.

I personally don’t understand why the some exceptionally wealthy billionaire in California doesn’t solve the homelessness problem themselves, expending some mere fraction of their net worth (i.e., the value of a couple bucks to the rest of us).

[orangecat]

I personally don’t understand why the some exceptionally wealthy billionaire in California doesn’t solve the homelessness problem themselves

If you were an exceptionally wealthy billionaire, how would you solve it? Especially considering that the obvious approach of "build housing" is largely illegal.

[nradov]

Due to the SB-8 Housing Crisis Act of 2019, it is now largely legal to build housing. Sometimes property developers have had to sue local governments in order to enforce their rights but now most cities are complying. Obtaining the necessary land and building permits is still extremely expensive. A billion dollars worth of new housing would be great, but it would barely begin to address the shortage.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...

[fmajid]

The Builder's Remedy doesn't apply to SF yet because of its sham "Housing Element" plan it filed with the State government, that has realistically zero chances of ever happening, but bought them an 8 year reprieve.

[prottog]

> Sometimes property developers have had to sue local governments in order to enforce their rights

I'm glad that the state government has taken a step in the right direction, but the situation on the ground as you describe it still doesn't sound very friendly. There's enough risks in investment and business (that is, property development) as it is without needing to fight City Hall on top of it.

> Obtaining the necessary land and building permits is still extremely expensive.

Land I understand, since it's of a fixed supply in a highly desired area, but there's no reason why permitting should be so burdensome if policy intent is to foster more building.

[thebooktocome]

Billionaires don’t seem to have trouble doing illegal things when it comes to tax evasion, securities fraud, and the like. Some random municipal zoning board would be child’s play with their resources.

The proof of this is that the rich regularly manipulate zoning laws. Look at what Google and Apple did to Palo Alto.

[lotsofpulp]

Violating a random municipal zoning board’s orders by building something without the necessary permits is a clear cut violation that is easy to spot that you cannot use plausible deniability for.

The US is not that corrupt yet. The billionaire might be able to bribe the zoning board members, but it would be pretty sacrificial of one’s self to risk a felony just to watch the building’s freshly laid foundation get destroyed, because that is only how far one might get without the cops getting involved.

[lotsofpulp]

Imprisonment is to keep people moving along, or deter them from coming.

Housing is more expensive because of the opposite, it incentives everyone to come get it.

On a federal level, housing and healthcare might be cheaper than imprisonment. But what is even cheaper (in the short run) is ignoring it altogether.

>I personally don’t understand why the some exceptionally wealthy billionaire in California doesn’t solve the homelessness problem themselves, expending some mere fraction of their net worth (i.e., the value of a couple bucks to the rest of us).

Because the problem is far more expensive than any single billionaire or even group of billionaires entire net worth. Even if they could handle just California's population. there are 290M people in the rest of the country, and a significant portion who would not mind coming to California for free housing.

[thebooktocome]

Here is SLC’s program, including all the community work they have to do to mollify the NIMBYs:

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/06/1134230388/village-salt-lake-...

Median rent in SLC: 1.8k/mo, 21.6k/yr

Federal prison: ~39k/yr

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/09/01/2021-18...

Median rent in CA: 2.9k/mo, 34.8k/yr (according to Zillow)

CA prison: 106k/yr (!)

https://lao.ca.gov/policyareas/cj/6_cj_inmatecost

Incarcerating the homeless is not an economic decision, it’s an emotional one. Society doesn’t mind wasting endless amounts of money doing it, because the cruelty is the point.

[lotsofpulp]

I feel like the induced demand portion of my argument is being ignored.

CA prison might be 3x expensive per year, but would CA be looking to house 3x or more people if they offered free housing?

[pandaman]

All law enforcement is not economical in this approach, when you are pricing only immediate costs. E.g. prosecuting a murderer is a complete loss of hundreds of thousands dollars if not millions. And we are not even getting the victim back for all these money spent.

[thebooktocome]

Murderers aren’t really representative of the homeless.

Bear in mind mere homelessness is not unequivocally a crime in the states, see Martin v. Boise (2020 or so).

[pandaman]

>Murderers aren’t really representative of the homeless.

Nobody is arguing they are.

>Bear in mind mere homelessness is not unequivocally a crime in the states

Nobody is for prosecuting homelessness. Vagrancy, loitering, public consumption of drugs and alcohol, obstruction of public right of way, public nuisance, public defecation, trespassing etc, etc, are crimes though and we should be going after their perpetrators regardless of their having a home.