cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/12369426
the purpose of a system is what it does
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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Housing Bubble 2: Return of the Ugly
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California is building housing at $1000/sqft, the city of San Francisco spends $100,000/year per homeless person
If it was somehow just as easy to build public housing, why wouldn't they?
The tweet only talks about the cost of housing homeless people. Homeless people have other needs like mental and medical care. And $1000/sqft isn't the norm and the tweet is generalizing about housing costs throughout the country, not the CA. You just seem dead set and making public housing seem untenable. And they don't build public housing because it lowers rent for all renters. There's no floor to housing so every renter can be implicitly threatened with the specter of complete destitution, holding them ransom for the ridiculous rents we have now.
The state is dead set on making public housing untenable through its inability to execute, even if given the money.
CA has the biggest homeless problem, with nearly 30% of country's homless. They spend the most, and get the least results.
Le tweet is just some garbage dormroom study, even if it's well meaning, it's nonsense. SF doesn't even house most it's homeless and spends $100k/person, there is no way to bridge the gap between that and $10k/person just for housing, at least on average.
Market build high density vs star build high density will not lower the price of rent, the only way is to increase true supply (build more housing than the market can bear, which the state can't afford to do at $1k/sqft) or decrease true demand (fewer people to house).
Your held hostage to rent where you live? Move. I did, it's been great. It really solves several issues with one stone.
Where is this "$100k/person" statistic coming from? SF hates homeless people, so I kind of just don't believe that.
That's great, I'm glad for you. Not everyone can do that. If 2/3 of your income is going to rent alone, where are you gonna get the money for moving costs? You're going to need storage and/or shipping if you're moving far enough that your rent is going to drop significantly, you'll also need first month's rent, last month's rent, deposit, setup fees for utilities, termination fees for old utilities, and maybe even termination fees for your existing contract which usually just means paying the rest of the rent for the term of your contract all at once. Then you need a new job, new community, new resources, new doctors, etc. And don't forget people who are unable to move to certain areas due to marginalization. Some areas are literally deadly to live in if you're queer or a person of color, and some areas are completely unlivable if you're disabled. What about people who are already homeless? They can't move because social services are tied to the city where they last had residence.
Earlier in the thread you asked "If it was somehow just as easy to build public housing, why wouldn’t they?". The answer to that is almost always "lobbying", or "anti-homeless sentiment". Why aren't they building public housing? Because people with beliefs like yours are pushing back against it. You're arguing that it doesn't work because it doesn't happen, and it doesn't happen because it doesn't work.