Long-time Seattle resident here who volunteered for several years in the homeless community. Homelessness has always been a thing in Seattle, but has definitely become a much larger issue in the past five years.
I'll spare my thoughts on any number of reasons as to why we got here as a city, but will say I think we are doing a terrible disservice to actually finding a solution by lumping "anyone who doesn't have a home" into the "homeless crisis."
There are so many nuanced issues across a variety of problems here. There are drug abuse issues, mental health issues, physical health issues, cost of living issues, etc., and not to mention the varying cocktail of comorbidity, that to bulk "people without permanent housing" all under the umbrella of "homeless crisis" is not going to get us anywhere. Trying to assist the single mother with children who lives in her car because she lost her job is a VASTLY different issue than trying to assist the drug addict sitting in an alley passed out in their own feces. But at the end of the day, they're both human beings, and it breaks my heart that either of them are in that situation.
Several separate issues, that need to be subdivided and approached in distinct ways if any progress is to be made on any of them. Smaller, subdivided problems should feel more solvable, too.
Unfortunately, a lot of the solutions are expensive and frankly politically toxic. Despite Seattle's deep blue on most things, suddenly we get very "every person for themselves" the second homelessness has a price tag.
I will go to my grave not understanding why this is so complex and difficult for people to understand and politicians to fix.
Wages are stagnant, save for a handful of sectors, in which they're growing quickly. Housing prices are rising due to limited supply and backward policies towards new construction. Inequality therefore expands exponentially, creating a city of haves-and-have nots.
Either reduce inequality through taxes and social re-distribution programs, or build more housing supply. Preferably both.
I mean, I think you're missing a key factor here: politicians require money to be elected. The poor (the folks most affected by these issues) don't have the money to donate. The rich (the ones you propose taxing) do. Thus, the only ones who can get elected are catering to an audience that does not want this problems solved in this way (and indeed, one could argue, does not care to have it solved at all).
Until the problem of money in politics gets fixed, your "simple" problem is largely unfixable.
Inequality isn't the right measure unless you make some assumptions that have, historically, not held (e.g. fixed total amount of wealth). All you care about is that the poorest people can afford somewhere to live.
Toy example: If everyone can afford a home, and then Jeff Bezos increases his wealth by 1000x, inequality goes up but no one becomes homeless.
I'm not saying wealth inequality is meaningless, but I think making it a primary concern creates an instance of Goodhart's law.
I know you may not think so, but its important to realize that your response is highly biased. Many people see this differently and personally I think the best solution is for communities to realize this is an issue and volunteer time and money to help solve it. Things like volunteering time to go teach young kids and teens to code, taking a weekend to help with habitat for humanity, at a soup kitchen or helping with a coat drive. I firmly believe it is as big a problem as it is because the average person sees it as an intractable that they cannot solve and in the city its even more pronounced because there's less of a sense of community and more of a sense of fending for oneself. We need LESS red tape to help cities develop affordable housing more quickly, INNOVATION to bring down the cost of housing (think modular housing) and a CAN DO attitude that this is a problem WE CAN fix. As JFK famously said "We choose to ... not because it is easy, but because it is hard." And that's the mentality we need. Tax and re-distribution may be PART of the answer, but not THE answer.
> I will go to my grave not understanding why this is so complex and difficult for people to understand and politicians to fix.
Ugh, if it was that easy it would have been done already. Look at the recent wars over the best way to run an economy. Its never that simple.
Perhaps European system is the best? Or maybe they just got wealthy by exploiting their colonies for the last few hundred years so they can afford to look after everyone for a while as their economies slowly strangle themselves into obsolescence.
Or Perhaps California should be run more like Republican states - they have far fewer homeless.
You're right. Homelessness is just a symptom of other problems. Another key thing to understand is that 80-90% of homeless people are no longer homeless after approximately 4-8 months. In other words, the current patchwork system of public programs and non-profits work. Only 10-20% of the homeless population is chronically homeless. The most common issues are related to mental health, drug addiction, or a combination of both. imo I don't feel that individual states or cities can really solve the problem since they all tend to play the game of "let's ship this troubled person away from here". A long term solution will need to involve the federal gov. It's also hard to solve due to the stigma and lack of understanding from the public at large when it comes to mental illness.
Economics has come to explain and attack the particular problem of homelessness amongst rich areas in the late 1800's, with Henry George's Poverty and Progress.
The economic field definitely has a simple recipe to attack the root cause of this issues, but its one that, in my opinion, is politically unfeasible, as it goes mostly against the middle class, and retired people as well as the rich.
The solution is called LVT, land value tax, and its popular since adam smith, to modern day left-leaning econs like stiglitz, or right-leaning like Milton friedman.
I understand how building more housing would improve a housing shortage.
But I don't understand how reducing inequality through taxes and social re-distribution programs, while not building more housing, would improve a housing shortage!
The complexity lies in the web of incentives that make up regional and local politics. The people most negatively affected have the least clout politically. The people with the most political influence have a vested interest in ensuring housing prices don't drop. So as a result, the optimal choice for a politician isn't the optimal choice for the city as a whole. Not to mention policies like rent control that can produce a huge sort term political gain, at the expense of making drastically harder to build more housing in the future.
It's difficult to fix housing supply because NIMBYs have so much power on local political activity. It's not just a US problem either. In Australia, Sweden, the UK, Germany, France and many other places housing is more expensive than it should be.
If you want to do something go and get active in the YIMBY movement.
I don't think it is either too challenging or too complex for politicians and people to understand, the problem is one of incentives.
Those with the resources that could be taxed and redistributed do not want to be taxed and have resources taken away from them. Since they have resources they can use some percentage of them to both influence politicians and influence other people. The people who do not have resources cannot do either of these things.
"Either reduce inequality through taxes and social re-distribution programs, or build more housing supply. Preferably both."
>> The latter only. "Reducing inequality through taxes and social re-distribution programs" will not put a single additional person in a house, however noble that goal may be. There are more people in a given area than homes, so some people don't get to live in one. You can force those people to leave, or you can build homes for them, or you can let them be homeless.
This is what's called gridlock or lack political willpower.
While I am not an American, I'm feeling one tune constantly when I talk with American professionals in China, and it is something close to this:
"I am given a terrible choice in between between living in a sad, stagnating, dysfunctional civil state with bureaucracy and fascist tendencies, or hell, but with full-blown and well run progressive fascist bureaucracy, and which is fun to live in"
> It’s not bad everywhere. Houston, the fourth-most-populous city in the nation, has cut its homeless population in half since 2011, in part by creating more housing for them. That’s dampened the effect of rising rents, Zillow found.
It's not just intuition, there's evidence to support it. I think building more housing is the quickest and more bipartisan solution, since tax and spending changes are magnets for political drama.
Because then people would have to confront challenges to their highly propagandized views of economics and political standards. People would have to admit that the 'free market' isn't some catch-all solution to problems and that sometimes it is the cause of problems. They would have to admit capitalism itself isn't some naturally occurring and self-maintaining phenomenon and realize how easily it can be, and is, arbitrarily manipulated by people either good or bad. They would have to confront the idea that much of what they are told is highly influenced advertising and propaganda purposefully created to mislead them into one action or another. They would need to recognize the full extent that the concentration of power and wealth has contributed to political corruption.
Nobody wants to admit that their preconceived notions might be a bunch of bullshit they were purposefully fed, and not something they thought up and devised themselves.
How can we accomplish this without being a nanny state? I see more and more that people that are on fringes don't even want to try to work anymore because they don't have to with all the safety nets in place. I don't know the answer, but I think I do know why you will go to your grave without it being solved - GOP vs Dems solution to this is the exact opposite, and we are permanently stuck. We can't go full bore on either solution (both of which can probably work to some extent) but instead we're 100% deadlocked for the rest of time.
In the late 1980s I attended a talk at a political gathering in San Francisco. The speaker asked the audience members to think about the scores of homeless people they saw walking to the event. The speaker then made a statement that I'll never forget:
"This is what a modern depression looks like."
When most people think of a Depression, the image that comes to mind is black-and-white photos of mobs of people standing in bread lines.
What if 1930s-style depressions are no longer possible? Central banks intervene in every crisis no matter how small, handing out freebies to banks and financial institutions. However, these groups can only spend so much money on themselves. A little gets spent on frivolous crap like vacations, boats, and watches, a lot gets spent on ridiculous startup ideas and other terrible speculations, and the vast majority gets parked in the stock and bond markets where it grows and grows with each new infusion of fake money.
What if modern central banking has made a repeat of the Great Depression impossible?
Consider the possibility that the US has been in the modern equivalent of a Depression since the 1980s. It doesn't feel like a Depression because most people have housing and jobs, and GDP goes up. But focusing on these metrics ignores three very annoying pieces of information:
1. wages have been flat for many years
2. inflation for essential goods/services (housing, health care, child care) has outpaces inflation year after year
I stayed a night in LA a few weeks ago at an AirBNB in a condo in a prime location near Little Tokyo and can't stop thinking that society would be better off if this condo were owned and occupied by a family instead of being basically a for-profit hotel.
I don't know how to stop this de facto rezoning except by imposing huge taxes on housing that is not the owner's primary residence and closing all the loopholes that come along with that. This would free up more properties for people to own as a primary residence, and AirBNB users et al could still rent out rooms in their primary residence.
It doesn't solve actual homelessness, the solution for that seems to be build more housing.
It’s ironic considering that DTLA of all Los Angeles sub markets is the one with virtually no zoning restrictions and has some of the highest numbers of construction cranes in the nation.
But before we all go onto AirBnB rampage, have you looked at any available properties in that zip code? The schools are complete garbage (an elementary school kid was recently stabbed by a homeless drug addict), the crime rate is high, public transport is next to non-existent, and there’s feces of various origins in the plain view on the sidewalk.
Downtown LA officials have been trying to revitalize the neighborhood by expanding the convention center, permitting more hotel rooms, making business rent cheap and attracting more visitors like yourself, not pitching the neighborhood that’s adjacent to Skid Row to a suburban nuclear family with 2.2 kids.
My favourite Richard Branson quote: «Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.»
The same
goes for cities. For a city, the inhabitants come first. Take care of the inhabitants, and the inhabitants will take care of business. Ensure inhabitants have a safe place to live and give them higher education, and the inhabitants will give a return on the investment.
I hang out in an area of Denver where they can’t seem to build $500,000/2,500 a mo. condos fast enough, and a couple blocks full of homeless people sleep 1/4 miles away. A coffee shop I visit at had its portapotties taken over by a homeless band who informed us they were sleeping there and we should donate. Turned out they were also smoking crack. So far it seems the city’s plan is to keep pushing them around the city - Denver is privatizing alleys, for instance. I imagine that at some point the food missions will be moved towards Sun Valley, Valverde, Commerce City, North Aurora or the like.
In Eugene it was a more intense issue. I swear the two cities have equal communities despite the populations differing by an order of magnitude. Bands of homeless people rove the streets with bicycles with trailers, collecting recycling to fund their lives at the insane meth/bicycle thievery park downtown. My girlfriend’s daughter took out the trash and said “there’s a guy in the dumpster”.
Clearly a lot of people need psychological services and job counseling - if they were in homes, they could not sustain them. Given that the US doesn’t even seem to be likely to devote proper care of our aging relatives in residential care over the next 30 years, it seems unlikely.
Living in Amsterdam, it is very rare to encounter homeless people or panhandlers. It wasn't always this way -- so I really credit the policy designers. They build these really cute social housing centers for a range of subsidized apartments -- and always include a petting zoo in the middle because, I guess, it saves money in the end. Doing nothing is way more expensive.
When I was in Amsterdam a few years ago I faced pretty aggressive panhandling / scamming; it was that fine line between panhandling and robbery. On the way from central station to my airbnb, I had someone try to follow me and get my address. Another night I had someone waiting outside of my place.
I live in Denver, Colorado and although we have a huge homeless population, I've never had a problem with them. It's mostly just people sitting around asking for money, but I've never been followed or aggressively approached like I have in European cities (Italy was awful).
For most of industrialized history in the West, poor people lived crammed in tenements and multi-family apartments where they didn't get much beyond a room. This is still the case in much of the developing world.
Has it ever occurred to anyone that spacious living spaces for everyone in every city simply isn't tenable? It worked for a couple decades, but that was a different time and these cities were different places.
Gentrification and skyrocketing rents are clearly creating a crisis in many cities that impact people who need housing most. Families, elderly, those with chronic illness, etc. They need housing, and the government should prioritize this population.
The problem is, these articles and homeless advocates never differentiate this sympathetic population from the hardcore drug users, aggressive panhandlers, and people engaged in theft and violent crime. I don't blame local neighbors from opposing shelters that attract this element. My city recently relocated a shelter to a new neighborhood and surprise surprise, street crime, used needles, prostitution, and everything you might expect from this group showing up en masse followed.
There are also lifestyle street people who enjoy the lifestyle for the freedom it offers. Do they deserve services and free apartments? They're there by choice. You can see videos all over YouTube celebrating this lifestyle: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFAu5dzHq3BJvZsO58N8fXA
I was walking through Manhattan on Sunday along Broadway north of Union Square Park and I saw at least 2-3 homeless or panhandlers _per block_ along the way. I was directly asked for money a few times as well.
I grew up in NYC. I spent high school and college in Manhattan. This is the worst I have seen it. There is no cushion for people living on the margins of society anymore. Not here, at least. When I was a kid, my mother was able to raise three of us on her one paltry salary. Good luck doing that on several salaries now.
And as someone with a good income and two earner household, I can’t help but feel that I am one recession away from struggle. I don’t have a home my parents will leave to me in flyover country that I can retreat to if shit hits the fan.
In San Francisco is equally bad. In the morning @7am you see so many people sleeping on sidewalks like sardines, it's pretty sad considering it's a rich city.
Equally bad compared to what? As an SF resident I would argue SF has one of the worst homeless situations in the country - not necessarily in terms of overall numbers (LA/NY have more), but in terms of what I see as severe mental health issues and drug use among many (but not all) homeless people I see here.
SF is the worst I've seen in the US (granted, I only lived in SF and Boston). Saying it's "equally bad" is almost funny. In Boston, LA, NYC, homeless problem is almost nowhere near SF.
Orange County, CA is not a city per se, but a runoff river trail that leads to the ocean quickly became a community of homeless. When the tent area was finally disbanded (1), here are the stats:
– 700 - 1,000 homeless
– 215 tons of trash or debris
– 1,165 pounds of hazardous waste, including human and pet feces
100% of the public parks and ~80% of the remaining greenspace in downtown Portland has become permanent homeless camps. Anywhere there is a 5x5ft patch of grass there is a tent.
I've known a few people who might have ended up homeless, at least for a while, without their family or friend support systems. 'Society' just assumes everybody has that support I guess.
I think part of the problem is that there is a certain percentage of homeless people that are just completely irredeemable.
Anyone that’s spent some time riding on the NYC subway can attest to this. No matter how much money you throw at them, they will keep begging or acting crazy.
Short of locking them up, what do you do with those people?
Irredeemable? Have they committed some awful moral transgression? Certainly some people are chronically incapable of looking after themselves, but please avoid such prejudicial language.
The US spends far more now on social welfare than it did in the 1950s, 60s or 70s.
Social assistance to drug addicts concentrated in neighourhoods where a disproportionate number reside, combined with reluctance to institutionalize them, or otherwise force them to stop doing drugs, creates ghettos where drug abuse predominates, that perpetuate drug use lifestyles.
From the other end, restrictions on housing construction, like zoning by-laws, and limitations on private property rights, like rent control, lead to housing scarcity, which pushes more people to the margins where they are more likely fall through the cracks.
homelessness is the societal manifestation of the lower end of the bell curve. period. anyone who's interacted with homeless people knows this. yes there are exceptions, and no they do not make up the bulk of the distribution.
putting your hand in the sand and blaming "slow wage growth" or some other secondary factor instead of pointing out the obvious is a disservice to those people. and before you call me harsh, know that I mean this in the complete opposite way: acknowledging the problem with pragmatism is the first step toward its resolution.
The only way to fix the housing crisis is to build more houses. It isn't rocket science, but every conversation or debate about this issue seems to go on and on in every direction without people actually facing this fact. The same people who vote to increase taxes to fix homelessness will simultaneously vote down every new housing project. Just seems so bizarre to me.
You can build them all day long, but then you have to have people who can live in them and pay for the cost of building that house, either through mortgages or taxes to the government.
And we all know how well the public housing projects went and still go to this day...
[+] [-] sharkweek|7 years ago|reply
I'll spare my thoughts on any number of reasons as to why we got here as a city, but will say I think we are doing a terrible disservice to actually finding a solution by lumping "anyone who doesn't have a home" into the "homeless crisis."
There are so many nuanced issues across a variety of problems here. There are drug abuse issues, mental health issues, physical health issues, cost of living issues, etc., and not to mention the varying cocktail of comorbidity, that to bulk "people without permanent housing" all under the umbrella of "homeless crisis" is not going to get us anywhere. Trying to assist the single mother with children who lives in her car because she lost her job is a VASTLY different issue than trying to assist the drug addict sitting in an alley passed out in their own feces. But at the end of the day, they're both human beings, and it breaks my heart that either of them are in that situation.
Several separate issues, that need to be subdivided and approached in distinct ways if any progress is to be made on any of them. Smaller, subdivided problems should feel more solvable, too.
Unfortunately, a lot of the solutions are expensive and frankly politically toxic. Despite Seattle's deep blue on most things, suddenly we get very "every person for themselves" the second homelessness has a price tag.
[+] [-] exogeny|7 years ago|reply
Wages are stagnant, save for a handful of sectors, in which they're growing quickly. Housing prices are rising due to limited supply and backward policies towards new construction. Inequality therefore expands exponentially, creating a city of haves-and-have nots.
Either reduce inequality through taxes and social re-distribution programs, or build more housing supply. Preferably both.
[+] [-] DanHulton|7 years ago|reply
Until the problem of money in politics gets fixed, your "simple" problem is largely unfixable.
[+] [-] endtime|7 years ago|reply
Toy example: If everyone can afford a home, and then Jeff Bezos increases his wealth by 1000x, inequality goes up but no one becomes homeless.
I'm not saying wealth inequality is meaningless, but I think making it a primary concern creates an instance of Goodhart's law.
[+] [-] cwperkins|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rb808|7 years ago|reply
Ugh, if it was that easy it would have been done already. Look at the recent wars over the best way to run an economy. Its never that simple.
Perhaps European system is the best? Or maybe they just got wealthy by exploiting their colonies for the last few hundred years so they can afford to look after everyone for a while as their economies slowly strangle themselves into obsolescence.
Or Perhaps California should be run more like Republican states - they have far fewer homeless.
The solutions aren't obvious as you say.
[+] [-] chaostheory|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conanbatt|7 years ago|reply
The economic field definitely has a simple recipe to attack the root cause of this issues, but its one that, in my opinion, is politically unfeasible, as it goes mostly against the middle class, and retired people as well as the rich.
The solution is called LVT, land value tax, and its popular since adam smith, to modern day left-leaning econs like stiglitz, or right-leaning like Milton friedman.
[+] [-] BurningFrog|7 years ago|reply
But I don't understand how reducing inequality through taxes and social re-distribution programs, while not building more housing, would improve a housing shortage!
[+] [-] manfredo|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sien|7 years ago|reply
If you want to do something go and get active in the YIMBY movement.
https://www.yimby.wiki/wiki/YIMBY_movement
[+] [-] WesleyLivesay|7 years ago|reply
Those with the resources that could be taxed and redistributed do not want to be taxed and have resources taken away from them. Since they have resources they can use some percentage of them to both influence politicians and influence other people. The people who do not have resources cannot do either of these things.
[+] [-] mdavis6890|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baybal2|7 years ago|reply
While I am not an American, I'm feeling one tune constantly when I talk with American professionals in China, and it is something close to this:
"I am given a terrible choice in between between living in a sad, stagnating, dysfunctional civil state with bureaucracy and fascist tendencies, or hell, but with full-blown and well run progressive fascist bureaucracy, and which is fun to live in"
[+] [-] reading-at-work|7 years ago|reply
It's not just intuition, there's evidence to support it. I think building more housing is the quickest and more bipartisan solution, since tax and spending changes are magnets for political drama.
[+] [-] AngryData|7 years ago|reply
Nobody wants to admit that their preconceived notions might be a bunch of bullshit they were purposefully fed, and not something they thought up and devised themselves.
[+] [-] rhacker|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apo|7 years ago|reply
"This is what a modern depression looks like."
When most people think of a Depression, the image that comes to mind is black-and-white photos of mobs of people standing in bread lines.
What if 1930s-style depressions are no longer possible? Central banks intervene in every crisis no matter how small, handing out freebies to banks and financial institutions. However, these groups can only spend so much money on themselves. A little gets spent on frivolous crap like vacations, boats, and watches, a lot gets spent on ridiculous startup ideas and other terrible speculations, and the vast majority gets parked in the stock and bond markets where it grows and grows with each new infusion of fake money.
What if modern central banking has made a repeat of the Great Depression impossible?
Consider the possibility that the US has been in the modern equivalent of a Depression since the 1980s. It doesn't feel like a Depression because most people have housing and jobs, and GDP goes up. But focusing on these metrics ignores three very annoying pieces of information:
1. wages have been flat for many years
2. inflation for essential goods/services (housing, health care, child care) has outpaces inflation year after year
3. the homeless problem just keeps getting worse
[+] [-] gre|7 years ago|reply
I don't know how to stop this de facto rezoning except by imposing huge taxes on housing that is not the owner's primary residence and closing all the loopholes that come along with that. This would free up more properties for people to own as a primary residence, and AirBNB users et al could still rent out rooms in their primary residence.
It doesn't solve actual homelessness, the solution for that seems to be build more housing.
[+] [-] prostoalex|7 years ago|reply
But before we all go onto AirBnB rampage, have you looked at any available properties in that zip code? The schools are complete garbage (an elementary school kid was recently stabbed by a homeless drug addict), the crime rate is high, public transport is next to non-existent, and there’s feces of various origins in the plain view on the sidewalk.
Downtown LA officials have been trying to revitalize the neighborhood by expanding the convention center, permitting more hotel rooms, making business rent cheap and attracting more visitors like yourself, not pitching the neighborhood that’s adjacent to Skid Row to a suburban nuclear family with 2.2 kids.
[+] [-] nickstefan12|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thomasfl|7 years ago|reply
The same goes for cities. For a city, the inhabitants come first. Take care of the inhabitants, and the inhabitants will take care of business. Ensure inhabitants have a safe place to live and give them higher education, and the inhabitants will give a return on the investment.
[+] [-] code_duck|7 years ago|reply
In Eugene it was a more intense issue. I swear the two cities have equal communities despite the populations differing by an order of magnitude. Bands of homeless people rove the streets with bicycles with trailers, collecting recycling to fund their lives at the insane meth/bicycle thievery park downtown. My girlfriend’s daughter took out the trash and said “there’s a guy in the dumpster”.
Clearly a lot of people need psychological services and job counseling - if they were in homes, they could not sustain them. Given that the US doesn’t even seem to be likely to devote proper care of our aging relatives in residential care over the next 30 years, it seems unlikely.
[+] [-] dr_dshiv|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eeeeeeeeeeeee|7 years ago|reply
I live in Denver, Colorado and although we have a huge homeless population, I've never had a problem with them. It's mostly just people sitting around asking for money, but I've never been followed or aggressively approached like I have in European cities (Italy was awful).
[+] [-] pastor_elm|7 years ago|reply
Has it ever occurred to anyone that spacious living spaces for everyone in every city simply isn't tenable? It worked for a couple decades, but that was a different time and these cities were different places.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] throwaway112018|7 years ago|reply
The problem is, these articles and homeless advocates never differentiate this sympathetic population from the hardcore drug users, aggressive panhandlers, and people engaged in theft and violent crime. I don't blame local neighbors from opposing shelters that attract this element. My city recently relocated a shelter to a new neighborhood and surprise surprise, street crime, used needles, prostitution, and everything you might expect from this group showing up en masse followed.
There are also lifestyle street people who enjoy the lifestyle for the freedom it offers. Do they deserve services and free apartments? They're there by choice. You can see videos all over YouTube celebrating this lifestyle: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFAu5dzHq3BJvZsO58N8fXA
[+] [-] partisan|7 years ago|reply
I grew up in NYC. I spent high school and college in Manhattan. This is the worst I have seen it. There is no cushion for people living on the margins of society anymore. Not here, at least. When I was a kid, my mother was able to raise three of us on her one paltry salary. Good luck doing that on several salaries now.
And as someone with a good income and two earner household, I can’t help but feel that I am one recession away from struggle. I don’t have a home my parents will leave to me in flyover country that I can retreat to if shit hits the fan.
[+] [-] jakelarkin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zdup|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dawhizkid|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conanbatt|7 years ago|reply
Can you imagine the city with double the homeless?
[+] [-] gnulinux|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enriquto|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djrobstep|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] thoughtexplorer|7 years ago|reply
It's a city where you need to be making >$100k/yr to even get a 1 bd apt.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] TaylorGood|7 years ago|reply
– 700 - 1,000 homeless
– 215 tons of trash or debris
– 1,165 pounds of hazardous waste, including human and pet feces
– 5,115 needles
– 1,000 stolen bikes (2)
(1) https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/01/see-before-and-after-p...
(2) https://www.ocregister.com/2017/11/16/a-half-loaded-gun-an-u...
[+] [-] steve918|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jammygit|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] booleandilemma|7 years ago|reply
Anyone that’s spent some time riding on the NYC subway can attest to this. No matter how much money you throw at them, they will keep begging or acting crazy.
Short of locking them up, what do you do with those people?
[+] [-] anigbrowl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asdff|7 years ago|reply
Give them access to mental health services.
[+] [-] CryptoPunk|7 years ago|reply
Social assistance to drug addicts concentrated in neighourhoods where a disproportionate number reside, combined with reluctance to institutionalize them, or otherwise force them to stop doing drugs, creates ghettos where drug abuse predominates, that perpetuate drug use lifestyles.
From the other end, restrictions on housing construction, like zoning by-laws, and limitations on private property rights, like rent control, lead to housing scarcity, which pushes more people to the margins where they are more likely fall through the cracks.
[+] [-] blancheneige|7 years ago|reply
putting your hand in the sand and blaming "slow wage growth" or some other secondary factor instead of pointing out the obvious is a disservice to those people. and before you call me harsh, know that I mean this in the complete opposite way: acknowledging the problem with pragmatism is the first step toward its resolution.
[+] [-] TomMckenny|7 years ago|reply
I note that:
-Even when nation wide vacancies were at their highest in 30 years, rental price rose.
-Even as home prices plummeted, rental price rose.
-Rent has risen 30% _nation_ wide just since 2013 so zoning an limits on building can't be the main cause.
https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf
[+] [-] paxys|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tokkemon|7 years ago|reply
And we all know how well the public housing projects went and still go to this day...