It works for the “JCs”. That is all that matters.
As for housing, get rid of the “Commie big gummit housing standards”, and dormitories could be thrown up, like Chinese factories have.
But that would still be a “burden” on the “JCs”. Much better to leave people to fend for themselves in shanty towns and “learn self reliance”.
/sarcasm
Steve
What did Churchill say about America?
"You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.”
There are still to many bad ideas we haven’t had the opportunity to fully implement. I suspect we’ll have the full menu in January. {{ LOL }}
You won’t be able to rebuild America until we’ve hit rock bottom.
intercst
Someone asked me if I had plans for the fall; it took me a moment to realize they meant autumn, not the collapse of civilization.
DB2
LOL, but also Me Too!
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In 2017, I looked at buying a house.
One of the potentials was in an old section of the town that in its day has been “wealthy”.
Every room had 4 to 8 rough hewn bunk beds. Maybe 25 people total could sleep there.
These would be illegals/ work crews, working the brown jobs circuit.
The house was relatively clean and maintained, but I didn’t buy it.
ralph
Managing the housing supply is much easier when population growth is slow. Vienna has grown by about 400,000 (from 1.6m to 2.0m) in a little over seventy years. Many of the U.S. cities that have struggled with housing supply, costs and homelessness have grown enormously over that time. LA was about 4m in 1950. Now it’s over 12m. Seattle, another U.S. city with a substantial unhoused population, was 800k in 1950. Now it’s over 3.5m.
Detroit’s population peaked at 1,849,568 in 1950. The 2020 census showed a population of 639,111. Yet, the number of homeless in the city is estimated at about 8,500. Taking your examples Seattle is estimated to have 11,751 homeless in 2020. About 45,000 homeless in the city of LA, and 75,000 homeless in LA County. Homeless as a percent of population: City of LA 45K/3.8M 1.18% City of Seattle 11.7K/750k 1.56% City of Detroit 8.5k/639k=1.33%
How about the “right thinking” cities? Oklahoma is, by some measures, the most reactionary in the US. Population: 694,800. Homeless: 1400. 1.4K/695k = 0.20%
So, what is the takeaway? Do the Okies instill “self reliance” in people, so they find shelter, or do they roust the homeless endlessly, until they move on to another city where they can live in peace?
Steve
The takeaway is what others have already observed. The problem is complex and multifaceted. Some percentage of the population has been priced out of the housing market, and the rapid cost of housing is linked to the supply. I maintain that a rapidly increasing population in an environment of slow growth in housing supply tends to place upward pressure on prices, and that is contributing to the rise in homelessness.
Cities such as Vienna have benefited from a relatively stable population; it is easier to manage prices if supply/demand isn’t pushing the prices away from affordability. That is not to say that housing supply is the only cause. It is not. But it likely doesn’t help.
This is no comment on cultural norms- in Oklahoma or anywhere else.
My point was that Detroit has shrunk, significantly, over the last 70 years, but has a homeless rate in the same range as high growth cities, in spite of Detroit having a less hospitable climate.
I came across this article about an increased effort to address homelessness in OKC.
But, as that article says, the program, patterned after a program in Houston, includes rousting people out of their encampments.
Perhaps the laws of supply and demand don’t apply in Detroit! Or perhaps the makeup of the homeless population there has fewer people who have been priced out of the market. Or perhaps there are pockets of extreme joblessness/poverty where any housing costs are too much. One would need to study Detroit.
My point is that there are a lot of factors behind the problem of homelessness, and one of them that folks often overlook is the rapid population growth of many of our cities. Most cities would be hard-pressed to match the growth rate with sufficient housing, particularly since there are no longer many rural, adjacent, unincorporated tracts to absorb and build on. And in the few cities that have such tracts, there are real worries about another constraining factor- water.
Using Detroit, because that is the city I am most familiar with, there is no shortage of land, or water. Recently, the city announced a solar panel farm is to be built. The solar farm is to be on a 100 acre tract, in the city, that currently only has 21 owner occupied homes on it. Metro Detroit receives plenty of rain. The city water system pulls from Lake Huron. Biggest difference between Detroit, on one hand, and Houston and OKC on the other, is the homeless don’t get beat on in Detroit. When the weather is really cold, Detroit PD has been known to pick people up on the street, and take them to a shelter. Some would call policies like that “coddling”, or “enabling” the homeless.
Steve
An honest answer to your question is that some (not all) have homes but could not afford to live on their own at that income level
Mike
In other words, you don’t know and are guessing… Which is the exact type of reponse received in the early 2000s to the lack of job creation. The one that was the big laugher was “they are selling stuff on Amazon”, with the unstated claim they were “making a living doing it”. Proof? Who needs proof? I know ONE person who sold stuff on eBay and made money. But he was selling mostly expensive stuff, i.e. starting at 5-figures ($10k and up). I don’t see many sellers doing that–do you?
Yes. I’m not making the case that 40% of my county’s 500,000 population is homeless living on the streets. That number is less than 1% – maybe 3,000 county wide.
My point is that the “affordable” housing that is being built is unaffordable to 40% of the population.
No one is providing some kind of cheap housing where a person working 40 hrs/wk at minimum wage (About $30,000/yr) can live.
Also, note that three unrelated $30,000/yr minimum wage workers can’t lease an apartment requiring an $85,000/yr income. Maybe a married couple with a $60,000/yr combined income could rent an apartment, but for-profit units with an income qualification that low don’t exist.
intercst
Newsom’s order would direct state agencies on how to remove the thousands of tents and makeshift shelters across the state that line freeways, clutter shopping center parking lots and fill city parks. The order makes clear that the decision to remove the encampments remains in the hands of local authorities.
In a Mayoral election debate last week, San Francisco Mayor London Breed vowed to combat homelessness in the city soon. Specifically, she noted that she will be targeting homeless encampments beginning in August.
“The problem is not going to be solved by building permanent supportive housing or shelter alone; we have to start cutting off the opportunities that exist in San Francisco,” said Breed last Thursday. “Effective August, we are going to be very aggressive and assertive in moving encampments, which may even include criminal penalties.”
DB2
lesseee…criminal penalty for being homeless? Judge “$500 fine or 90 days in jail”. Homeless person “I’ll take the 90 days in a warm, dry cell, with clean sheets, showers, clean clothes, and three good meals per day, your honor”
Steve
Newsom’s order … polls well, and Newsom wants to be VP or at least be somewhere on the ticket in 4 or 8 or 12 years from now.
A few days or a week into it there’s overcrowding and they let all the non-violent offenders out onto the streets again.
So a variable number of days warm and dry with three squares per day, vs none of the above? I would not need to think about that very long.
Steve
Or maybe for shooting up illegal substances? Or attacking passerbys?
DB2
Or to have legal power to force compliance with either
That would make sense, but in the short to medium term is expensive, while in the long term efficacious. I would bet that many many of those living on the streets would remove themselves to some other legal jurisdiction.
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