Current Events > Landlords Get in the Way of San Francisco Offering 90% of Its Homeless Shelter

(+) Yeah! (+)

fuck whoever voted 'the homeless'

Unfortunately I don't see just placing more multifamily units on the market as a solution to end homelessness, because those units are still going to be unaffordable to persons experiencing homelessness. The units will instead be filled by people that actually afford to live in SF.

Seems very misleading. This begins to address the financial concerns of some people experiencing homelessness, but does nothing to address mental health causes of homelessness.

Landlords would rather people be homeless if it increases their other properties value.

Seems very misleading. This begins to address the financial concerns of some people experiencing homelessness, but does nothing to address mental health causes of homelessness.

Seems very misleading. This begins to address the financial concerns of some people experiencing homelessness, but does nothing to address mental health causes of homelessness.

A number of these landlords don't exist. If you try to contact them you find that their home address is a PO Box and their phone number leads to voicemail. They are names on paper that the true owners of the building use to shield themselves from inquiries and complaints by renters and the legal system.

Newsom just passed a controversial new law that forces the homeless who are addicts and mentally ill into rehabilitation facilities with release being contingent on getting a clean bill of health from a licensed physician.

Seems very misleading. This begins to address the financial concerns of some people experiencing homelessness, but does nothing to address mental health causes of homelessness.

A number of these landlords don't exist. If you try to contact them you find that their home address is a PO Box and their phone number leads to voicemail. They are names on paper that the true owners of the building use to shield themselves from inquiries and complaints by renters and the legal system.

Seems very misleading. This begins to address the financial concerns of some people experiencing homelessness, but does nothing to address mental health causes of homelessness.

i did not read any of the posts above this one
but it makes no sense to buy a house and leave it vacant so why is there a law to prevent something that only those throwing money do

The sense is simple restriction of supply.

they will have to pay mortgage and taxes on the property even if nobody lives in it so it makes no sense to leave it empty

they will have to pay mortgage and taxes on the property even if nobody lives in it so it makes no sense to leave it empty

The sense is simple restriction of supply.

Again, the sense is to restrict housing supply.

I'm trying to understand this. If the homes are vacant, how are the owners landlords?

The law, which goes into effect in January, could push as many as 7,000 units on the market, according to city estimatesthat would be literally 90% of the city's homeless getting housed

So the government's just gonna take people's million $ properties in the Bay area and put homeless in them?

Time to become homeless in SF so I can get a free house nicer than mine.

You are missing the rent control piece of the article in your arguments

So the government's just gonna take people's million $ properties in the Bay area and put homeless in them?

It turns an asset into a permanently money-losing liability.

Seems very misleading. This begins to address the financial concerns of some people experiencing homelessness, but does nothing to address mental health causes of homelessness.

"Its a mental health/drug issue" is still disingenous, because homelessness, a poor financial situation and drug/mental health issue are a vicious cycle that feed into each other. It is far far far easier to deal with mental health problems if you aren't living homeless

Homelessness in America is mostly a drug and mental health issue than it is an affordability issue. Now the ramifications of drug use and the challenges of mental illness make keeping a job difficult, causing affordability issues, but the distinction must be made.

Making housing affordable will not solve the root causes of homelessness. But it would serve some unfortunate individuals.

Homelessness in America is mostly a drug and mental health issue than it is an affordability issue.

Counterfactual reasoning can be a useful tool for determining causality. You think A causes B. Remove A. If B still happens, then A was not the cause. (The rooster crows and the sun rises, in David Humes famous example, but no one thinks the rooster causes the sun to rise, which is easily testable by silencing the rooster and noting that the sun still rises.) Employing counterfactual reasoning here, if drug use were a driver of homelessness in aggregate, we would expect states with higher rates of drug abuse to also have higher rates of homelessness. In fact, no such relation exists between the data on drug addiction and those on homelessness: West Virginia, which leads the nation in drug overdose deaths,7 has one of the lowest rates of homelessness in the country.8 Californias overdose death rate is about one-quarter of West Virginias!9
Nor can state-level variation in rates of mental illness explain variation in rates of homelessness. Mental illness can be difficult to quantify, but Mental Illness America estimates that Californias rate of adult mental illness is about the same as the national average.
...
As in the above summary of differing hypotheses, Colburn and Page Aldern tested different explanations for homelessness by looking at regional variations in homelessness rates. However, they analyzed more finely-grained data, relying on city-by-city comparisons instead of state-by-state ones. After investigating a number of non-housing explanations for large-scale homelessness including climate, generous welfare benefits, mental illness, and substance use disorder they concluded there was no evidence that these factors can explain why some U.S. cities have significantly higher rates of homelessness than others.
Instead, they write: Vulnerable households live in every city of the country; the differences in rates of homelessness can be attributed to structural factors associated with the housing market. Homelessness is most severe in the metropolitan areas where housing costs are highest, because the pricier that housing becomes, the greater the risk that people with low incomes or other serious challenges will be locked out of whatever homes are available.
This is not a new finding. In fact, it is the consensus among most serious researchers of this problem. In their definitive book on homelessness, In the Midst of Plenty, Marybeth Shinn and Jill Khadduri note that homelessness is essentially a lack of access to affordable housing. Similarly, an influential 2018 study by Zillow (a leading online housing information and analysis site) found that rates of homelessness increase fastest in cities where, on average, rents exceed one-third of income.
It follows, then, that the cities with the most severe homelessness problems also have sky-high rents. The most recent Consumer Affairs ranking of U.S. cities by housing costs looks a lot like a list of places bearing the brunt of mass homelessness: San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, and Portland all make it into the top ten.

Good, house ownership shouldn't be a commodity.

Also known as Proposition M, it exempts single-family homes, duplexes, short-term rentals, nonprofit and institutional housing, such as nursing homes, as well as any apartment used as a primary residence.

Unfortunately I don't see just placing more multifamily units on the market as a solution to end homelessness, because those units are still going to be unaffordable to persons experiencing homelessness. The units will instead be filled by people that actually afford to live in SF.

"Sometimes, developers have a strategy of buying buildings, removing longtime tenants, and then reselling at a profit, Preston said."

It should unironically be a capitol crime to do this