Out of a housing stock of about 2.2M or so units, AirBNB takes something like 30K off the market, apparently, in this particular instance (short term rentals).
People will always skirt the system, though. It's unclear what impact this will have.
If you are rich, you get accused of being in it for the money. If you are poor, you are accused of being in it for the money. If you have a vested interest, you are accused of bias. If you have no vested interest, you are told go away and STFU.
Poor people do not have the time, energy and money to advocate for changes that would potentially free up a MERE 30k rental units. They are too busy trying to survive. People with money are generally too busy trying to get richer or keep what they have to put time into trying to make the world an actually better place.
Who is allowed to say "This is bad for affordable housing" and be taken seriously? It seems like there is no one on the planet who is allowed to advocate for affordable housing. We are all guilty of something. Meanwhile, affordable housing simply is not happening.
I'm not actually advocating for or against affordable housing, but I do want to say that it is incredibly not surprising that with such a small supply of land and housing, that things aren't affordable when so many people want to be here.
There are lots of hot cities in the world where things aren't affordable. And when people say NYC isn't affordable, it's misleading: what's not affordable are the desirable neighborhoods. Across the river in places like Jersey City, within NYC south Bronx, Staten Island, many parts of Queens, while increasing in demand are also relatively affordable. If people to live in an area that becomes very hot and popular (eg. Williamsburg), you only manage to live there if you're lucky, bought before things got expensive, or relatively affluent.
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/why.html
This is because the supply of affordable housing has been dwindling while demand grows:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1292331...
This is not specific to New York per se. I guess you have every right to argue that this is just a New York issue because this this a New York law under discussion, but lack of affordable housing is hardly specific to New York and AirBnB is also hardly specific to New York.
So, while you no doubt have some valid points, the fact is that affordable housing is simply not happening nationwide. And when people do what you are currently doing -- and most people do -- of saying "yes, BUT..." and acting like somehow this specific instance is not relevant or doesn't count, well, again, affordable housing is simply not happening and there is always an excuse and it is always not the thing we are talking about THIS time.
So, do you have any pointers as to how and when it would be okay to make any points about it without them being dismissed out of hand as irrelevant, not on topic and so on?
Thanks.
It's true that homelessness is on the rise. But in New York, half of our rental housing is rent regulated, that's 1M apartments. Even if 100% of them were rent regulated, there likely would be homeless people, since lower rent does not mean cheap rent (an $800 studio will still be out of reach to someone from the street). Then we have projects, but those have severe funding problems and a long line to get in.
Many homeless people you see have mental health and addiction issues. The bigger issue is funding clinics and mental facilities so their only occasional beds aren't public hospitals and jails.
This is not specific to New York per se. I guess you have every right to argue that this is just a New York issue because this this a New York law under discussion, but lack of affordable housing is hardly specific to New York and AirBnB is also hardly specific to New York.
I have every right to be New York specific? That's an interesting way to put it, to say the least. Listen, and I'm assuming you're in the U.S.: we live in a big country, one that's run as a Federation. State laws and city laws differ enormously. It's hard to talk about housing policy in the abstract without reference to specific cities and states. Where we can talk more generally are trends, like the growth of cities.
So, do you have any pointers as to how and when it would be okay to make any points about it without them being dismissed out of hand as irrelevant, not on topic and so on? Thanks
My sarcasm detection seems unable to parse this sentence, but I'll be naive and assume you're asking a serious question. How do we avoid making points dismissed out of hand as irrelevant? Well, when we have political entities make doublespeak or insincere commentary to bolster something different entirely in their own interest, I say it's fair to dismiss as insincere. In this case the hotel lobby of NYC came out making commentary about communities and affordable housing, when in fact the law was for the most part protecting the hotel lobby. That's insincere. I feel that as a nation we're so accustomed to our political figures and advertising entities make insincere comments that it barely registers morally.
The point I was trying to make is that the subject of affordable housing seems to have fallen into the same pattern that discrimination against women or people of color has fallen into. There is always, without fail, some reason (aka excuse) as to why this specific woman or this specific person of color does not deserve the promotion or should not be listened to, etc. It isn't their gender or skin color, it is that they aren't saying it right, being too emotional, etc ad nauseum -- standards that white males don't get held to. Affordable housing seems to be a topic where there is always some excuse as to why it is relevant this time, why it isn't a valid argument in this case and so on.
I do know something about these topics. I don't agree with you that homelessness is mostly about mental health issues and addiction. It is far more complicated than that. That piece of it gets far too much press. It becomes just another excuse to dismiss the fact that many people on the street have some income, just not enough to afford a middle class lifestyle, and affordable housing is in incredibly short supply in this country.
When you dismiss homeless people as merely insane addicts who cannot function in society any way, it is a convenient way to wash all of society clean of the responsibility of providing adequate amounts of affordable housing because we don't really know how to reliably cure mental health issues or addiction. So, it absolves the world of really doing anything about the problem because, hey, it isn't really fixable, so you can't reasonably expect "me"/the world to really try and you can't reasonably hold us responsible.
I fear I am wasting my breathe, so to speak. So, in the interest of not pointlessly beating a dead horse, I plan to stop here.
Thanks for engaging me.
I never dismissed homeless people as insane addicts who can't function in society, and I didn't imply they couldn't be helped (I implied that funding was being cut to institutions that could help, and that's a fact in New York that started under previous mayors).
That's what politics is often reduced to, straw men, and the idea that the argument-maker has 'heard it all before' and therefore is tired of making an effort to make an argument that has facts in it. The truth is, if you think you've heard it all before, that's probably a sign you need to listen more carefully.
In that sense you would have been wasting your breath.