New Startup Working on Software to Help Government Fix Housing Problems | Hacker News Reader

New Startup Working on Software to Help Government Fix Housing Problems

govtech.com

47 pointswyndham19 comments

This doesn't seem like the case but Cathy O'Neil (the author of Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy) raises the point that we often see algorithms implemented in non-traditional ways when society faces tough questions. It makes me really hesitant about using algorithms as silver bullets to solve hard problems in society.

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1831/

Our startup, Fabrica.city, is trying to solve housing problems by focusing on the financial side of it, and "attacking" the issue of how to handle titles digitally (and therefore, save costs, etc.).

It's early in our journey, but I hope that we'll be able to show some real progress soon. Wish us luck :)

Finance is a huge part of the problem, especially insofar as it currently constrains what kind of housing can be built. Last I checked, co-housing projects in the US were typically self financed because there were no loan products available for them. So what is a mixed income development offering affordable housing and high quality of life in most countries becomes housing for mostly rich people desiring a certain lifestyle in the US because it can't get financing here.

Best of luck.

Thanks!

Not a bad idea. There are many instances where government policy has had the exact opposite of the stated intended effect. One example: trying to preserve the real character of an area by setting a large minimum lot size. The result: places like Apple Valley, with giant houses set in the middle of huge yards. It becomes an enclave of the rich and famous. In fact, Apple Valley is reasonably popular with well heeled actors and movie biz people because it is about 2 hours from LA/Hollywood.

If these folks can deliver on actual solutions for this problem space, more power to them.

I like the goal, and I'd even love to work on something like this, but is this a business or a non-profit project? Where are they gonna make money?

Also, I don't think reform is bottlenecked on data. At this point, we have strong causal hypotheses and the data we do have supports those hypotheses almost unilaterally. The problem is almost entirely in the hands of political science: juridictional and generational politics, regulatory capture, etc..

Governments aren’t generally cash constrained at the core (they often are at the margin, though) so if you can substantially contribute to solving a problem government cares about, it can be quite lucrative.

Buy a 10 acre lot in a nimby area (Palo Alto Hiils/Atherton/Los Altos Hills) for $5M, Split it into 20 x 0.25 acres and sell it for $250K each to teachers, firefighters, police, retired army soldiers telling the buyers it is sold as-is. Let them build houses on their lots and figure out the rest.

Ignoring the fact that undeveloped land in PA is going for about $3mm an acre, What you’re talking about is commonly known as a subdivision. You need to account for roads, utilities, zoning, etc. im also fairly certain you would run into nimby problems even just by trying to subdivide and sell individual lots.

You would also have no way (that I know of) of only selling to people like teachers, firefighters, etc because of fair housing laws. There’s may be an exception for military.

> You would also have no way (that I know of) of only selling to people like teachers, firefighters, etc because of fair housing laws. There’s may be an exception for military.

Isn't the San Francisco school district doing precisely this for teachers? I also recall reading that Stanford was securing housing nearby and 'selling' to faculty members by granting them loans with super generous mortgage payments, with the expectation that said faculty member will never actually pay off the mortgage.

I’m not sure. I just know that source of income is considered “protected” under CA fair housing. Who knows what sorts of loopholes and exceptions exist.

From talking to SF Planning Department, my understanding is that a school district can own housing and use it for employee housing, but another entity (such as the Mayor’s Office of Housing) can’t rent only to a specific profession.

Great idea but I don't think the government really cares about fixing this issue.

Some do. Wiener and Skinner in the California senate have been making some recent strides and getting cooperation from the governor, which is very promising.

In Denmark we do, it’s one of the top priorities in most municipalities. As nice as these ideas are, the solution isn’t software, it’s building more affordable housing.

It may be different in the US, but we have really great censuses data on everything mentioned here, and it seems strange an American government body wouldn’t know where things like it’s taxes are coming from.

This is great, it is about time some scientific process was forced into a system that sadly has been largely driven by protests of idiots in large numbers so far.

I am not sure if the problem is scientific process, or greee of the nimbys. I guess unless state overrides everything somehow and changes zoning and increases # of stories allowed, and this somehow helps, then yes.

I agree, it won’t be enough, but it’s a great first step. Currently, given how difficult it is to find reliable data, one often can’t easily disprove even the most ridiculous of arguments (like the various groups in the Bay that believe, almost literally, that to solve rising costs people should stop building, rent control, BMR, and similar).

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