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The solution is real free markets. Constant government intervention in the housing market, the stock market, education, healthcare, and everything else under the sun has led us to where we are today. It always feels nice for a bit when the government bails you out, but the long term consequences are always much more severe. Prices are information and when all the information is polluted, it becomes very difficult to have a functioning economy. It's the same thing that happens in social media, trolls and bots pollute the information so it's impossible for most people to tell the truth apart from fiction. Unfortunately the regulatory capture is so deep and the problems have gotten so bad that I don't know how this can be solved without an extreme event.

Why would free markets help homeless people? Is there any basis for this, other than claiming that one's favorite solution is the best? Free markets serve those who pay the most, which is good for allocating iPhones, but not for healthcare, basic housing, basic food, education, safety, etc., which should not depend on ability to pay.

> It's the same thing that happens in social media, trolls and bots pollute the information so it's impossible for most people to tell the truth apart from fiction.

Isn't that 'real free market', unregulated?

> Free markets serve those who pay the most

As someone who has spent years in a low income situation due to health issues that hasn't been my experience. At least up until the pandemic food as well as many manufactured products, which are relatively unregulated, were quite affordable even for the lowest incomes. There's a large enough market of low income people so that companies like Walmart, dollar stores and even Amazon can make money serving that market.

Housing and medical care, on the other hand, are completely unaffordable for a significant fraction of the population without government assistance.

I am not doubting your experience, but I don't think we can project that to the larger situation.

> At least up until the pandemic food as well as many manufactured products, which are relatively unregulated, were quite affordable even for the lowest incomes.

The data shows otherwise, that many people haven't been able to afford food (think of school lunch programs) and especially quality food. Also, large 'food deserts' exists in poor communities where food is unavailable beyond very expensive small stores.

> There's a large enough market of low income people so that companies like Walmart, dollar stores and even Amazon can make money serving that market.

I've thought that, but it turns out that they don't often don't serve low-income people. I've also spent plenty of time in low income areas, and retail options are very slim. I've been in the best grocery store in the neighborhood, where fruit scales were rusty, and it stunk of something rotting. It was packed.

Well, I know that I could live spending less than 50% of my monthly income on food. Ignoring other subsidies however my rent would cost over 80% of my monthly income, so if I paid my rent, as people are likely to do first, it's true that I wouldn't have enough money for food.

So what I am saying does not contradict the claim that many people can't afford enough food, since most of their money is going to rent.

Generally for most goods markets work really well. There's two intrinsic failure cases: externalities and monopolies.

So arguably housing fits into the monopoly bucket, especially if you lean towards a land value tax.

Safety and a monopoly on force most would argue are the domains of government.

But the rest of your examples seem fine to be market based, though the devil is in the detail.

> Generally for most goods markets work really well. There's two intrinsic failure cases: externalities and monopolies.

I agree, but you are omitting two other cases: Equity and availability.

Again, markets are built to serve those who provide the highest profit. That's fine for iPhones, but not for health, safety, education, basic food, and basic shelter. Everyone should have those, regardless of how much profit they provide.

Markets also depend on 'creative destruction', businesses fail and their goods and services go away. That can't happen with healthcare, food, education, safety, and shelter. There are 'food deserts' in poor communities, where people can't get anything but expensive corner-store groceries. We can't have a safety, education, shelter, or healthcare desert (or a food desert).

Markets provide availability of goods, as long as you can accept price variability.

I'll reiterate for safety and land I think these things fail for the reason I mentioned originally.

Healthcare I could certainly see working in a mostly market led way, I'm personally from the UK (So extra heretical to say)

Food is a bad example, as availability is ultra high. Fresh produce is scarce in areas due to low demand. Low demand leads to higher prices.

> Markets provide availability of goods, as long as you can accept price variability.

Not if the vendor goes out of business.

> Food is a bad example, as availability is ultra high. Fresh produce is scarce in areas due to low demand. Low demand leads to higher prices.

That's not the case, based on the reports I've seen. What have you seen that supports that?

Unless we are in a monopoly situation there are other vendors for common goods.

If a super market goes out of business there are several others though perhaps further away.

The idea of "Food deserts" is around the poor availability of affordable "nutritious" food. There is plenty of food in these food deserts with many different food providers.

So it's not about general food availability, it's around what food is stocked. Which food are stocked is almost completely determined by supply and demand. We know the supply exists, so if there a lack of stock it's due to demand.

What other explanation is there ? A shadowy cabal making sure the poor can't access certain foods ?

> The solution is real free markets.

A ludicrous suggestion.

The "free market" optimizes for one single thing: Profit.

Providing housing for homeless people is not profitable, and so a free market would never do it.

> Constant government intervention in the housing market, the stock market, education, healthcare, and everything else under the sun has led us to where we are today.

Health care is in the same boat. If a poor person gets cancer, the free market would gladly let them die. They wouldn't be able to pay for treatment.

Education is similar. If the government didn't provide schools, a considerable portion of children would go uneducated.

Optimising for profit can lead to both massive positive and negative effects.

So the obvious question is how you balance those negative effects against the positive. This is where regulations and governments have to step in, though that certain has it's own massive issues.

Health care has a lot of unsolved problems, from my perspective no group is actually doing well (Just varying shades of bad, I'm from the UK). There are so many ailments that can't currently be treated well (Despite having spent decades studying them, though that seems to be a systematic failure of academia)

Optimizing for profit greatly incentivizes innovation as corporations compete, I'll definitely give you that.

But it also leads to a poorer customer experience (long hold times as call centers are understaffed, cheap and flimsy materials, I could go on...), exploitative dark patterns, rent-seeking, and more.

And then there's the fact that corporations would happily dump toxic waste into rivers to save a few dollars if the EPA didn't exist to stop them. They will gladly burn the atmosphere in order to show growth on their quarterly report.

> So the obvious question is how you balance those negative effects against the positive. This is where regulations and governments have to step in, though that certain has it's own massive issues.

Agreed. Corporations can't be free to do whatever they want, but finding that happy medium of reining them in without stifling them is hard.

It doesn't help that our politicians are for sale. Corruption runs rampant.

The problem is the government bidding system is completely borked. Especially in a state like California.

The government would do better if it only acted as a buyer. "We will pay for any new units that are constructed that meet these qualifications" and let the thousands of independent developers and contractors do what they do.

Are your subcontractors fully insured? Do they fully pay workers compensation? Are their employees legally authorized to work in the US? There is a quite substantial price premium in the market now for contractors that follow the law, and government projects are forced to follow the law.

I work full-time as a subcontractor on commercial projects in the SF bay area and am fairly familiar with the costs associated with insurance, workers comp etc. We utilize union labor to install our projects. And you are right, it does cost a lot to follow the laws. But those costs are not nearly high enough to explain how 400-600 sq/ft units are being built for between $1,100-$1,400 a square foot. My guess is much of the cost bloat is "administrative" and has nothing to do with real construction costs.

So you are saving ~30% right? Plus the land at probably <250k means $600k max net cost. I imagine the area you live in has $800k-$1m houses.

About right, might be saving closer to 35%.

Land cost was $500k in 2018, but its 3 acres, had existing utilities, and I can re-build another existing structure on the property what was red-tagged and will be 2 bed 2 bath, ~1800sq/ft primary dwelling. The one currently under construction is technically the accessory dwelling unit, but it really is a stand-alone house.

With just the new ADU, we will be in ~$850k but appraised value is expected to be $1-1.3m. When we spend another $350-$400k re-building the primary dwelling, it will probably be worth $1.6-$2m with ability to rent one unit.

The metric I care most about is my sq/ft build cost which will be around $300/ft. This is incredibly low for a custom home which ranges in the $400-650 ft range for a decent quality custom and $1000+ ft for higher-end residences.

The sqft size of units in LA is not mentioned, but based on the video, they are between 400-600 ft. $837k / 600 sqft = $1395 ft. Wayyyyyyy too high for "affordable" housing.

> My home will be built for about $350k (less land acquisition).

How in the world? I got multiple bids in Seattle to add a 200sqft dormer, 125k was the lowest bid I got.

A single bathroom around here costs a minimum of 15K to build, just to get people out to install the basics.

I would like to publish a series of posts on my build process, including cost breakdowns, because I know there is interest after seeing some similar posts (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30193899)

Without knowing much about your project, a dormer add can get expensive because you are modifying the structural envelope of the home. although the new sq footage may be small, the building process is involved and risk is high because your modifying roof-lines, bearing walls etc. A dormer addition is not simple.

Now build that in downtown LA explicitly for housing homeless folks, and let us know how your permitting process goes.

You would think that the city of LA would be able to do something to alleviate the permit process that the city of LA created to reduce the building costs being funded/managed by city of LA.

Maybe if the permitting process wasn't just a device for grifting in LA county.