Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

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This...is not wrong. Pioneer Square in Seattle used to have a lot of flop houses, part of it being the original "skid row" (logs skid to the saw mill, really muddy and not a desirable place to live). My grandfather in Spokane unwittingly ran a rooming house we cousins called the "empty arms" (inherited from his sister), which housed a lot of people who were just barely getting by.

Seattle's flop houses are mostly gone now...Spokane's are disappearing rapidly and is creating a new homeless problem in an area that used to be fairly immune to it (because of access to cheap housing).

China/Hong Kong and some of Asia have created a new spin on SROs with capsule and pod housing, China leverages a lot of sub-basements for SRO housing (without access to windows because underground), while Japan has cheap 2.5 tatami sized small room apartments. None of these would be allowed in the west, they are barely living, but maybe we should start thinking about them as an alternative to a much worse situation?

As a single guy and a software engineer, I would pay full price for a pod housing if the area is safe convenient. I'd rent a co-working desk nearby and save a ton of money.

These types of housing just aren't available in Vancouver (or NA in general), but I can totally see a market for it.

Yeah I'm past this point in my life but there was nearly a decade post-college where I would have really enjoyed continuing to live in dorm-style housing with other people at a similar stage of life. Saving money on top of it would've made that a no brainer. It's a bit tangential to the discussion on SROs to address homelessness, but I wish that SROs were a more acceptable housing style for a variety of use cases.

My girlfriend lives in a household with 11 people in it by choice. It's not for me but I get the attraction.

Saddens me that the top earners in our world have to dream of affordable housing so they can save a bit of money. Probably not enough to buy a house in that same area. Sigh.

He is in one of the most expensive places that pays below market pay. When money fled Hong Kong a lot of it moved to Vancouver.

Why is that sad that he doesn't want to spend money on housing he doesn't want?

It's sad because: how about average-earners? How about earners and non-earners?

But it's not because he can't afford it, it because he doesn't want to spend the money.

Montreal is kinda OK so far! Well until the Hongkongolese notice it if they haven't already!!

Publix in Seattle is a perfect example.

A developer bought them out, them combined every 2-3 SROs to make a (still small) luxury apartment.

I do not begrudge the developer. If you were to propose the opposite (taking an existing set of luxury apartments, and subdivide them into more rent paying units), it would probably be more profitable, but you would never get the plans approved.

> it would probably be more profitable, but you would never get the plans approved.

I'm not sure it would be in this market. Catering to people with money is pretty profitable. Catering to lower income tenants...even with more scale on your side, might not work out, especially with the extra overheads involved (with Seattle's strict eviction laws, for example). Most small-scale landlords in Seattle are trying to get away from even moderate income housing that might require them to fund moving costs because of future rent increases (as well as rising eviction costs...it doesn't make much sense to rent to anyone but a very well funded and low risk techie).

I remember watching this fight play out in real time in Seattle:

https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/somethings-rotten-in-roos...

> Most in the crowd were furious about the Sisleys’ refusal to help keep up the neighborhood. “I feel like I’m watching a neighborhood crumble,” said David Ahrens. Another angry resident added, “These are transient places. People are moving in and out. I think you need to get more aggressive with them.”

> In 1994, after the DCLU took action on a number of violations at Sisley properties, including the illegal conversion of a house that was zoned single-family into a six-unit “residents’ club” house, Gilbert brought a similar suit against city officials.

Then there's all of the Carl Haglund stuff.

I think people have tried to cater to low income tenants, and all of them have been run out of town.

Sorry, Publix in Seattle!!?

Ah, "The Publix" - I saw it a few times in ID and was confused with the SE/Florida based Grocery Store.

That's a possibility

The other possibility is that we should root out the corruption in this process. I am not generally a fan of privitization at all. In the private market however you're building 2/2s in LA for less than half of the cost including furnishings and fixtures.

By that I mean a 2 bed, 2 bathroom, with all of the traditionally middle class loved touches including faux marble, and faux wood flooring etc.

The situation LA is in is unconscionable as 4,000/mo apartments are going up for rent and developed for less than 350k.

The issue here is definitely corruption and not ability, cost, or the need to put people in Parasite style apartments.

> The issue here is definitely corruption and not ability, cost, or the need to put people in Parasite style apartments.

You claim corruption, but provide no evidence of such, just that the result doesn't make sense to you. But instead of corruption, maybe it is just capitalism at work here? Developers go with what the market demands, and that demand comes through what the market is willing to pay. In that case, they develop $350k units because they can rent them out for $4k, that sounds really profitable. Why would they bother doing what you think they should do if they can't make money doing it that way? Or is it alleged corruption that allows this behavior? If so, what kind of corruption?

I suggest its corruption because I also develop units in Los Angeles and have multiple (5 specifically) bids in my inbox from the last two weeks for building out completely fresh 2/2s on new ground with new foundations in the 350k mark. Including all of what I've mentioned. And they're definitely making a margin on me.

That would be why specifically 800+k for a unit described smells of corruption.

Heh I lived in one in Spokane, which was a former brothel. Rent was cheap and the people were OK but it was infested with endless spiders.

"I want these barely homless people out of my community" turned into "I want these homeless people out of my community"

How do you unwittingly run a rooming house?

You inherit property from your sister and...after putting work into it, realize that you are only getting low-end tenants. I guess it is hard to call it a rooming house, they were full apartments from what I remember, but we still thought of it as a flop house.

It didn't last long, he gave the place to my uncle after running it for a few years. My uncle quickly sold it after fixing it up a bit, he didn't want to be in that kind of business either.

I'm not convinced this isn't done intentionally to prevent a deflationary market.

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