US teachers grapple with a growing housing crisis: ‘We can’t afford rent’

I’ve heard people say that, but as somebody that switched schools in California a lot in high school, public schools in nicer neighborhoods were categorically always much, much, MUCH nicer.

Like “had an on-site computing museum and shared latin and ancient greek teachers with the nearby UC campus” and “had a couple decade-old pcs for a desktop publishing class taught from a binder by the PE teacher” different.

Functionally, how are these different from condo buildings? Is it about whether the owner is also definitely a resident?

In specific, a home lived in by the owner for at least 35% of a tax year (or unlivable due to disasters/etc) should be taxed at a low rate, while any OTHER home should be taxed at a much higher rate and inspected as a rental unit, including being kept ahead of minimum rental code (which would be a more stringent baseline than minimum code).

13) new builds expressly purchasable only by first time home buyers

The main issue I disagree with you on: rent control has been shown repeatedly to help existing renters at the expense of all future renters, which increases income inequality, in the long run is a wealth transfer from the young to the old, and lastly disincentivizes property maintenance leading to substandard living conditions. It also decreases economic mobility and incentivizes people who get rent control to do things like not have kids even though they would like to have kids, because they have an amazing deal on a 1bd apartment and needing more space would basically force them to start life over in a far off place.

If we had a robust free market for housing, like we do for cars, there would be lots of cheap “used housing” available and landlords would not have pricing power, they would have to make an effort to be a good landlord to have a tenant. You can see this with hotels (in areas where they aren’t over-restricted), where poorly run hotels are driven out of business by well-run hotels, including plenty of low cost hotels.

hard disagree. it basically ends up being a transfer of wealth from new residents (who have to pay higher rents) to older residents (who have locked in lower rents).

>5) Affordable foreclosure insurance

What exactly is insured here?

>12) Right of first refusal laws (tenant opportunity to purchase)

What problem is this intended to solve? If someone is renting, how likely is he going to be able to pony up cash to buy the house that's about to be sold?

Why "low rise"? High rise is more efficient. High rise has a bad reputation but all the reputation stuff has been pretty coordinated by those who don't want public housing at all. And sure, well maintained.

I'm in favor of rent control but with enough dense housing, rent control won't be fighting supply and demand.

1. Land ownership should be an exclusively human right. Any ‘vampire’ entity (such as a corporation) that doesn’t naturally die shouldn’t be able to endlessly accumulate land.

2. The property tax rate should double for each additional property you own.

And then what happens when you want to fire a low performing teacher? Do you also show up with moving boxes to her subsidized apartment to make room for her replacement?

That's not a plus, it's a big minus. Go check out /r/Teachers on reddit; American kids are so horribly behaved these days that it's driving a lot of people out of the profession. They should be paying teachers 5x as much for dealing with these monsters.

* They all work directly with people who are not fully capable adults (due to age, illness, etc)

* You are expected to find fulfillment in caring for other people

* They're all relatively low paid despite requiring significant education, and often require extended hours

* In the recent past (19th century) they were not professional jobs at all

* They're all traditionally filled by women

* They're all low status

These jobs are hard to keep economically viable because we don't take them seriously. They should be high status jobs because they're so important, but they had been performed by family, often mothers or wives. They didn't receive a salary for it. It was part of their general duties, and they were assumed to be happy to take care of their loved ones.

We continue to resent paying for these as they professionalize, and that pushes down salaries. But economics bites back: people are no longer forced into them, and they'll no longer tolerate "But you love your pupils/patients and they'll suffer if you leave".

That's not the only reason the education system is fucked, but it's a doozy. They're finally feeling it, and having a hard time hiring teachers. That might lead to a fix, but only after people are willing to admit that these are important, demanding jobs and they need to spend money to get people to do them.

The root of the low salaries isn’t a demand problem anyway, it’s a supply problem. There’s tons of people who can teach and they’re willing to do it for the current wages.

Public education in the US will be dead within the decade. A multi-state strike would just hasten it.

Let's see how all these NIMBYs like not having any teachers or firefighters. If public servants can't afford to live anywhere near a neighborhood, why should that neighborhood have any public servants at all?

Police unions are far more powerful that public k-12 teacher unions.

I would be interested to hear an argument that refutes your claim.

what? Have you heard yourself?

I've found that the political bent of HN is much, much more varied than "taken over by commies". In general, I've met many folks here from across political spectrum -- from arch-capitals to libertarians to progressives/socialists/leftists to neoliberals.

When we can be up front about our own beliefs and share our perspectives on them in a non-demonizing way, the discussions can actually be quite enlightening.

I might not agree with a libertarian ethos, but I've met many libertarians here I could have elucidating chats about things with.

And before you ask, "Why bring politics into hacking at all?" I'd argue that hacking is, by it's nature, a political activity (whether that's hacking in the cyber-crime sense or in the 'assembling something from spare parts' sense.) There's something about operating outside of systems, about putting one's mark on the world, about expressing yourself through what you choose to build and how to build it that is inescapably political.

Politics doesn't have to be a team sport. We can disagree and still converse.