Owners holding vacant units is not a significant cause of the housing shortage. Overly restrictive zoning and subjective reviews exploited by NIMBYs explains almost all of it.
You seem to be ignoring the main part of my statement - distribution and preferences matter. "NIMBYs" can't be a retort to that when NIMBY is by definition local - there are many other areas to build in across the country.
"Owners holding vacant units is not a significant cause of the housing shortage."
It may not be the biggest cause, but it is "significant". It is more pronounced in some markets and sectors (apartments).
So you admit there are markets that do not? That's my point - distribution of housing across the country.
Tell me where I could move where housing hasn't doubled in price in the last 5 years AND has employment for a family.
Great strawman.
"Tell me where I could move where housing hasn't doubled in price in the last 5 years AND has employment for a family."
In the vast majority of country housing cost has gone up but has not doubled in the past 5 years. Many medium sized cities and suburbs have employment to support a family while not being outrageously priced. You can even find lists made by various organizations for the most affordable cities. Also, if you care to read the context in this thread, I do acknowledge that a part of the problem is people wanting/needing to live in the same place.
What do you even do with that information? Ship the homeless around the country?
Other studies should that the higher the vacancy rate the lower the homeless rate and the cheaper housing is. So we can just allow people to build where people want to live and solve both problems.
Gonna need some sources on this one.
> The Center for Immigration Studies found last year from January 2023 to December 2023, at least 320,000 illegal immigrants were allowed to fly into the U.S. from their home country through a controversial program of the Biden administration using the Customs and Border Patrol app, the CBP One app that was created to let migrants apply for parole into the US.
> The Parole program allows for two-year periods of legal status during which adults are eligible for work authorization.
https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/biden-admin-flew-hu...
Loose immigration policy and the lack of border enforcement obviously exerts downward pressure on wages for low skill workers. It also bids up rents since illegal immigrants are willing to pile into a 1 bedroom apartment. The elite own businesses and real estate, both of which benefit from illegal immigration reducing wages and increasing demand for rent. If you take a minute to think about the incentives, then see the effects in the world around you, it's pretty obvious what's going on.
The humanitarian parole program was created to allow 30,000 Cuban/Haitian/Nicaraguan/Venezuelan nationals in per month on a two year work visa as long as they have a US sponsor that will financially support them and pass background checks.
In return, Mexico is allowing the US to expel 30,000 illegal migrants per month from those countries to Mexico rather than their home countries.
The parole process has reduced the number of aliens from those countries entering the US and government spending and lets us do background checks, capture biometrics and cap how long they're allowed to be here.
There's a reason why the court tossed Texas' lawsuits against it this week. They couldn't find injury.
That's 30,000 unhoused individuals per month being added, and unless the expelled offsets it, they still need housing.
Your gross take home from a minimum wage part time job is $145/week. Before all taxes and deductions.
You can’t afford a closet is crack hiuse on that “salary” even in the boonies.
Even in my LCOL areas places that were like $400/month 5 or 6 years ago are over $1000/month.
In case, if the market value drops, well, rich people will just buy them.
If you’re currently in a “$300k” home and can buy a “$400k” home for $100k… like how do any of these numbers make any sort of sense?
A person's friends, family, social support... and frankly, modern culture can make moving a sticky problem.
https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/de...
The rate of people moving between states has dropped significantly.
https://www2.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/d...
The people moving within the same city has stayed rather constant, it is the distance moves that have dropped - https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat...
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I believe that if you offered homeless people in Oakland a job and a house in Kentucky that they could pay off in 10 years while working as a dish washer, you would have very few takers.
I would also suggest that the town that has the dishwashing job in Kentucky - that business is likely to close in 5 years and there won't be any more unskilled jobs in the town and they'll be out of a job and unable to pay the mortgage, get foreclosed and be homeless again -- they know that story.
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't - homeless in California is known while a homeless in Kentucky is something else with even fewer opportunities out.
Also ignoring that many people who live in California would face non-trivial threats to their health and livelihood if they were move to a regressive Bible Belt state. That is not a theoretical concern, but one born out by numerous tragedies.
Sounds like when homeless people or people on various assistance sometimes turn down opportunities because they're afraid (sometimes rightfully do) that it will ruin one of their other assistance. How do you help people who don't want to be helped?
It's rarely ever too hot or too cold in costal California cities.
This would be equally true of other large cities in the southern half (including July for many), and none of them have anywhere near the same rate. Notwithstanding, northern cities have indoor shelters and if the cold mattered that much, the rates would be quite small, but they're not. In expensive cities like NY, homelessness rates are high.
See here https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-...
The quality of the analysis and arguments are terrible. We can just ignore factors if they don't explain everything? And why is it missing a section on the biggest correlating factor - lack of employment? The severe mental health and substance abuse (with other factors like criminal records) greatly impact one's ability to get any job. Affordability is a moot point for people in these categories as without a job, you can't afford anything. It would be better to do more granular analysis on those who are employed but homeless. That is likely to be the marginal diffence explained in the housing cost section.
No, we just can't rely on them to explain everything! As you purport.
Only 33% of the homeless suffer from mental illness, and it certainly is not a strong predictor as to why rates are high in some cities but not others. That's the data.
> Affordability is a moot point for people in these categories
It matters to everyone, but even if we pretend it doesn't, that's 67% percent of the homeless.
The data does not support that. You cannot simply subtract 33 from 100 and claim affordability is the primary factor. Mental illness is not the only factor affecting employability. You have substance abuse, criminal records, etc that all prevent people from finding employment.
Those all respectively represent a small fraction of the whole, and there's usually overlap. You cannot add them all up as though they are completely separate parts of that 100%.
Ultimately affordability is the primary factor, it's indisputable.
"Ultimately affordability is the primary factor, it's indisputable."
What comprises affordability? It's cost and income. It does not matter what the cost is if you have no income because you have employability issues. Until you fix the employment aspect, the cost aspect is moot.
You can point to a poor quality blog post that doesn't examine all the factors all you want. Perhaps that makes it "indisputable" in your own mind, but thats not going to convince people who want to have real conversation about the root of the issue.
> Between the lines: The county is also trying to address other health factors that put people at increased risk for heat illness or death, including drug use and unsheltered homelessness, by embedding social workers at cooling centers to help with finding housing and harm-reduction strategies, Sunenshine says.
> More than half of last year's heat deaths were people experiencing homelessness and two-thirds involved substance use, she said.
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/12/texas-heat-deaths-20...
> Green was among the 334 people in Texas who died from heat in 2023, according to data compiled by the Texas Department of State Health Services between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30.
> The heat killed more Texans in 2023 than any other year on record, according to the figures, which are not yet final. The state’s heat-related death records began in 1989.
> Heat-related deaths are typically associated with a secondary factor such as mobility problems, mental illness, drug and alcohol use or homelessness that prevents people from escaping extreme heat, Dwyer said. That’s one reason why elderly people have a higher risk of heat-related death, she said.
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/heat-related-deaths-i...
California has 4.2 heat related deaths per million. (all of California - including Fresno).
Arizona has 71.9 heat related deaths per million.
Texas is 6.7.
San Francisco had the third lowest ER room encounters for heat related emergencies at 5.1 per 100,000 residents (it was behind Marin and Santa Clara).
While hot weather in San Francisco should not be ignored, it is no where near the mortality rate that is seen in other southern cities.
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You cannot have the same rates of unhoused people (note: using unhoused here because a person who is homeless living in a hotel room is homeless, but not unhoused) in northern cities because you will die in Minneapolis in the winter if you don't have a place to stay.
https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/2023%20Homele...
San Francisco has 887 homeless people per 100k residents. Boston has 657. Denver has 670. Minneapolis has 209. Chicago has 141. I'll also draw special attention to page 9 with the percent of the population that is unsheltered.
The unsheltered per 100,000 residents:
San Francisco 420
Denver 184
Boston 18
Chicago 46
Minneapolis 38
Specifically regarding mental illness and heat - https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interacti...
> Boston has 657.
This supports what I said. You also forgot NY.
And check the rankings by State. CA is second behind DC, and after that there is VT, OR, HI, NY, WA, ME.. and so on. Not exactly pristine weather year-round. The common factor is affordability.
I just showed you elsewhere that this is wrong.
Vacancy is not the issue.