Fixable Things That Make Life Harder for the Elderly, the Sick, and the Poor
abio.substack.com
abio.substack.com
SROs are undesirable from the perspective of most of the community: they are broadly viewed as overcrowded, low quality, unsightly, and associated with crime. Put simply, the people who would live in an SRO are, for the most part, people not desirable in the community.
The same goes for "Make it clearly legal to open your home to someone else who needs meals and daily help". Are you running an unlicensed nursing home or halfway house? We already have rampant Medicaid fraud, and then there's cases like: https://manhattanda.org/d-a-bragg-alon-riabichev-indicted-fo....
Artists, college students, young people getting started, older people, service industry people, quiet poor, etc, etc.
I can think of numerous types of people who would live in an SRO and be a net positive to the community.
Some would argue homogenous suburbs are unsightly and a waste of land and resources and are inhuman and people who live there are 'undesirables'.
Most of the "more acceptable" groups you're naming, including artists, students, and young people are already covered by studio apartments or roommate situations. An SRO or low-end extended-stay hotel is commonly expected to bring a seedier element with lower standards, poorer credit/no credit, evictions, etc.
"Some would argue homogenous suburbs are unsightly and a waste of land and resources and are inhuman and people who live there are 'undesirables" - that's fine: both groups can vote and help steer their community to better reflect their views.
People should live among those who reflect their norms, and much of the societal conflict across the West comes from people trying to forcibly change a community to suit them, rather than integrate into it.
You made my argument against Nimby-ism better than I could!
In the case of SROs, if a perception exists that they will cause more crime than benefit provided, then people will vote against them. Understanding anticipated opposition and coming up with a way to address people's concerns would be a successful path to re-legalizing them.
Dismissing opposition with a pejorative is a less successful path.
There's a number of reasons for people to be poor outside of being CRIMINALS.
That being said, what other incentives are there to eliminate affordable housing then other than property values?
The boomer NIMBY's are taking over regions by running local politics and enacting zoning ordinances that are out of control to keep their property values high.
The government is telling people what they can do with their own property to an insane degree.
I suspect at some point there will be a legal battle over this.
> There's a number of reasons for people to be poor outside of being CRIMINALS.
Right, yes, I agree with you.
The trouble is, the voters whose support is necessary to legalize SROs, do not agree and do not care how unfair we believe they are being.
So how does this get passed? Expressing anger at the ignorant hoping that they see the error of their ways?
There have been many legal values fought over this in the past. The courts have repeatedly affirmed that barring state laws to the contrary, it is entirely within the rights of municipalities to make these rules. So either the state needs to force the hand of the cities, or else the cities need to come around.
As I said up-thread, a lot of people view these restrictions as a good thing for them and their community. The homeownership rate is 65%. The individual homeownership rate is 53% - it's not a small set of property owners capturing the entire municipality, but rather a literal majority of the population benefiting, and likely a majority of the population approving (- some liberal/anti-regulation homeowners, + people who prefer zoned communities even if they rent/don't own).
When people are paying 5k a month the rent because zoning won't allow growth this could be considered abuse.
When people are prohibited from building an addition on their house (the most expensive investment of their life ) without overwhelmingly expensive bureaucracy that's abuse.
In many cases homeowners and renters are on the same side.
The welfare states in Europe also face difficulties, there will be no retirement money or housing for many people who struggled all their life and did everything they could to live a normal and productive life.
"The poor" for many people becomes very close to "those who are not rich" and/or gifted with a large social network of mutual care (financial, social).
Being single is expensive. There are more single person households than ever.
Care for sick elderly people will probably not exist anymore for the people who today pay for that of the elderly today, again, unless you are pretty rich.
We need a renewed culture of sharing things.
And regarding the boarding house threads:
I can imagine the dirt and filth around unchecked shared housing for sick people.
But why does it have to be this way? Why is it not possible for some people to choose living in a simple way, sharing some aspects of housing such as bathrooms and kitches, and still be safe? It's not a novel concept. People seem to be just to be very entitled nowadays.
It requires an authority in some cases, sure. But many people around the world do live in lockable small rental units that share bathrooms with others, without being drug-addicted outcasts.
Sure, comfort and space and luxury is nice and I'm not a saint either, who chastices themselves into living from nothing. Not at all. But I think it's worth exploring other forms of living. We are clearly in a dead end. The standard of owning a house is not achievable for everyone, and renting an apartment as a single is not much cheaper in the long run either.
IMO, the demands of people are so high, and I for one would welcome more simple possibilities for people who live on their own to instead live in "managed" communities.
Love the concrete examples!
It is not possible for millions and trillions of people to all live like a duke in their own house, it is not sustainable, and not even desirable. At the same time, I hate the attitude that everyone without a caring family or lots of property and money should be an outcast. Or, in other words, society should provide some leeway for those who can't match the standard family-household-model, without pushing them on the street.
What kind of communist shit is a "Certificate of Need?"