There are too many people who not only want to live in San Francisco, but show up thinking something in the way of home, job and/or education might turn up, like a lucky lottery number.
The 'gold rush' all over again, with most headed for disappointment, some headed for ruin.
1
The good ole G.O.P. ..... like the big bad wolf ..... no housing for you .....
1
To those who think that people should just move, the same thing is happening in any city in the United States where anyone wants to live, not just in San Francisco, Seattle, and New York. other cities may seem cheaper by San Francisco standards, but to the people who already live in them, housing prices are increasing precipitously, people are forced to flee to suburbs where housing is cheaper, commutes are becoming longer and longer. Anywhere else, there are no jobs. This is a national problem, not a problem restricted to a handful of cities like San Francisco.
1
RE: having as many children as you want...”
Perhaps cutting off family planning services to the poor is responsible for the number of children less affluent folks have.
Criticize them, then take away their ability to limit the size of their families? Does no one see what’s wrong with this picture???
6
Read about the family of 5 and what disturbed me is that she did not speak English. If you choose to live in California, English is the official language by law.
3
@PJP It disturbs me that this is what you think you read.
The situation is the similar in Los Angeles. Twelve years ago it was possible to rent a two bedroom, one full bathroom, a complete kitchen with enough storage, living-dining area with a fireplace, it's own private patio-all in a safe tree lined space for $1200.00 per month with two parking spaces.
People surviving on SSDI could rent one room multiple stories up without an elevator, or one that rarely worked. No refrigerator, no stove and a hot plate sneaked in and in a neighborhood full of campsites for people without homes where the drug trade was rampant.
The Westside was already outrageously expensive, and the Section 8 residences were like a lotto.
The rent on the two bedroom was raised to $2400.00 a month. The downtown area was taken over by developers and lofts or trendy apartments.
Mixed housing, as in Pasadena, had a percentage reserved for low income renters creating a safer and convient neighborhood. Even prior to the tax plan of 2017 it became difficult to get financing for similar projects.
Maybe when restaurant workers, gardeners, etc. disappear affordable housing will be available. Maybe.
1
its all so inhumane, its really disturbing. Housing Is a Right was once an expression to chant. Now its, "Be Fortunate."
2
An important reason that so few of the poorest people receive housing assistance is that we subsidize incredibly expensive housing for a fortunate few rather than more modest, but completely adequate, housing for many more. The article suggests that similar unsubsidized apartments next door to the subsidized project rented for about $3,600 (3 x $1,200) a month. The median gross rent of unsubsidized apartments in the City of San Francisco is about $1,800. Less than 10% of renters have gross rents exceeding $3,600. Since market rent reflects the overall desirability of the unit and its neighborhood, this project provides more desirable housing than that occupied by more than 90% of all renters. As long as we continue to fund the construction of additional low-income housing tax credit projects such as Natalie Gubb Commons rather expand the housing voucher program, the majority of the poorest households will not receive any housing assistance. Instead they will cycle through evictions, temporary sharing of crowded housing, and homelessness. Mr. Caratowsa’s great views of the City are at the expense of other poor people.
1
$1800.00 a month exceeds what is affordable to many considered middle-class.
3
I can’t help but react to a few things:
1) the absurdity of these lottery systems which, if anything, make the problem worse
2) the fact that this pain is doubly self-imposed via restrictive housing laws that constrain supply and this idiotic lottery system that takes apartments off the market and hands to people who, unfortunately due to the economic constraints imposed by the artificial supply shortage, simply cannot afford to live where they are living
3) the fact that, while I lament the dire economic challenges some featured in this article are facing, I can’t help but think that some of the decision-making around renting in central San Francisco, considering #1 and #2 above, is not wise and makes me wonder if some of these challenges could be alleviated by choosing to live further away
5
My biggest takeaway from this story was that the poor need better access to reliable birth control and education about contraceptives in general. But, this is the United States of America so those are all pipe dreams unfortunately. So sad.
21
One of the profiled families in need was described as “having their third child on the way,” and i cannot help but think what is wrong with this picture?
You cannot afford to live here yet you keep having children? Why? Tons of people defer having children at all until financially stable - if ever - yet this crazy entitlement to breed like it’s 1918 instead of 2018 makes no sense. It is irresponsible and short sighted.
15
Or, the poor are still people who should be able to have as many children as they want, rather than accuse them for being irresponsible simply because they are poor.
None of us should have as many children as we want. The planet can't afford it. However, you should be able to support the children you have. I realize that neither of those ideas will gain a foothold.
2
In some perverse sense all these subsidized housing and rent control initiatives ENABLE wage inequality. If no rent measures were in place for anyone and low wage workers had to move away the service industry of San Francisco would have to close down, no restaurants, Starbucks etc. relying on cheap labor. Wages would have to go up to provide these services to high earners, reducing the wage gap between high and low skill. Doesn't address people who cannot work, of course, but the solution are rising wages, not subsidized housing.
18
This is exactly what I’ve been saying for years. It’s such a simple concept, yet you and I are the only comments out of 450 that mention this. Not only that, but I’ve found that even when presented with this simple logic even very intelligent people stare back at me blankly as if I had just tried to explain to them how to split an atom. Thanks for a good comment. I’m glad I am not completely alone out there in this crazy debate.
13
You write as if it is easy for low wage people to move and find work so long as they are flexible about location. Where will they move? What about their children who attend school in the area? Are the schools well-funded where they can find jobs? What are the jobs in those areas? Do they have reliable public transportation? Do they have enough grocery stores and public accommodations? Welfare for the poor doesn't promote wage inequality, hoarding of wealth by the rich and tax breaks for corporations and the 1% does.
6
If you can't afford to live here, you shouldn't be living here.
There are plenty of areas outside of the San Francisco Bay area that are more affordable and easily within reach of the city via public transportation.
And Mr. Caratowsa, who already has an apartment but doesn't like the neighborhood? Give me a break.
20
You're dead wrong about this - do you actually think most hourly wage workers can afford to live in Oakland or Daly City, or even Concord? Not anymore they can't. They're going as far out as Sacramento and Tracy. They're enduring insanely long commutes to the Bay Area at significant cost to quality of life because there are simply so many more jobs in the Bay Area. Does the person cleaning your home or office or serving you food deserve this? I don't think that they do.
As a rough reference, I make a decent living (significantly more than a teacher, but far less than a Google engineer), and I'm priced out of living in San Francisco, where I work. I feel incredibly lucky that I can (barely) afford to rent a place in Oakland. A teacher friend of mine is commuting to SF from Concord, where she lives with a few roommates. People making less than a teacher and working jobs in SF are often going even further. I'm sure they'd prefer to work near where they live, but the jobs are in Silicon Valley and San Francisco.
11
Have you spent much time in the Tenderloin, where you have to step over piles of human feces and addicts shooting up heroin and smoking crack pipes on the street in broad daylight? Until you have, and consider what effect it would have on you (and your children) to live there, you give ME a break.
11
The conditions you describe are not confined to the Tenderloin. They've spread into SOMA, and even out into Richmond. And its not simply people using drugs, now they are urinating and defecating in public.
1
San Francisco is a 47 square mile area at the tip of a peninsula.
Turning SF into Manhattan would destroy the essential character of the place.
Why aren't our tech giants expanding into areas like Stockton, Tracy, Merced, Fresno, Bakersfield, etc? All connected by true high-speed rail with SF, LA, San Diego and Sacramento.
12
They aren't expanding to those places because the execs and highly skilled/educated workers for engineering jobs don't want to live in those places. Those workers are in *very* short supply, so they can get what they want - a job in San Francisco or Silicon Valley, and a very high salary to go with it so that they can afford to live there.
5
Agree to a point Jeremy. But there are a lot of tier 2, tier 3 jobs at tech firms where those employees are already driving in from Livermore/Tracy, etc.
Today's NYT has a piece about Boise becoming hot. And a recent VC glam-bus tour to Detroit and Gary, IN seemed to make some of the VC go "hmmm..."
I really think Fresno could make it work. Would much rather keep our state rocking' the jobs than to see them go to other states. Maybe Devin Nunes would like to spend a little time making that happen.
You talk about Manhattan as if it's a hellhole filled with soulless skyscrapers. Like many Manhattanites, I live in a lovely 6-story brick building, on a tree-lined street with mom-and-pop shops, cute restaurants and great transit. The lilacs just bloomed outside our place. We get some sunlight, even though we live on the ground floor. You talk about SF being 47 sq miles, but Manhattan is less than half that and manages to stuff 2 million residents in here, plus an extra 2 million who just work here. NYC as a whole has reasonable density over 340 square miles, with a range from tall skyscrapers to our six-story buildings to areas where people have suburban-looking houses with lawns and pools.
I'm tired of San Francisco using "Manhattanization" as an excuse not to build anything for their residents. Most of the island isn't corporate districts like Midtown or Wall Street. We have mixed residential areas like the Village, Harlem and Washington Heights too. It's not like we're perfect -- I'd love to have more affordable housing in my neighborhood and fewer hotels, luxury buildings or office buildings for "incubators", I'd love to see us have better housing policy for the city overall, and fewer homeless families -- but at least we're working on it and aren't static. A relative lives outside SF and both adults commute in to work. I've gotten an earful from them about how bad housing and transit policy is in your entire metro area and how rarely your cities work together.
10
My mother lived in a HUD apartment for 4 years before she became debilitated by a stroke (age 84). My work as a Case Mgr. for people with disabilities was often done in the HUD apartments of my clients. I have always kept HUD in mind as a backup to home ownership -which is a privilege we often loose when we age, or when we loose half our income because a partner dies.
My husband and I have good insurance, but could easily loose our house to medical expenses. We have retirement income, but could loose most of that due to medical expenses, not to mention rising insurance costs.
Our country needs to accept that housing and medical care are rights, not options only available to the rich.
11
Housing is basically a local issue.
2
The City of San Francisco effectively cut the black population in half between 1970 and 2005 by instituting stringent building restrictions for environmental reasons. Property values quadrupled in that time, driving low income families out of the city. Not exactly a free market maneuver. But then as Progressives ALWAYS say, "Judge us by our Intentions, NOT our Outcomes!
11
The free market only works for the rich.
16
Here's my thought. San Fransisco gets a whole lot of business off of trade shows. That could easily move to other cities. Businesses should protest by not showing up with their expense accounts.
1
Darwinian . . .
4
No matter what anyone does about housing, there is no substitute for enough. When there are more people than housing units, someone will get left with an inferior set of choices.
In a desirable place to live with limited land availability, like San Francisco, there is no way to square the circle. It's Devil take the hindmost, and if that's you, get out your tent or get out of town. It sounds harsh, and I wish it wasn't so, but there is no way around it. No matter how many housing units the city subsidizes, more people will move in and overfill them.
Subsidizing individual housing units is not the answer, unless you can subsidize enough to move the market and take pressure off the existing stock. That won't happen in San Francisco.
In places with enough space but not enough housing, a combination of inexpensive alternatives and changes to zoning priorities would ease the demand by increasing the supply. However, the people who make zoning decisions often have a stake in the county's fiscal condition, and so favor high-end housing. A state-level zoning court with authority to overturn their decisions might be the only way to resolve that conflict of interest.
No matter how you finagle the numbers, there is no substitute for enough.
10
San Francisco and the rest of the bay area could easily have enough - it's not especially dense in the scheme of things - Paris has 3-4 times the population density of San Francisco, for instance. The solution is to build up. I'm not talking all skyscrapers - just replacing single family only zones with townhouses and 4 story apartment buildings would be great. Unfortunately San Francisco is plagued with a large host of rich NIMBY types who will fight tooth and nail to prevent any new development.
13
Also plagued with the San Andreas Fault. Paris and NYC dont have that.
3
But Tokyo, Japan lies in an earthquake zone. It does not prevent them from building tall and earthquake resistant buildings to a high standard. It is a question of political will.
This story shows the random lottery doesn’t make sense. Random doesn’t equal fair and doesn’t equal best use of the affordable housing resource. The powers that be need to put more thoughts into making the allocations.
8
As I read the comments I can't help but wonder how this article become a referendum on birth control and family planning? I imagine the people who agreed to be represented may regret they ever did so after hearing the judgmental, sanctimonious comments made here. Nothing like beating up the poor and vulnerable but I guess that's just a sign of the times.
9
When you cannot afford to live with your two children in a city but go ahead and have another baby on the way, as the article describes one family, then that family is astonishingly short sighted, naive, or just incredibly self indulgent.
Where is this entitlement to having multiple children you cannot afford? No matter where you live? Isnt that what the contempt Republicans have for so-called “welfare queens” is all about?
10
@Karen Green I agree with you, but I wonder whether that couple does not know something you and I don't, and is therefore behaving rationally. Could it be that additional children procure advantages like extra income from welfare? Or moving up the list for housing? Sometimes, eligibility for taxpayer or charity-funded benefits changes the equation for those who receive them.
I do not want to sound unsympathetic but really, why live in an area you can't come close to affording? Why does it fall to the city to accommodate people with low incomes, and I'm really talking about the homeless -- which have overtaken the city of SF? It would cost the city far less to offer a relocation stipend. If this housing is for police, firemen, restaurant workers, nurses, fabulous. But that doesn't seem to be the case. To try to house the homeless is like trying to air condition open skies, physically impossible. They have poured into this city and now occupy spots on every single block. How about some practical decision-making? People who cannot afford the city should consider moving to an area they can afford. The homeless should be encouraged to move on, or move back. There's only ONE mayoral candidate not talking about spending billions MORE on housing for homeless. We already spend more on homeless than on the entire SF police force and that is insane. SF is at a breaking point and lotteries and more homeless services are not the answer.
17
"I do not want to sound unsympathetic but really, why live in an area you can't come close to affording?"
Whatever happened to choice? Why do those with money get to determine the market? And force those they don't want to be around due to their hubris have to lose opportunities to choose?
1
You mean if I choose to live on a Park Avenue, even if I can’t afford it, I should be able to?
4
Ummm because when you have no money it is very hard to move.
7
I think this projects to need improves to more peoples to get a new place for to live.
1
It is just wrong to equate the mortgage interest deduction (MID) with housing subsidies for the poor. The mortgage interest deduction is just one of the many complications in the tax code determining how much income tax one pays. I am confident that the average recipient of the MID is still paying a significantly higher proportion of their income in federal income taxes than any of the people profiled in this article, particularly after the earned income tax credit is considered.
Ultimately, the solution for affordable housing is more housing. Restricting housing supply through zoning, building codes, and permitting, and then requiring a handful of "affordable" units be built as as one of the conditions for building market priced units, is never going to solve the problem.
11
The money the IRS doesn't collect because of the MID is money that doesn't go to the government to pay for other things. Every other taxpayer is in essence subsidizing your MID.
2
The venom in these posts is truly astounding--and disheartening. I find it truly amazing that soooo many people have such rancor in their hearts for people who are struggling and at the same time seem to have no problem at all with their hard earned tax dollars subsidizing immensely profitable corporations through tax breaks, loopholes, etc. Wow!
20
Yes, people who are struggling deserve some help. But people needing help must realize they cannot go ahead and have a raft of kids they cannot afford just because they themselves came from a large happy family or their religion encourages it or whatever. Its a choice and it comes with very high costs that you dont have a right to make others bear. And i dont know why you think anyone is OK with our tax structure getting hijacked in favor of corporations. Huge unwarranted assumption there.
6
Why can't these types of projects be financed with tax free munis? I would think there would be plenty of investors who would be interested in the combination of increasing interest returns and tax free income.
3
No rationing under liberalism?
4
Wow! I had no idea the housing crisis in San Francisco was Donald Trump's fault. Oh, and also Congress' fault. Thanks, NYT!
How, other than a lottery, can a 66% discount on the rent of a brand new apartment in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country be handled when you have 70x more applicants than available units? The article makes it seem as though this process is somehow horribly unfair?
And why have more kids when you don't have a roof over your head?
31
This is really the question. Not sure where this woman is from or why she doesn’t speak English, but I do wonder why the author of this article is not so subtly suggesting that this woman is a victim and is somehow entitled to a home in one of the most highly sought after cities on the planet.
17
Because in California, you can make someone else pay for YOUR kids ! Beautiful system isn't it ? Oh and then the illegal aliens...your tax dollars at work.
16
This entire story is the byproduct of over population,people who cant even afford to support themselves are blowing out kids,lots of them.Rather than treat the problem at the source they are trying to treat the symptom and if they stay on this course the whole enchilada will come crashing down around their heads.
27
This article has some serious issues:
"Since Mr. Trumps election.." -- That's PRESIDENT Trump.
"...a much lower corporate tax rate — would make it harder to finance projects like this one.... because tax-credit investors aren’t providing that equity, the city must fill gaps in projects with other public dollars."
Yeah, that's the point. Cut out the waste on your insider pet projects, sanctuary costs, railway to nowhere, etc., which y'all seem unwilling to do.... it's always someone else's fault, isnt it.
Of the 6500+ applicants, how many were US citizens? Not even explored in the article. I am all for immigrants - my family are immigrants. But they went through a filtering process, which is important. Do you not think that unmitigated immigration has anything to do with affordable housing and rental costs (supply/demand equation) in the first place? The willful inability to see their own failure in policies astounding. It's all because of Trump. Good grief.
30
She is in the highest rent area in America... doesn't have any money... and is now on child #3???
Come on!!
51
Since location is the main determinant of housing costs, shouldn't affordable housing be constructed in affordable locations? Building 'affordable housing' in major urban areas is purely symbolic and counterproductive in the sense of creating false hopes.
15
Affordable housing is needed in places where people have jobs, not in mythical "affordable places." What you seem to be saying is that people who work hard don't deserve to live in the places where they work. "Out of sight; out of mind" is what rich people want for the poor people who serve them so they don't have to be reminded that they are paying dirt wages.
13
How many people in other affordable housing units have employment. It is rampant with underemployed or unemployed.
Take a look at any place in America where they are. None of them are tourist attractions.
No- what we are saying is force employers to pay a wage that allows their workers to live within commuting distance. Oh, employers cannot afford to do that? Not true. They can and they would be forced to if tax payer subsidies for housing did not exist. But they do, so employers will still be able to pay artificially low wages and still have a pool of labor to draw on. You have it all wrong- let employers (otherwise known as rich people) pay market wages for workers and all of a sudden these folks could afford market rate homes.
Karen Calderon fits the profile of many who back a slash in social services; her interview was conducted in Spanish, (does she or her spouse not speak English?) and she gave birth to yet another child while already struggling financially.
The fact that many have flooded into cities in California and sanctuary cities like Chicago, has created resentment from many who do not otherwise identify themselves as conservatives. When politicians made the decision to protect the undocumented from deportation, they effectively created a system whereby Americans are competing for the same scarcity of social services (in this case affordable housing) for non Americans or the newly arrived resident.
I think the idea of whether or not a city should be a designated as a sanctuary city (or in the case of California, state) should be placed on the ballot for legal residents to vote on and not left to politicians to decide. Monied pols are not subjected to the often overcrowding and sudden cultural shift sanctuary cities create.
28
She is a hard working woman in a hard working family. There is no law or requirement that she speak any particular language and you don't know if she is here legally or not. One thing is sure: her children are most likely American citizens. You may not like that, but that's how it has always been in the US.
14
Cheap employment and unemployed voters the left tuck in a corner which are used from time to time to keep them in power.
They fall easily for the promise of liberalism and utopia through progressive politics. Like in Venezuela. But instead of things getting better more and more social housing is needed for the ever growing masses of poor.
The left enable poverty.
They don't create prosperity, they create impoverished. Government doesn't produce anything, they distribute and ration.
7
Being a 'hard working woman' doesn't mean you are entitled to live anywhere you like. I'd love to live on Park Avenue in New York, but my paycheck just won't quite cover it!
Not speaking English is going to put her at a severe disadvantage in terms of earning potential...I think that may have been Anikay's point.
2
We have class disparity beyond the previous high water mark of the Gilded Age. Couples like the Calderons are natural-born optimists to have three children in these circumstances. I hope they find affordable refuge.
8
In NYC 25000 would have applied.
10
This article is an excellent snapshot of failed U.S. housing assistance reliance on building just a few very expensive apartments that go to only a lucky few. The article does not give data on the cost of these units, but based on my experience each unit cost a minimum of $400,000 or roughly $80 million for the complex. Suppose this $80 million were instead spent to provide 6,700 households with an average $1,000 a month housing rent voucher. Each household would have to pay the rest of the rent, but the subsidy is spread across the City among nearly 6,700 households instead of just two hundred. Instead the $80 million went for bricks, steel, glass, architects, profits, real estate attorneys and city hall crowd. New housing construction is roughly three times more expensive per dollar of subsidy than a housing rental voucher.
7
I like your math. What do you suggest doing the second year when the 80mil has all been evaporated into vouchers and all the tenants get evicted?
6
The only reason I had any stability in my life is because we had a rent stabilized apartment in the city of Yonkers that my mom still lives in
Every time I see someone I grew up
With they are stunned that she still lives there. Why didn’t I move her? Why didn’t she go to Florida? My dad was a deadbeat and she never earned all that much and this apartment allowed her to live comfortably and safely. We have looked at other things and they were not as nice, smaller and no parking
My mom worked full time and paid taxes for 55 years. Her apartment is a gift she is appreciative of every month. She takes impeccable care of it to the point that they show it off to the bankers who occasionally visit. This is who affordable housing is for.
29
I tend to agree. My own parents lived in public housing in Manhattan from 1946 to 1956. I was born there. People took very good care of their apartments and grounds. Used syringes were nowhere to be found.When it came time to move (my father's income had increased), they looked back on their experience very gratefully.
Had these attitudes continued, subsidized housing would not suffer the disdain in which it presently is held.
What happened? Unfortunately, merely to ask the question invites charges of racism. Which is too bad, because at one point, I considered myself a liberal. Many, like me, are fine with leaving so called progressives (who bear NO resemblance to FDR's New Deal coalition) to sort this out themselves in their playpen by the sea, a/k/a San Francisco.
17
Another sad example of a reporter suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. The tax law went into effect on January 1 of this year, so I seriously doubt it has had much impact on the current lack of affordable housing in San Francisco. More telling, the reporter doesn't address the high cost and limited building of housing in San Francisco due to extreme regulations and NIMBYism. Not a word about the failed attempt to allow greater density development near public transportation. Why not mention the latest blow to affordable housing in California - the requirement that all new homes be equipped with solar panels? Nothing like adding an extra $10,000 to the cost of every home.
18
Is Ms. Calderon a citizen? If not, why is she eligible for affordable housing? If so, why can't she speak English?
21
She is lazy. It is beyond me how anyone who comes to this country would not want to learn the language. It only helps their predicament.
13
Girl, your racism is showing. You automatically question Ms. Calderon's citizenship because you profile her as not white and take issue with her speaking Spanish, yet you don't make a similar assumption regarding the other individuals interviewed for this article. Why?
Also, English is among the hardest languages in the world to learn. The rules (and their notorious exceptions) for grammar, pronunciation, and syntax can be so perplexing that native speakers (including white men!) routinely butcher it beyond recognition. It would not be a stretch to imagine that Ms. Calderon has spent much of her life living in neighborhoods and attending schools that are isolated by both race and class, in which opportunities to learn English and be confident in her language abilities were few and far between.
5
Small people problem.
Tech company bosses live better than king in San Francisco Example Yuri Milner owner of 1.96% stake in Facebook has a 6 Bedrooms Guest House.
I was just looking San Francisco on google maps these people have Swimming pool, Tennis court, Basketball court, 6 car garage & many more stuff.
A house that start here ends way over there
2
And?? What's your point?
The city didn't give Milner his home. He helped create a FREE product that become worth a lot. You don't have to use Facebook and if you do, it's free. My point is, good for him.
The woman in this story has no money... has CHOSEN to live in SF... and has CHOSEN to now have a third child. While I am happy to think that she is a nice person and would be a good neighbor, she has made bad choices. 3 kids... doesn't speak english... no money... this is someone that needs to get out of SF and find a smaller town where she and her husband can get jobs that actually allow her to rent an apartment and take care of her 3 kids herself... vs. taxpayers having to pay more money to feed and house her family.
19
Your naivete is cute in that you think this woman and her family can magically move to a small town, magically get jobs with livable wages, and live in magically affordable housing when they have no money. You're posting from Seattle, but have you ever lived in a small town? I fled one as soon as I was old enough because there were no jobs and limited opportunities to build a decent life. When I left my rural hometown, the minimum wage was $5.15/hour. While it's now up to $7.25, that's not going to go very far in supporting a family of five. And minimum wage jobs are practically all that's available in my hometown. Apartments and rental houses seem cheaper, but even the cheapest ones in my hometown would be difficult on two minimum wage incomes (and that's assuming both adults can even get jobs, and that both jobs are full-time). If you want to try your luck finding a job with higher wages, you have to drive 30 miles to the closest metropolitan area, which means you need a car and money for gas and maintenance. Uprooting a family from one place where existing is a struggle to another place where existing is a struggle is not going to solve a nationwide affordable housing crisis.
1
California, the liberal socialist paradise where only millionaires can afford a roof over their head. Don't worry though. They'll raise taxes and fix all their problems.
12
Billionaires, not millionaires.
11
1200.00 MO here will buy you a two bedroom townhome with garage. I can't fathom this.
12
Why is this article the lead cover story in the business section? The location you live is something you pick and not an assignment. If you don't like the conditions move. Certainly this article should maybe be in the real estate section, or NYT times should have an entitlement section, since so many of these articles are published.
16
As a property developer I think two facts of the affordable housing program that might be helpful.
First, there is a "9% program" that pays most of the construction cost of building affordable housing, BUT.... that program is very very very limited to special projects. The common affordable housing "4% program" pays for about 20% of construction costs. You still have to fund 80% of the building construction costs.
Second, the affordable rents result in a low return to zero return on the property, and an owner has to agree to 30 years of affordable rents.
I'm just pointing out the tax credits program is not a government free house building program many people think it is. It's a b-word to develop successfully because you still have to finance 80% of the construction money, and you're signing up for 30 years of low $$ rents.
9
This article reminds me of the piece the NYT ran a few months ago about a woman in Chicago's Cabrini Greens. That particular woman entered Cabrini Greens with 5 children but had 8 more while she was living in a rent-subsidized apartment. With 13 children and no steady income--much like the fellow with many expensive tattoos--sometimes the poor are the authors of their own downfall. No one else is responsible for their own poor decision making.
30
It’s kind of hard to feel bad for people who are poor and complaining about the cost of living, when their own socialist policies are what drive up the cost of living.
16
Like the rest of the world if you cannot afford housing you need to move and find more affordable housing. It is so crazy how the New York Times makes victims out of people who are simply unwilling to work or move it and make ends meet. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs available in the United States. If you cannot find a job is because you are lazy or you were unwilling to move.
16
Did anybody else stop reading when they got to the spot where they considered 1700/mo affordable?
14
Paging Ben Carson: Hello, anybody home?
4
I lived in California though in Ventura - miies to the South of this Silly Valley folks.
That was in late 70's and early 80's.
Even then and even in Ventura, it was bad - after Prop 13 passed which reduced property taxes considerably, it got even worse.
I still remember a friend and his wife boasting of buying a house on the premise that they could pay for it if they worked 40 plus hours extra in over time. I joked that what they need is not a house but a camper van parked at their work place.
And SF was bad even then.
So, this article does highlight a serious issue.
But come on, to blame POTUS and his tax cuts for a problem festering for 40 plus years is too much. Most economists will tell you, it takes a while for benefits or harm of a tax cut to impact any activity.
So, sure, these tax cuts may affect in another decade by which time, SF problem could be solved by one event - a recession.
What SF and California needs is another dot com bust to have these folks move away.
I moved to Texas (not because of a bust) and will never live in that crazy state again.
Folks there, hear me out. Even in Houston, you can get a big 2 bedroom apartment for less than $2,000 and there is no state income tax.
But knowing some of these folks, my shout out is list on them.
6
That is why we need to stem the flow of illegal immigration. If not, we are simply adding to the ranks of the lower skilled who cant compete in the hyper capitalist society we live in.
16
The same thing happened here in Montclair, where at least a thousand people applied for something like 20 apartments. The town has actually broken affordable housing laws, not offering the legal quota. Ironically, the mayor won a MLK award. MLK would turn in his grave. As for minorities who still own homes, their taxes are going up in neighborhoods that are being destroyed by overdevelopment. Soon we won't be able to give our homes away, in a town that caters to the rich. I'm beginning to think that white people deliberately destroy our neighborhoods so that they can steal our property. It just gets uglier and uglier.
3
When I read between the lines of 'blame', I see many examples of why people should learn accountability, a trade, think about moving, consider not having kids until you can be financially responsible and maybe it's time to think about how it's not government's responsibility to care for your family, when you severely lacked the personal responsibility to have one.
18
What non-natives fail to understand about the situation is that it's not just San Francisco - not by a long shot. You can't find affordable housing, or a landlord willing to accept rent that's paid in part with a Section 8 voucher, within a hundred mile radius of San Francisco.
Volunteers take a "census" of the population of homeless camps in Oakland - right over the bridge from SF - and it has consistently refleced, year after year, that roughly 90% of those people's last home address was right there in Oakland. It's not about poor people clamoring to live in Beverly Hills, or the Upper East Side - it's an entire metro area, city and outer boroughs, that used to be home to a diverse community from different walks of life. Now even the shabby, humble neighborhoods have morphed into trendy 'burbs.
Why do the poor stay here? In many cases, it's the only home they've known. This is where they have contacts - family, former neighbors, friends. They know when the food banks are open, and how to usr public transit to get there. For a significant number, this is where their JOB is -- and despite housing insecurity, they rely on that paycheck, and can't risk gambling it on the off-chance they might find another in the mythical promised land commenters keep enthusing about, where jobs are plentiful and the cost of living is cheap (and the cops have wooden legs, I presume? ala Big Rock Candy Mountain? Because that's how realistic it sounds from their perspective).
15
The Okies left behind family, friends and land and found in CA far less of a welcome than illegal immigrants do today. Last I read, Carmel-by-the Sea (aka San Francisco) did not declare it their sanctuary.
Nobody's saying that relocation is easy.
11
thank you forma tour comment
1
Too many commenters are blaming the victims. “Don’t have children you can’t shelter,” “Don’t live where you can’t afford to live. “
Most of the homeless once had homes.
Some of the homeless are living in the shadows of luxury buildings which once were affordable apartments orbSingle room occupancies.
Many of my CCNY students—living in Harlem and the far reaches of Bronx and Brooklyn— worry about the rising rents and where will their families go?
But keep on blaming the homeless. That way nothing will ever be done.
10
It's interesting that the most liberal enclaves in the country are only getting whiter while liberals continue to preach the wonders of diversity to the rest of us. San Francisco is at the lead in becoming whiter. Pricing everybody out except the affluent is how they accomplish this goal.
Since when did hypocrisy become a virtue?
14
thank you for bringing up the hypocrasy issue. from a soup línea worker and aspiring shelter worker.
2
This is the most striking aspect of this whole narrative.
1
Not to let facts get in the way of a good argument but San Francisco's share of non-hispanic whites has declined from 92% in 1949 to 42 % in 2010, going down in every single census cycle. The 2020 census most likely will continue that trend. Read here who is coming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_San_Francisco
1
The odds are better on the left coast. Recently a lottery for two (2) 'affordable' units in the town of Southampton NY had well over 200 applicants.
2
Sixty-five hundred applicants for ninety-five apartments. More proof of how well socialism works. We've had fifty-four years of Great Society welfare programs, including housing programs, spending well over a trillion dollars and this is the result. Face it! The government enforced transfer of wealth has not worked and will never work.
5
Here’s something that Jeff Bezos could spend a mere fraction of his billions on: create affordable housing for low-income and middle-income people, like teachers and professional that didn’t choose tech or finance.
7
These 95 Apartments Promised Affordable Rent in San Francisco. Then 6,580 People Applied. This clearly shows the perils of OVERPOPULATION.
9
No matter how poor you are, if you have a minimum wage job then you have a car. The one thing everyone who at least has some sort of job owns a car. I bought my first car for $300, you can buy a car for nothing.
Use that car to drive away from San Francisco. I own a 3,000 square foot house with 2 acres of land and my mortgage (not rent) is $700/month. I am a millennial with a hot tub and month long vacations to Hawaii because I dont spend squat on housing.
The best part, my house is worth three times as much now as when I bought it! It's only been 10 years and it's worth 300% more. I'm set for life because of this house. I COULD work as a barista and afford the house.
All I had to do is move to Colorado. I lived in Boston for 4 years when I went o MIT and I can tell u that the rent I paid to live with 6 people in a flat could have paid the mortgage on my 3 story house now. Crazy.
You wanna know what's funny though? Im.moving to California to help run this marijuana project in Cathedral City. In the desert I will live. And houses will be cheap there too because it's not San Francisco.
So drive your car somewhere where a minimum wage job can pay for rent and a car, which is pretty much anywhere besides a big city.
10
Buy a car for nothing? And pay for insurance, gas, maintenance (likely a lot since it's a beater). Then figure out how to just "get a job" somewhere else when you have no address, because hey you just drove over there in your $300 car, and oh, gee, no job? No rent apartment! No money for security deposit? No credit? No rent.
Will you volunteer to house folks who need a place to stay while they find that high paying job and cheap apartment?
3
...and not a single mention of the fact that decreased corporate taxes increase the incentive to get any project done, and reduce the cost of each project, which brings down the price of investor-built housing.
to be expected of the NYT.
1
The obvious solution is to move to a place where you can afford to rent or buy a home. San Francisco is a rather expensive place to live. They can live comfortable lives in other states and have a good paying job.
19
Here in LA, developers are tearing down affordable housing and putting up high-rises and 8 story mixed-use buildings everywhere. Or they’re taking run down older buildings and turning them into luxury buildings.
Unfortunately this housing is all geared to the same market: rich professionals who don’t mind paying $5000/month or more for a cramped one bedroom. Since there aren’t enough people in that demographic and financial bracket to rent them, most of them are less than half full.
There’s something like 4,000 of these empty units in the city with more coming online everyday. The retail spaces in the ground floor of many of these buildings are also empty, with such high rent prices that only rich comporations and chain stores can afford to lease them.
The developers receive tax credits for “creating housing” so they have no true incentive for lowing the monthly rent costs and filling up their buildings. So they wait for the wealthy to come and in the meantime they and their friends furnish a few units and rent them out on AirBNB.
The poor displaced people with nowhere to go have created “tent cities” not just in parks and below underpasses but now on every corner.
We locals have begun to refer to them as “Garcettivilles” after our our corrupt City-Councilman-turned-mayor Eric Garcetti, who never met a developer or a campaign contribution he didn’t like.
And now has his eye on the White House.
Don’t say we didn’t wanrn you...
11
"Since there aren’t enough people in that demographic and financial bracket to rent them, most of them are less than half full." Wow, that is quite a claim.
1
Thank you for your comment. I has se en these half empty bldgs in LA and Orange county. And wondered. Nos i know the finsncial scheme behind them.
1
My apologies. I got the numbers wrong. There are 5,500 empty units in Downtown LA according to this article:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/08/15/many-downtown-luxury-apa...
And I was talking about Hollywood, which has even more.
So the city lets them build, build, build literally hundreds of new apartment buildings with thousands of new units.
How do you explain our rising homeless population then? Well first the city permits them to tear down older buildings so all those people are displaced. Then the developers build apartments with minimal affordable units and nearly ZERO condo buildings.
Common sense says that if more condos were built then the people who want to enter the housing market can buy and their apartment can be rented by somebody else.
Instead, they build these "luxury" units which aren't renting (they're kind of cheaply made) and they sit empty, your skepticism notwithstanding.
The developers even know this and are beginning to get concerned. So they're offer rental incentives, such as free months rent and no deposit.
But they refuse to do the one thing that will solve the housing crisis: LOWER THE RENTS!!! And why should they when their tax incentives are still making them money?
I'll spare you the discussion about the empty storefronts here in LA, David, since you live in Chelsea and most likely read the recent NYT coverage on that terrible phenomenon which displaces mom and pop stores with chains.
Seriously? That's nothing. In NYC you'll have 80,000 to 180,000 people "applying" for the few affordable apartments added to the low floors of luxury buildings. It's a joke, and a bad one. The developers get tax breaks and who-knows-what benefits for building these deluxe high-rises while regular people get a worse chance at scoring one of these scarce apartments than winning an actual lottery.
I think this whole system stinks. What we really need in NY (don't know about SF) is a new set of strong rent control regulations that allow people to keep the homes they have, and market forces for the rest.
When I got my first apartment, a large studio on Lexington Ave at 93rd St., I saw the ad in a newspaper, met some guy there, looked around, and told him I wanted it. He said OK, but someone is already interested. I said "I have the money right here." And gave him the $150. No lottery, no submitting tax returns, no city-wide competition. To the victor (and the fast and eager) go the spoils!
4
Well, of course. Silly government interferes with the market and you get such results. The rental market is very competitive. Landlords don't set prices, they meet the market demand. An overpriced unit stays vacant. An under-priced one will have an excess of applicants if properly marketed.
If government wants to help people who are poor because they are poor, give them money.
I suspect the only reason such silly programs prevail is the inherent dishonesty of politicians. They wouldn't be honest enough to propose to tax middle class (and upper middle class renters to provide cash payments to the poor), so they mandate "affordable" housing on developers in the hope that then renters don't realize that rents are being driven up on the units not set aside as "affordable".
It's all extremely inefficient because it induces poor people to live in housing because the rent is artificially low when if they had the money, they would choose to spend it elsewhere. Meanwhile, middle income renters are denied the opportunity to rent a unit that they would gladly pay substantially more than the "affordable" mandated price. So, they have to compete for other units driving up rents.
5
thank you Mr Trump. Why help people who’s parents have not left them 8 billion dollars. Mr Carson is the right man coming from a persecuted community to relate to people with no hope to tell them: your fault.
2
thank you for your comment. when people get pushed down. they end up giving hope. it taskes a superhuman effort to overcome this.
from a repeatedly put down person
1
Don't live in San Francisco if you can't afford it. I grew up in the Bay Area and it has to be the most overrated place. I live a great life in Oklahoma and we can afford for me to be a stay at home mom. That wouldn't even be a possibility in the Bay Area.
13
You're right, Jennifer, but this era is the first I can think of in which Americans in such huge numbers have been literally_forced_to become refugees from their own homes for economic reasons. All of our cities used to have room for rich, poor and middle class people. Now not only certain cities but entire regions have been rendered uninhabitable for any but the wealthy. I would choose to continue to live in the same city where my family has lived for almost 200 years, but that it just an imossibility. What are you going to do when Oklahoma becomes unaffordable? Just shrug your shoulders and complacently abandon your family, friends and community to temporarily reside in some strange place the bankers and developers haven't raped yet?
7
I see your point Andrew. However, the Bay Area is a unique housing market in that you can go forty miles outside the city and prices are still ridiculously expensive. It definitely is a region just for the wealthy. Would other places in the country become the same way? I don't think there's enough very wealthy people to make several regions like the Bay Area. Either way, government subsidized housing only worsens the situation. Another piece of the problem is that people make poor choices and then they typically end up with more hardships. I know I made so many mistakes in my early 20's. Then it dawned on me that I needed to start thinking about what I was doing with my life and work harder to reach my goals. Birth control is a very easy thing to get ahold of if needed. The people in this article have no business having another child. I LOVE little babies, they are so wonderful, but they deserve parents that are stable with their life. I truly feel that many problems, including housing, relate to the destruction of the family unit. People need to wait to have kids until marriage and stay married. It is the best way to raise healthy well-adjusted adults. Now of course situations where abuse is present is the exception. However, I've seen marriages break up because the woman was bored. I'm sorry but that's just dumb! And very damaging to the kids involved. In tact families are far more likely to be able to afford adequate housing.
The crisis of affordable housing is extreme, but this really unfairly targets Trump's changes in the tax code. The value of LIHTCs is a pittance. The real issue is lack of public investment in mass transit and Federal overrule of local zoning ordinances on Civil Rights grounds. Build subways to areas where there are houses, eliminate local zoning ordinances based on density with a minimum 10.0 floor-area-ratio permitted within 1-mile of new heavy rail stations, and apartments will be built.
Continue to allocate public funds for developer incentives, and the problem will easily resolve.
Why do these poor people move? the same reason Millennial college graduates move to Bushwick to live in shares. They can't afford cars, and the jobs that are in low cost of living places don't pay enough to buy, maintain, and fuel a car AND rent a home.
A national plan to revitalize ALL our cities is necessary, and this should be part of Trump's long promised infrastructure investment.
Finally, it's a bad idea to use these photos. Tattoos are expensive - if someone has the money for tattoos, they are not exactly "poor". Should anyone be able to afford a decent home in a city with all the amenities of San Francisco? Yes. But, it was bad propaganda to choose this particular fellow.
7
Ben, this is a very intelligent comment. Can you explain why you think anyone should be able to “afford” to live in any city? I’m genuinely curious. This idea is somewhat fantastic to me I will admit. I’m a liberal, but I am also a believer in free market capitalism and I can’t understand this idea that anyone who wants to live in a place should be accommodated. Would that same concept apply to other things in this life? It’s a good thing that most people want and so everyone on earth should be able to enjoy it? Thanks
4
Ben, I agree, but not everyone pays for their tattoos when they have friends who are tattoo artists. Thought you should know since you are talking about me.
2
Who do you think would make your coffee, bag your groceries, cut your hair, teach your kids, etc etc etc if only the people wealthy enough were allowed to live in your city? Or should all those people providing you services huddle under rocks outside of work hours?
1
Tech companies really need to create remote offices and jobs outside of the Bay Area. I think the state or even federal government should breakup the Bay Area tech monopolies.
2
Lived in SF 15 years and finally gave up on renting and moved far away to an affordable city. It’s not just the poor who need affordable homes, even the affluent are victims in San Francisco’s housing market. There are NO CHOICES in that housing market. No choices whatsoever. It’s not sustainable.
The problem with SF is political. Year after year the city kicks the can and doesn’t make a real effort to address this problem. 95 affordable homes is simply a cruel joke to most residents of San Francisco. There should be a state wide effort to deal with homelessness and affordable housing. I don’t know why the state or city or both cannot borrow money from tech companies to tackle this problem. This problem is not going to go away, ever, unless a bold innovative approach is taken. Without bold action right now, it’s going to get worse.
13
Check out Vancouver’s empty homes tax. It ensures that any property just being parked as an investment will produce revenue for the city, and also encourage those empty homes to go on the rental market. Berlin is even more extreme, requiring permits to leave units vacant.
If we get people into these homes and also ensure that the right mix of new units (i.e., to include some three bedrooms for families) is being built, it could fix problems in a lot of our cities.
For other ideas, look down thread. I like the idea of requiring new housing starts to match new commercial space (office building developers should be providing subsidies as well as taxpayers and the neighbors paying market rent) and for allowing states to designate up-zoning near transit where entire metro regions areas have fallen into a NIMBY trap, as long as that is consistently applied to all townships.
The actual reasons for the housing crisis seem to be slightly different in each area, but creative ideas for solving them (in ways that don’t just benefit a lucky few) are definitely out there.
8
A brief remembrance of Natalie Gubb, for whom this housing was named: Natalie was a talented attorney who guided nonprofit housing sponsors through the complexities of using low-income housing tax credits. Natalie structured the paperwork carefully to maximize the tax credits and provide for long-term affordability. She also trained staff at public agencies and nonprofits to better understand the complexities of affordable housing finance. I can't tell you how many times I remembered the difference between a limited partner and a general partner by recalling Natalie's words (with a New York accent) from her seminars.
16
"Affordable Rent" apartments and their lotteries are misleading. Most, if not all, are income restricted. And based on that, the rents are calculated in the 30-35% range of the GROSS income. Seriously, do the math sometime!
3
I have lived in San Francisco for over 30 years.
San Francisco, like many places, used to build to meet demand. The very large & lovely Art Deco apartment buildings around the blocks west of Van Ness Avenue were all built in the early part of the 20th Century on the demolished remains of old single family Victorian houses.
Local governments were given the legal right to tell you what you can do with your land (Euclid v. Ambler Realty 1926). Most of that right was not used until after WWII.
What happened is that over time people found out that they could control, via the ballot box, the local land use decision makers. Special interests found out the same.
The upshot of all this is that, at least in San Francisco, is that we have a decades long constriction on the supply of housing. High demand and no real supply, equals higher pricing. Owners make out like bandit's as their property is renting for way above the market clearing price if a true free market existed.
Much of the existing housing should have been torn down long ago, the owners paid well for the land, and denser buildings, like the ones west of Van Ness should have been built to meet the demand.
The largest voices I hear in town about Rent Control, the response to zoning control, is from conservatives who demand the free market. They are hypocrites in that they don't recognize that they are the recipients of zoning welfare.
Until supply is allowed to meet demand, nothing will change.
19
I, too, am a SF resident. I don't want to appear uncaring or smug (as I have an affordable apartment) but one solution must be considered: relocation outside SF. A city of less that 50 square miles - and as attractive as SF - simply cannot build its way out of this crisis.
It seems to me it would be far wiser to encourage people to move the Pacifica, Daly City, or even Oakland than to attempt to house them all in apartments whose construction will only server to rally the NYMBY crowd to an even greater exercise of political power.
What I recommend may be hard, but it is consistent with wise and humane public policy.
8
So you would have the city forcibly take private property and convert it into massive soviet era apartment blocks.
As the young folks say "LOL".
nice totalitarian fantasy, though!
1
We should develop programs that help people relocate.
19
A fair affordable housing lottery system is one that permits the free processing of the lottery numbers so that no one number is favored over another. Language of fairness about family size only enables biases in favor of or against certain applicants when that is totally irrelevant to a lottery. It pits poor people against each other and doesn't address the overarching policy question of how to increase the number of units of affordable housing.
2
That's a wonderful city and I understand completely the attraction to living there. At some point, I suppose, it must become evident to all but the very wealthiest among it's citizens that it's simply too expensive to reside in or around the city. It must be heartbreaking to leave, but what choice do you really have?
15
Why is overpopulation of an area relabeled as a "housing crisis?"
The reason there is less than adequate housing for all these people is because there are simply TOO MANY PEOPLE! It is not from natural reproduction. Hundreds of thousands of people have moved to California from other states, especially within the last 25-30 years. It is not the fault of unfair taxing and restrictions on vertical building. For heaven's sake...
33
Keep taking in well over a million immigrants annually in to our nation and don't continue to build housing and this is what we get. California better get busy building if they wish to become a 'Sanctuary State'. In the meanwhile, homeless people are struggling to find (and fighting over) premium sidewalk, underpass and park spaces to set up camp. Yup, too many people.
9
Actually, California net migration to/from the rest of the US has been negative for a couple decades. California population growth is driven by immigration (of all kinds).
Hundreds of thousands of people have moved to California from "Mexico", especially within the last 25-30 years.
Fixed it for you.
4
Even if you believe people have a right to affordable housing why does anyone think an individual has a right to taxpayer subsidized housing in the most expensive and sought after locations in the country? I think they should build subsidized housing in more affordable locations that are seeking lower skilled workers, and offer these people the opportunity to build their lives elsewhere.
74
We are all supposed to leave the 'hoods where we have lived for 100 years or more, to make way for white people. In the early decades of the 19th century, white people were saying the same thing when they invaded the neighborhoods of the Seminole, Creek, Chocktaw, Chicasaw, and Cherokee, and drove them out by force, killing a lot of people. It was genocide. And it got worse and worse as the century progressed, and they all started moving west, stealing the land and killing everybody, not just people, but destroying other species, too. We are still massacring wildlife to make room for ranchers. When are white people going to stop messing with everyone else? It's been going on for centuries, when will it ever end?
7
I can't help but wonder how some people in this comment section can possibly identify themselves as educated when they write things like: it's simple, just move. Don't live there. Move to flyover country. Go where the job are....
These people don't have a dime to their name. They likely have zero credit or bad credit if they had to take a payday loan at some point to make ends meet. They cobble together the rent money every month and live hand to mouth. Where are they supposed to get first, last, security, and moving costs? Oh, and what are they supposed to do? Throw a dart at a map and then what? Take time off, from the JOB that enables them to eek by with the rent to go house hunting in cities that they have no clue about? Train tickets? Bus tickets? hotel stays while looking? Who has money for that? Not everyone has friends/family around the country.
I wish the Times would do a story that left out people who had another baby while struggling financially because people grab onto that part of the story and flip out it in the comment area instead of the real problem which is that housing costs are out of reach for so many people, even those working multiple jobs. I don't know what the answer is but just telling people with nothing to just get up and move is a useless response to the problem.
92
Thank you ShirWhirl for writing this. I have been in this
situation in the past. I am somewhat better now and retired --with a retirement.
I could have been able to secure a much better paying job in another city--for a number of reasons that I do not want to take time to write here--but I did not have the means or did not want to spend my yearly savings--for my yearly visit to my family. So I had to stick in a provincial town as a foreigner with an accent -- so this is totally correct and to the point--
A lot of people do not realize that low wage earners sometimes don't even have money for a city bus fare.
I have read somewhere that over 50% of the population have less than $400 in the bank at any time.
21
You are correct but these are two different problems that are conflated in places like San Francisco. Affordable housing needs to be addressed as it’s own problem, and poverty needs to be addressed as it’s own problem.
Lowering taxes on the wealthy, on landlords!!! as this new tax legislation has done, is the worst way to address either problem.
13
I certainly get your point ShirlWhirl, but take a look at Mr. Caratowsa for just a minute. Notice anything? The guy has literally thousands worth of ink done. Now maybe he knows a guy and it was cheap but come on. And the tax payer is supposed to fund his apartment and his first month because he can’t? Really?
6
This is disgusting that we need to have a lottery for housing when all these developers get tax abatements
20
Adrian Caratowsa seems to be able to afford to cover himself in numerous tatoos. He should get his spending pioroites straightened out.
42
Tatoos cost a few hundred, maybe, as a one-time expense that could have occurred a decade ago when times were better. A half-apartment in San Franscisco can pay for a 4-bedroom house in Houston. Thousands-per-month. The costs just aren't comparable.
11
I'm with you. Seems like he could afford tattoos or at least could have in the past. Meanwhile a family struggles living in one room in an apt. shared by other families. He gets the apt. and they have to face the possibility of splitting up in order to make it.
7
That's really all you see... People go through so many changes in life.. changes in partners, housing, financially etc..Who knows what his circumstances were when he got his tattoos. I have at least 10000 dollars worth of tattoos on me. You know what it cost me?? About 50 bucks in needles , barrels and ink. Thanks to my partner the tattoo artist. So really your "thought" is irrelevant ,useless and unnecessarily hurtful.
7
My guess is that, eventually, some people will be declared Officially Homeless and thus eligible for various privileges and other people will be out of luck.
I suspect that will turn out to be a general trend: more and more people will attain various kinds of privileged status for themselves (and their descendants). All the TNC-type recent talk about White Privilege in FDR’s America, for instance, works to rationalize current and future identity-based privileges.
Left unchecked, human beings tend to develop convoluted systems of special rights and privileges. The now-fading modernist ideology of equal protection of the laws might perhaps be a hothouse flower that doesn’t flourish without constant care. One distinctive aspect of postmodern privileges is that they are justified in the name of equality, but the workings are not all that different from the premodern world.
7
Are you serious, H. L. Mencken?? Being homeless is a privileged position?! Why don't you try it sometime and see how many "privileges" you'll be eligible for.
5
As the article says -- people living under circumstances where they rent a room -- a couch or similar cannot have a normal home life. They might be limited in the time they can watch TV if they are in a room adjacent to a sleeping person. They might not be able to cook a regular meal. And have to be pending of each other schedules.
Life becomes too cumbersome. For someone with a demanding job and in need of rest this situation can cause havoc mental and physical.
For an older person it can be unbearable.
The question is - does the Government going to let investors from everywhere on the Planet come to the US and enrich themselves at the cost of US workers. Because with the returns that the real estate is generating in Nor Cal there will be investors from everywhere coming here.
I am one of those affected. I am a textile artist who has been able to create my works until recently when I lived solo. My rent was increased 60% and I decided to live jointly as a subrenter. I have not figured out yet the way I am going to pursue my artistic inclination.
I cannot even imagine someone who has health issues that require especial accommodation--sleep late in the morning, for example.
Should this society let the investors fill their pockets--Trump style while the working force lives in THIRD WORLD COUNTRY CONDITIONS???
10
Everything you describe is a choice. Becoming a "textile artist" (with presumably low income), choosing to live in an expensive city, having children while poor, these are all choices in life. I was profoundly disabled at the age of 12 and unable to complete high school as a direct result. Nonetheless, I persisted and was able to earn a college and graduate degree. Eventually, I bought my own home after entering a lucrative--albeit tedious job. I made the right choices in my late teens that put me on the path to self-sufficiency. No one, I repeat no one, owes you anything.
59
The quintessential American "rugged individualism" is PASSE.
The days of land grants are PASSE.
The US "is" (technically) a society with an established government. Where citizens had "duties" (ie, to contribute to society, and also to get benefits --due to their contributions--in return).
A civic reminder.
As Kennedy said “As not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” I believe in this profoundly. Citizens should contribute to the betterment of society. And in turn society as a whole through its established governmental institutions should “help the citizens in their old age, those who are disabled, and so forth.”
I refer you to the NYT article about the benefits of having a hobby.
I believe I am a fairly well knowledgeable about the origins of societies and established government. It’s in my DNA—my roots. Rugged individualism (an American creation--is OUTDATED).
I have striven to contribute to the betterment of society through the performance of my work. (I do have my proofs—I am NOT just bragging).
I refer you to the NYT article about the benefits of having a hobby. Through my textile work (a hobby), I have enriched my US friends lives giving them gifts that are beautiful and –still-- functional. It has helped me save money sporting beautiful suits to work interviews that I self-made saving me hundreds of dollars. I could go on and on.
I congratulate you for overcoming your health issues and leading a fruitful life. But I have also overcome mine—being discriminated and repressed. And still being capable of getting two degrees and master work, being in the honors roll, being a top performing worker, and an accomplished textile worker. No house…. but …. I have plans for this one.
Here's what happens in New York. There is a lottery for apartments in a new building where 20% of the apartment are set aside for "affordable" housing, let's say 40 apartments. (Tenants in the market rate apartments may pay up to 4 times more for their rent.) Then the new happy tenants move in. Then they never leave because they will never find such a good deal. Even if they need a larger or smaller apartment because their family grows or shrinks. Even if they have to commute further for a change in job location.
20
One more point-- those lucky lottery winners can have a huge jump in income THE VERY NEXT year, but they will still be allowed to stay. Very odd!
14
According to many of the commentators on here, poor people shouldn't have children, and if you're not rich, that's your fault. Obviously, they believe in the laws of the jungle, not the laws of civilized society.
These same people are probably against any form of taxation. They probably support corporate welfare as well as the recent massive tax giveaway to the already filthy rich at the expense of the poor and middle class. They are most likely opposed to any taxes that would allow these people to get a decent education. It's also likely that they are anti-choice when it comes to abortion - many probably support no choice even in the case of rape.
These are the same people who believe that "Life is precious" until the moment you're actually born, then, suddenly, it's, "To heck with you! You're on your own!".
Notice how every "moral" position of the right-wing just so happens to be the one that costs them the least.
Sure, "Life is precious", to them, only so long as it doesn't require any time, money, or effort. In other words their morality is based solely on cost, not compassion or empathy. Which, of course, is not really "morality", so much as it is moral bankruptcy posing as piety.
I've met and known people like this all my life. The "I've got mine. And I'll do everything in my power to make sure that you can never get yours. And this is my idea of virtue." crowd. They're selfish, ignorant, and pathetic.
I pity these people, pity being the highest form of disgust.
34
Don’t have more children than you can afford. I would have liked to have more than one child. We couldn’t afford it, so we didn’t.
33
Sadly, the left wing also suffers from a meritocracy disease. They want us all to just get out of the way or disappear while they pat themselves on the backs for "helping" the poor that they just evicted. It's not just a Trump problem. It's been going on in blue states for decades.
4
Nobody's "preventing" anybody from getting theirs. There is a world of difference between active hinderance and not being able to compete. Life in the expensive cities is rather brutal. Without the skill set, you get left with the leftovers. Want a great apartment? Get a great skill set. Otherwise, get ready for a long commute. It's not a difficult concept. Not everybody can live in the half-square miles of cool and hip neighborhoods. Most of us just have to live somewhere else. I did that for a long time and it didn't kill me. Made me stronger, in fact.
5
Doesn't it bother anyone that the one person who got an apartment was already living in a subsidized apartment. He should not have been able to do this but hey, it is San Fran. What ridiculousness! There were more needy applicants than him.
45
Gee, rents are much more affordable in Enid, Oklahoma; or Idaho; or Mississippi; or anywhere but San Francisco.
18
I see that Mr. Caratowsa, despite qualifying as below 40 to 50 percent of the median income, is sporting several thousand dollars of tattoos - and that's just on his hands.
33
*correction...the developer next door didn’t subsidize the low income building, the people who bought the homes in it did. This is kind of like a regressive tax. Where does it say you have a right to live in the middle of one of the most expensive cities in the world? Moreover, why should I have to support someone to do this? I’d like To have a place on the French Riviera… But I can’t afford it. Someone else should have to pay for me to stay there buy the articles logic.
20
On the other hand, expensive cities still need a lot of low income workers to do the work that the more elite need and want. So, where are the nursing aides, teaching assistants, maintenance men, sanitation workers, retail salespersons, etc. supposed to live? If they can't live near where they work, there will be a shortage of much needed workers. The well to do benefit from subsidizing the housing of the those who don't have the means to pay thousands of dollars a rent per month.
14
Good point Fred and thanks for bringing this important nuance in the affordable housing argument up. Tax payer funded housing is actually a subsidy on employers (rich folk). Affordable housing keeps wages artificially low. This is a classic unintended consequence of what is supposed to be a beneficial program for the poor.
How about Oakland, Richmond, or any of the other low income areas surrounding San Francisco. Here in Southern California many people can’t afford to live downtown so they commute from East County… This is what people do when they choose to take responsibility for their own lives.We often hear this explanation that they’ll be a shortage of low skilled labor if we don’t subsidize the poor. More flawed logic. If A shortage of labor ever was to develop, people would pay more for those services… And poor people would live in other areas and choose to commute. One thing I think people fail to realize is that there’s unintended consequences every time they interfere with the market.
There's always Cleveland. Just saying.
16
And how are they supposed to get there, find an apartment, come up with first & last months rent plus security AND find jobs?? Your solution sounds great but isn’t feasible for poor people who often don’t even have bus fare.
5
How about relocation assistance to Cleveland? Makes more sense than government making ludicrous, spasmodic attempts to render San Francisco affordable.
This is the cruelty of capitalism 101. In a market-driven economy, the value of property always increases faster than wages, thereby, making housing unaffordable to larger numbers of people. This problem is multifaceted: the wealthy greatly benefit from it; politicians seek major campaign contributions from those perpetuating it; the mortgage interest deduction for homeowners leaves most of them unconcerned about the housing crisis for those who cannot afford to purchase homes; and the only way this can be at least somewhat adequately addressed is by a social democratic form of capitalism which Republicans hate and Democrats are afraid to embrace. Or to put it our housing policy simply: get your cut throat off of my knife.
6
In a working market-driven economy, many businesses compete to provide the best product at prices that customers can afford. That's why for most products and services you'll find perhaps the most volume and most competition at affordable prices.
That's not happening with SF and neighboring housing though, because governments there are and have been greatly restricting the number of housing units that can be built.
Getting more purchasing power to more people will do no good in these markets until there is housing they can buy with it. Until there are more units, we will have exactly the same number of people unhoused. You could double everyone's wages and it'd just push up the value of the permitted units.
Let the market work and there will be housing, just like there is in many - dare I say most - US markets outside the areas like these with the most government interference.
11
Would you recommend they move to the workers' paradise of the former USSR? 'Evil' capitalism has raised more out of poverty than other systems. Check on the health of Sweden.
4
The problem with your analysis is this: Capitalism would not let the situation in San Fransisco get so out of control. If it was a capitalist housing market, new homes would be getting built to correct the imbalance.
However, the Californian housing system has been so heavily taxed and regulated that construction is proceeding at a snail's pace if it is not being blocked completely. We don't even have the excuse of Manhattan that it's an island with no room to expand.
Compare San Francisco to Houston. Both have grown immensely but have completely opposite philosophies. Houston has a nearly-unregulated market, and you can buy a newly-built basic 3-bedroom house on the outskirts for less than $100k. San Francisco has an immensely regulated system with absurd results.
So it seems from my perspective that Capitalism isn't the problem, but the solution.
5
Where to begin? There's so much here to decompress I barely know where to start. Let's begin with the old joke: What do you call six working professionals sharing one bathroom? Millennials. The difference is most millennials can't afford $1,200 in rent even when "affordable." A two bedroom north of 181st was about $600 a month when split three ways. Six people when you include significant others. We were considered extravagant too. We were still technically in Manhattan with a subway stop nearby.
The only rent subsidy was not holding the lease when something went terribly wrong. Things frequently went wrong. Some people will tell cockroaches add character. I can tell you categorically they do not. That was only New York too.
There were also the two winters I spent in upstate New York in unheated bedrooms. That was fun. Or the attic in New Jersey with no dedicated bathroom. There's the basement studio in Utah with severe mold and water damage along with two noisy children above your head and a suspected drug dealer next door. There was the known drug dealer around the corner too.
Do these sound like experiences I wanted to have throughout my early professional development? Why do these people get a break? They should try birth control next time. I'll encourage affordable housing but with exception. The affordable housing should be going to retirees and disable that need access to medical. There shouldn't even be a lottery. There should be progressive triage.
24
So much to say here. The affordable housing crisis was not caused by Donald Trump or tax policies. It's been going on a long time. Here are my questions. Why do they live in San Francisco? Why isn't there a major effort to assist them to relocate to a lower standard of living? I would have loved to move from Texas to California but knew all my life that I can't afford it.
Why would anyone have another child which is going to render their current family homeless? Why would someone put tattoos all over his body which is going to render him almost unemployable? Why do we let poor people into the country from other countries when we have and have had for a long time an affordable housing crisis?
Outside of San Francisco, are there, in fact, 58,000 homeless people in Los Angeles? Instead of trying and inevitably failing to build affordable housing for this large low-income population, why aren't we spending the money to show them how to relocate to places they can have a chance at being able to afford?
To imply that the affordable housing crisis is somehow a legacy of Donald Trump and/or his tax policy is incredibly obtuse and cowardly.
35
Probably the reason why SF and LA are overrun with the homeless by NYC standards is weather. You can live outside all year in these cities, but not NYC. I recall seemingly every clump of bushes in one SF park having someone living inside it.
18
Apple just hired me, so please don’t suggest that me being covered in tattoos renders me unemployable. You may as well call the cops when I walk into a Starbucks. Why else do you think I stay in San Francisco? The needle doesn’t move with statements like yours. It’s easy to play it safe and judge others that don’t look like you, but here I am soon to start working for one of the top 10 companies in the world. It may be part time, but they let me in, face tattoos and all.
22
SFO is cold.
I happen to live and work in this area. Building subsidized housing there is pretty absurd. For a fraction of the cost you could build the same amount of housing in the east bay, the southern neighborhoods of the city, or further afield. This is gross mismanagement of public funds or impact fees of market rate development, though driven by a per city housing policy. This needs to be organized on the. State level to be effective. Cities need to have this responsibility taken away from them.
21
Since I'm featured in this article I feel it's best for me to clarify a few things hence the remarks I'm getting tossed my way here in the comment section. I've been living in San Francisco since 2005 and have been in all sorts of housing situations. A lot of them were pretty bad. In almost 15 years of living all over this city, the top story has always been about how expensive it is to live here. Comparing the housing market to other areas, yes, it's expensive.
There's this dyer need of instant gratification in finding a big apartment or sometimes even a closet to live in ASAP. But when a city this small yet big is thriving, of course it's going to be pricey. That's why I knew years ago being I am considered extreme low income that my best option was to get on any and all affordable housing lists, including lotteries.
I don't live with my family and no I don't have kids. But this notion that because I'm a single occupant I'm rubbing people the wrong way or that affordable housing should only go to families is very ignorant. I won this housing lottery fair and square. It took me 6 years and 25 housing lotteries to finally win. Yes I was living in an affordable housing building by myself for the past 5 years in the Tenderloin, but there's nothing wrong with wanting better for yourself. How long did you last in the Tenderloin?
Me leaving my last apartment opened the door for another person or family on the list. I made it this far because I didn't run with the herd.
31
Mr. Caratowsa, you are a very resilient person who has held fast to his dreams and vision of a safe home filled with good energy and promise. Best of luck in your new job and apartment.
5
I like how you act like you succeeded when you've done nothing but win a lottery.
5
Congratulations on your new apartment!
3
"Ms. Calderon and her husband had been looking for a home for two years, since the last landlord learned of the third child on the way and told them they had to go."
People tend to be the victim of the decisions they make.
48
I'll ask the politically incorrect question. Are any of these seekers illegal migrants?
I'm not debating right or wrong here, just the number of folks applying for a limited supply of units.
5
After reading this I was so outraged by the false narrative I could hardly contain myself. First and foremost, the problem has nothing to do with Donald J Trump corporate tax changes now or in the future! It is and has been the outrageous policies of California Progressives. I’m in the new homebuilding industry here in California and I know the problem first hand. The amount of fees, add ons, and requirements by California municipalities have damaged this State greatly. Further complicating things are the pervasive “NIMBY” policies that don’t allow higher density or modernization of current properties. Compounding these problems, Progressives have come up with a new term called “Gentrification,” I guess you can’t go into an area and rejuvenate it unless you are the correct race as declared by Progressive standards. The results of these policies are clearly evident by people illustrated in this article. The solution: 1) Don’t demonize people and companies who build homes, office buildings and factories. (i.e. Greedy Developers). 2) Meet with the Real Estate Developers and help clear a path to build as much and as soon as possible. (We are way-way behind what our current needs are. 3) Start with the most profitable opportunities at this time. As the market circles different products will be needed and produced. Continue on this path until the market gets over built and starts to drive down prices. (Yes when supply exceed demand prices will fall and that includes rent)
18
MAYBE, instead of blaming the lack of subsidies and credits ect ect. MAYBE the City and the State could look at the market drivers causing the extreme valuation of housing? Perhaps the shortage is because the costs of regulations and limitations put on usable land? Perhaps the building codes in CA and Building Depts in the each major city make just getting permission to build prohibitively expensive. Perhaps these inputs are so extreme it just simply makes it impossible to produce a building for under 200$ a square foot for just the rawest of unfinished space? Perhaps, just maybe, somebody could take a look at the front end of the equation rather than trying to manipulate inevitable answer at the end of equation.
10
Mark of Columbus is absolutely perplexed as to "why someone who can't properly house her current family would choose to have another child," and his is the most recommended comment! Other commenters echo similar themes.
Yes, how irresponsible. Kind of reminds me of a family many years ago that was kind of broke but had a child anyway. Worse yet, they were so irresponsible they couldn’t even hang around their modest home to give birth; they had the child while on a trip, and when they couldn’t find a place to stay they had to deliver the baby in—get this—a stable. Not surprisingly, when this kid grew up he was constantly getting into trouble, so much so that the government authorities finally had to put him to death just to get rid of him. And what did this guy do to get in so much trouble? One thing was that he tried to convince people that money wasn’t important, and that not only was it OK to be poor, but that those of us who were lucky enough to have a little bit should be grateful and we should do all we could to help the poor and take care of them. But again, this was a long time ago, they got rid of this troublemaker, and I’m sure in our modern age we’re wiser than this. Now, if only our modern trouble-making poor would somehow go away, or barring that at least move somewhere else, so our young and wealthy tech workers could make their cool products and earn their millions in peace!
13
Stories are cool. Some of us want to deal with reality.
22
The Christmas story you told is not as you told it:
Jesus' family HAD to be in Bethlehem because it was required that their taxes be paid in person, pregnant wife or not, so Joseph traveled there to pay his taxes.
His family was relatively well off, NOT "irresponsible;" Joseph and Mary could well afford to raise Jesus without charity or government assistance.
Jesus was NOT in trouble as a child; he was in trouble when he was a fully-grown adult, for preaching politically incorrect religious teachings that threatened the strength and stability of the local government.
And it was the people who put Jesus to death; Pontius Pilate washed his hands of the decision because he knew Jesus was innocent, but the people chose Barabbas to be freed instead of Jesus.
It was Christ's salvation that Jesus taught, not that being poor was okay. His followers were to walk in Jesus' footsteps regardless of whether they were rich or poor; that was what He was urging. He challenged the top 1% to leave their wealth behind and follow Him in order to make them reorder their priorities of life. He also challenged the poor, rich, young, old, lame and whole of EVERY station in life to seek ever-lasting life, instead of concerning themselves with their lives on earth.
You need to get a better understanding of Jesus' teachings.
15
Birth control didn't exist back in that era; it does today. This is not about looking down on poor people or wishing they would disappear. We can help people while also wishing/requesting that they and other similarly situated people make responsible choices.
29
Yet as recently as the 90s, all income classes were able to rent in San Fran. I’ve read that somewhere around 30k units in San Fran are purposely left vacant by landlords because they fall under rent control and if rented they’d lose money. So best to leave them vacant.
Whatever ideology you subscribe to allocating housing by lottery is no way to go or to help the masses.
15
I lived in the Haight Ashbury in the 90's and paid $650 a month for a one-bedriom. Having to reserve bathroom time, what is this country coming to.
4
Liberals always believe the government is the answer to all problems.. The difficulty with that attitude is that when government can't come through, those depending on it are miserable. Depending on the government, in this country, means taking the money to support you away from your neighbors. San Francisco, like many other large urban areas, is pricing itself out of business. It doesn't mean the rich aren't always going to have a place, but the middle class is being priced out of many places. The difficulty with that scenario is it becomes exponentially more expensive to live in those places that have priced the tradesmen, and trades women, out of the housing market. Those who used to do all the work have to move further away to afford to live, and those who stay have to spend more for travel time for those same tradespeople to do the essential work. So all that are left are the very rich and the very poor. Even the extremely rich cannot afford to support the very poor, as there are so many more poor than rich. States might consider travel vouchers to find more affordable living and more low skilled jobs to het their citizens off so many government subsidies.
9
Government goes where the private sector fears to tread. Most programs and laws are reactions to problems that do not go away on their own. Programs are not always successful, but we should at least try to do something to improve people's lives.
5
this is a perfect example of the folly of so-called "affordable housing". it does nothing to solve the affordability issues for the vast majority, it raises the cost for those who have to pay market rate, it teaches others to hope to win the housing lottery, but it makes some bureaucrats and politicians and "non-profits" feel good.
27
There must be a better way. We have all of there tenured geniuses populating our universities. I once wanted to get a degree in urban planning.
Upstate New York has an abundance of water and land. Can’t we artificially bring new industry to such an area with excellent middle class and worker’s houses (temporary dorms for the homeless until the get enough to make them self sufficient).
In other words, build a new type of useful university. The right, the left and the center could each buy into it. Everyone benefits. Maybe someone has a better.
Just a dream. Maybe someone has a better dream.
2
The housing crisis in SF, NYC, LA, Seattle, DC, Boston, London, ... is caused by a market failure -- "rent seeking" in this cause a politically induced scarcity of land (and thus higher prices) through chiefly zoning density restrictions, but also overuse of historic landmark status and overregulation.
This rent-seeking, like all rent-seeking is a transfer of wealth from the general public to special interests, in this case people pay higher rents and higher prices for purchasing homes and the wealthy landlords such as President Trump benefit from an unfair share of the wealth pie.
Japan has fixed the problem by federal laws that override local zoning density restrictions. The result: in 2011, Tokyo had 140,000 housing starts compared with only 20,000 for all of NYC and about 90,000 for all of California.
Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser is one expert who has written about this problem.
See:
Build big, Bill
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1.1913739
13
Live where you can afford to buy.
23
But what if it's nowhere near where you work?
3
Then you have to commute like millions of us do every day. But you build equity over time.
2
These people cannot AFFORD to commute. Can’t afford a car, nor bus fare.
To settle for that tiny fracton of what these people needed in the first paragraph indicates true desperation. How dare anyone subjet their KIDS to that life when actual livable space is available in so many other locations.
My poor housekeeping may have given one of my kids a sloppiness tolerance but by God he knows he is worthy of decent space.
10
Unfortunately, being worthy of a decent place does not entitle a person to a decent place. Maybe you should consider communism as your avocation.
4
Sanctuary city laws and unchecked illegal immigration have helped create this disaster where families of 6 live in studio apartments. We don't have the housing, services or infrastructure to support millions of unskilled and uneducated people no matter where they are from, we need mandatory E Verify now and an end to the 14th amendment.
49
Amen!
9
>>> ". . .and an end to the 14th amendment."
That is, quite simply, a shameful notion.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Amendment XIV, Section 1
5
Birthright tourism is a booming industry, we need to take action.
None of this will mean much after the BIG quake hits. All of the survivors will be happy to have a tent to live in.
6
For nearly all of us, our grievances are endless & life is never 'fair'. Most of us don't live in the SF or NYC neighborhood or apartment or home we'd ideally like to.
Or have all the endless things we might want.
I wish I had a magic wand, but until I do, I've found the best attitude is: "I'm responsible for my condition in life".
Not others or the government....but me.
And I strive to do what it takes, I make an honest effort. Often I fall short of dreams or ideals, sometimes even the basics, but I don't blame others for that.
Yes, many are apparently "privileged" & not taxed enough, there's income inequality & endless injustices. But how does complaining about it help me pay the rent & food bill this month.
If you wait for the gov or some magic wand to fix things, you'll wait forever. Affordable housing still vexes most of Europe.
And you have to try to make responsible choices, like have a family size you can afford, reasonable expectations & most basically get an education or relevant training that makes it at least a reasonably possibility you can get a decent job somewhere.
The reality is there are no guarantees in life.
And the best attitude to have in my life experience is "it's on me". Otherwise you'll wait forever for the magic fix, that never comes.
You strive to make wise choices, live with the consequences when you don't, and hopefully become wise through self effort. That's all most of us can do. Good luck waiting for "the gov" to fix things.
28
You are so wise.
Will you be my mentor?
1
So the street sweeper and the hamburger flipper should live in a roach-infested hovel with three other families because they didn't make the right life choices?! Somebody has to do those jobs. As such, they should be able to have a basic, safe and clean place to live, and a living wage.
6
Snark. dre's analysis was spot on.
This is a shameful reality about the inequality of wealth distribution. In a new digital and global economy, it will only get worse. The “haves” must pay enough taxes to support the “have nots.” And in a democratic model, not a socialist or communistic model - meaning claw back tax cuts that benefit the 0.1%, restore (but improve) the ACA, investment in job skill retraining, investment in establishing needed industry in regions that are struggling with joblessness (clean energy, not coal).
1
I benefited from tax cut and not even close to 0.1%. I suggest taking responsibility for how large your family can be based on your income.
14
When I took some political science courses in college in the 60s the idea of he haves and the have nots was front and center. Then we studied the French Revolution and took a look at the other side of coin.
This is what happens when you keep voting for the same people that made this mess in the first place.
15
The superich can afford to stay. The middle and lower middle class who work service and support jobs have to live further and further out from where they work adding a couple of hours to their day. Good knows what the truly poor do in a city like SF or NYC.
10
It's simple don't live in or near San Francisco.
Then watch the rich complain that "good help is so hard to find", and the minimum wage in Frisco will be ~$75 / hour. Cabs will cost $42 / mile.
In other words, let the filthy rich price themselves out of existence.
Then again, real wages haven't gone up since what 1972? But, Hermes can't keep it's $100,000 crocodile handbags in stock.
Let all the elitist snobs live together in abject usury.
38
Unfortunately there are many who are willing to live in modern day tenements while working for poverty-level wages. Many still believe in the "American dream" of old, and think that with persistence, they will get out of these tenement living situations. Maybe they will, maybe they won't; but as long as they are willing to try, there will continue to be articles like this.
4
I recently won a housing lottery in Boston for moderate income based affordable housing. A brand new building 200-ish units, one of the first of it's type in the city. 3000+ people applied and my lottery draw was 1800 so I thought I had no chance. Surprisingly a month later I was called to interview and submitted all of the paperwork and learn what my rent actually would be... $2257 for a 1 bedroom. More than 60% of my take-home pay. An amount that I absolutely could not afford. I now understood why I got called in.... more than 1000 people turned down the units before me. It's a joke you make the right amount to qualify for affordable housing but not enough to pay the rent there. There are still empty units in that building 6 months later such a waste .
71
@Christine your observation is spot on. "Affordable" housing is a ruse a local government sham. Wealthy developers are allowed to use it in order to dip into the government coffers and receive tax incentives,credits,grants and other tax payer subsidized giveaways in order to build housing that most people cannot afford to move into.These are funds that should be used for schools and workforce training and development that would actually pull people out of poverty and turn working class people into middle class taxpayers.Young working class families actually energize communities unfortunately they are not welcome in San Fran or Baltimore or Chicago or Boston. Only the rich and vapid need apply. You are right it is "such a waste". I strongly advise everyone to vote out the people who are doing this because they are destroying the country.
6
I too won a lottery for a moderate income unit in Boston in 2016, but the lottery was to purchase the unit. It comes with a 50 year restricted resale deed, limits the appreciation of the unit to just 3% per year and requires that when the unit is sold, that the new buyer meet the moderate income guidelines in place at the time of the sale. Being able to amortize the reduced sale price through a mortgage made affordable ownership possible for me.
1
It certainly seems odd that the location chosen for this heavily subsidized housing is smack in one of the priciest neighborhoods in one of the priciest cities on earth. This looks more like a conscience Band-Aid for rich folks in San Fran who often, from where I sit, talk liberal but live libertarian.
21
@Marc Schuhl RIGHT!!! You figured it out. Pretend to care and pay some fealty to solving the problem but never really solve it. Why? Because to solve it might put the great unwashed next door to you. By the great unwashed we are talking about teachers,nurses,emt workers,police cadets. You know the people who make life in places like San Fran bearable in the first place......SMH.
2
Back a few decades ago Cal voters passed an initiative called Propostion 13. This forbade the raising of property taxes on homes in existence. New buyers didn't get this break. This distorts the housing market by encouraging home owners to keep their homes longer and keep their Taxes low. This has certainly distorted the real
i estate market.
5
As the one who’s in the article, I was on the same page as you at first. But I learned that The East Cut is a redevelopment area which is why I’m not surprised San Francisco is building for everyone. It’s progress. Google it. Their website is pretty straight forward.
1
Not sure why taxpayers are paying for a government lottery. If you are poor, then you should live farther away and commute. What’s wrong with that?
26
Absolutely, Jay. The “poor” — many of whom work in service jobs that make your life and mine more pleasant and tolerable— certainly have their nerve, wanting to enjoy a decent quality of life. Let them eat Tastykakes, right?
10
Ask the teachers of Oklahoma, West Virgina, etc. who went on strike for higher wages "what's wrong with that?" Ask the parents of the students who are facing 4-day (or shorter) school weeks because the teachers of those locales are not being paid enough to make the job worthwhile, how they feel about the fact that talent doesn't want to reside in their local area.
If you want basic services, then there needs to be some level of affordability for the non-1%.
13
A government lottery cheap housing is just ridiculous. Just like our immigration diversity lottery.
Like Trump says, the government is stupid and when can't make a smart decision, then it says oh let's go random. It's ridiculous.
Instead of awarding a housing jackpot, the government should fix the transit system so poor people can commute into the city easier.
If it does have award a housing jackpot for whatever silly reason, at least make it merit-based. Give it to the firefighter. Give it to a police officer. Give it to an injured veteran. Give it to the local EMT ambulance worker. Don't have it random so for example a lazy arts student who graduated with a 2.0 GPA and is now unemployed and smokes weed all day can get it.
2
Just another sad story reflecting the outcome of abandoning capitalism and the natural laws of economics . . . And, yet, the day of reckoning (hitting rock bottom) still patiently awaits.
4
They can't afford a place, they are in an already tiny place and she gets pregnant with her third child? I commute four hours a day round trip to afford a place in this area and I certainly would't get pregnant if I couldn't afford to live here. Let alone have three or more kids.
54
This is Nina Castro:
Tear down, rebuild - it's all we know how to do to create jobs and wealth ( for the builders, who pretty much want to build for the wealthy because their profit per build is higher). The jobs are short term and are political boons for the clever mayor or other official who "puts people to work". Until we can focus on new industries to create solid, longterm middle class work, we will continue to cannibalize and scam one another. Remember? Not one financial industry player was punished for the packaging and resale of weak mortgages pushed onto people who couldn't understand that they would become adjustable. Ten short years. As Matt Taibbi pointed out recently, we don't create wealth from innovation as in the past, and in the real world, the rogue elements find out where the money is (even pharmaceuticals....) and proceed to take (steal) it. As another commenter said, as a nation, we are contracting; no vision.
6
Are we supposed to feel sorry for poor families living with four people occupying a single room who then have MORE CHILDREN that they cannot afford? OK, I feel sorry for the children, but the irresponsible behavior of the adults should bother everyone. What is the solution?
72
Yes. You should feel sorry. At the rate access to affordable birth control services is diminished, the only recourse for people in poverty is never to marry. To live a life of complete abstinence. Which we all know is lubricous.
Grow a heart. Makes for a better reflection in the mirror in the morning.
6
Sad to see that over time wage slavery is the new normal. we are a high tech world with lots of automation yet as time goes on the bottom of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the basics, takes more and more of our income. Food and shelter routinely cost more than half net pay and its not tax deductible unless its a mortgage (which is ~.33 cents back on the dollar and only helps those with income). It is a sick culture and a sick society. To keep bringing in new people at times like these is a bad idea. San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, DC, to name a few, are run opposite of what you would do to "win" sim-city. And its truly sad to visit a place like Tokyo where how horribly mismanaged our cities are compared to Tokyo. Our disgusting local/City governments are NIMBY first - they do everything in their power to keep construction from happening and at the same time generally invite more people in. At the State and Federal level there is a push to smush the population into the top 20 metro areas. Truly a sad situation.
6
Is it not true that by artificially creating relatively inexpensive places for "ordinary" workers to live, we are in fact subsidizing and supporting a local economic system that should collapse under its own weight?
If the rich who bid up these homes and live in these places did not have cops and teachers and janitors to support their lifestyle, would not the entire system have to change? By supplying forced affordable housing, we are allowing this irrational system to go on it's merry way even further toward ridiculous.
14
So Ms Calderon and her husband cannot even afford an entire apartment for their family, but yet they decide to have a third child??? That is obscene. If they can afford only part of an apartment, who is going to pay for the new child's birth? Who pays for the needs of the other children? One guess - the taxpayer, and that is not acceptable. If you can't afford to give your children a good life, don't have them and don't expect others to pay for them.
59
People are fleeing big, expensive cities. Young educated skilled millenniums populate San Francisco (and cities like Manhattan) along with the 1%.
But for those with families or struggling financially for whatever reason, this is when reality hits you in the face. And here we are.
It's time to move. Yes, the wages are higher in San Francisco. Yes, it's really a gorgeous city. But this country has plenty of beautiful, vibrant cities that you can still make a great living in. The American Dream is not dead. It's just shifted away from the big cities nothing is wrong with that. You might even like it (gasp).
Live in newborn with a car or go where you can make a living. It's wake up time, my friends.
15
I was on the waiting list for subsidized housing for 13 years after I had to go on disability. My lawyer told me they'd never have anything for me because all subsidized housing is secretly earmarked for people with children. She was right. I never heard one word from them. Things got better and that was over but I feel for everyone trapped in this mess. It's easy to go off a cliff for a lot of reasons - illness, lack of access for affordable healthcare (those were my 2...), inability to find a job for reasons that aren't your fault or you can't control, there's a million reasons. The worst outcome is people can wind up living on the street.
What kind of country is this that we can't do this better?
Get rid of the Republicans. They are opposed to helping with this down to their marrow.
We could be a great country. We're not. Not on this.
16
It has been for quite some time now that most (average) Americans can't afford to live in their homeland anymore - but if the cost for housing will reach 100 percent of an average Americans income there will be...
change - for sure!
Or let's say - promising voters affordable housing will win the next presidential election!
2
The value of a house theoretically should be based on the after tax cost of ownership. In other words the tax break just allows a buyer to pay more and inflated the price of the house, but the after tax cost would be the same with or without the tax break.
2
Exactly. If the Fed limited mortgages to say 10 years home prices would fall as well.
5
After WWII, the US was faced with a major housing crisis as little had been built during the Great Depression, that war, and the Korean War. To combat this problem, a series of National Housing Acts was passed. The one of greatest urban interest was Section 213 that formed construction mortgage insurance pools funded entirely by the participating not for profit co-ops that were built. This proved to have the lowest default rate of any of the FHA programs.
The 40 year mortgages have since been paid off, but these co-ops remain, often as the best maintained buildings in the neighborhood. I live in one of the 41 such buildings in Flushing. The operating cost here is around $1,000 per month, including utilities, for a two bedroom unit. This can go up usually due to increases in real estate tax, water, fuel, union salaries, and the usual inflation.
It is New York State that makes apartments unaffordable by taxing them at much higher rates than single family houses. Attempts to change this have been opposed by city administrations and others in Albany. We need a court decision to create equity in residential taxation here.
12
Remember the housing crash in 2007? Housing prices fell - and voila, became more AFFORDABLE. So what did government do? They did everything possible to bloat housing prices. So now housing is unaffordable and people complain. So what do we want? Low housing prices - or high ones? You can't have it both ways.
10
Tell me what it was that government did? I legitimately want to know.
4
In a country founded on racism and white superiority this is no longer an amazing story. Sean Hannity buys up apartment buildings and then allows people to be evicted when they are late on there rent. We have for profit prisons, minorities are arrested for just shopping at a department store buying clothes for the prom. White people are afraid of anyone who isn't white . Since that is the storyline why doesn't some of these corporations who only hire white people because they only want employees who look like them build housing for the rest of us ?since they are moving into areas where the poor live? Poor people buy there overpriced products why don't they give back to minority Americans vs just taking. What does this headline state about the affairs of San Francisco it screams we only care about the rich and if your not white and rich just go away because San Francisco is no longer your city anymore. It is an unfair lottery for life, and it is only for the entitled.
8
@TONY: [Sean Hannity buys up apartment buildings and then allows people to be evicted when they are late on there rent.]
People are not evicted just for being a little late on their rent. There is a process and it takes time. Some renters have been late numerous times and are still there.
If landlords do not take action against those who pay late, everyone will find some reason that they cannot meet their contractual obligations. Landlords have expenses which must be paid such as taxes, fuel, utilities and maintenanance.
Mortgage lenders and credit card companies also take actions against those who do not pay their bills.
There is an easy solution: Do not buy things you cannot afford and do not rent apartments you cannot afford; live within your means. And have a plan for an emergency.
16
Problem is if you're not fairly wealthy, you literally cannot afford to get anything in cities such as NY.
1
Tony, I know that facts no longer matter, but this is California we are discussing, in the most uber liberal city in the country. This is the end result of years of liberal NIMBY policies.
Please keep your hate in check.
6
The reality of the lack of affordable housing is creating massive problems throughout the country. The homeless surge is the result of this. As is drug use. It is at crisis levels. Homelessness+Hopelessness=Mental illness+drugs.
Also, we continue to take in millions of immigrants annually, well, where are they all supposed to live? We most certainly are not building that many more housing units annually. Do the math.
21
Actually, immigration rates have never been lower. Our govt is taking our taxes and giving it away to billionaires who mostly stockpile it and build nothing for the majority of American families.
15
Oh please, there's an estimated 13 million illegals in our country right now. If they were deported think of all the affordable housing that would become available. Having one anchor baby immediately makes one eligible for section 8 and other low income housing, among other government benefits. How is this fair to Americans?
2
Some commenters have suggested that these parents should not have children ("Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?") or should move to a city where housing is cheaper. Resisting the temptation to comment more on those proposals, let me say I wish I had the answer to this complex problem, but what I do know is that the problem is not new. Back in the early 1970s my first job was in one of the giant high rise housing projects in Chicago. By that point we were already starting to see that this was a bad solution, and we subsequently demolished most of these projects around the country, replacing them with slightly better alternatives. But I recall a statistic from the time, which was that nationwide only about 7% of those who qualified for public housing actually got the benefit of one of these programs, and the rest got zero. Seems that number might be even worse today. It would be nice if people smarter than me could figure out a better solution to this problem, but with escalating real estate prices in these urban hot spots that seems tougher and tougher. NY Times - great story! (P.S. - And OK, if I can make one more comment, I almost kind of hope that those who suggest the poor should move elsewhere would get their wish, only so I could see how they would react when there was no one left to bus their dishes at their restaurants and do all the other menial jobs they probably can't even see being done by the poor on their behalf.)
10
If there was no one left to do the work, wages would rise to attract workers. Subsidizing people who could do very well somewhere else only keeps wages suppressed. I was born in SF and have lived in the Bay area my whole life. I bought a house in an up and coming area of the East Bay with a downpayment I saved for for several years. Guess what? It's still affordable where I live, but it's not hip or trendy. I have NEVER had to worry about making my mortgage payment because I never committed to anything I couldn't pay for: including riding out a couple of catastrophes. I also went to a University that I could afford. If I hadn't been able to pull that off, I would have done a couple years at a Community College and then transferred. I chose to become a musician, and due to the precarious nature of that, I did not want to have children that I might not be able to support. I have no regrets. My house is almost paid for, I have a decent nest egg and an OK pension coming. If I hadn't been able to make my way here, I would have changed professions, and/or left. At some point, people have to take responsibility for themselves.
31
Maybe I missed this information in the article, but is citizenship or legal immigrant status required to enter this lottery? If not, what percentage of applicants/lottery winners were illegal immigrants?
44
San Francisco is where jobs are if you are doing microelectronics or the information economy, but even that doesn't make any sense. All of these jobs operate on . . . depend on . . . the Internet. Why do they all need to physically locate in one unaffordable spot? Are all that many deals really initiated or consummated because two random dot-commers physically faced each other randomly and the fact that they co-respirated the same air made all the difference?
No. These people like the atmosphere they created in their little bubble. Geeks and money swirling around in a sea of mostly useless ideas for businesses, plus a few with tens of billions in revenue. Tone. Bustle. The little places to eat unaffordable lunches. Restrictive zoning so that their ambience isn't dented.
Guess what, folks? This is unsustainable. The support structure for your little fantasy world is crumbling because you don't pay cops and teachers the six figures they need to live on the margins and facilitate your existences.
Rationality dictates that when a company is not anchored to a physicality like the ocean or a ski slope, you locate where you can attract the best talent and keep them happy. At the moment, all the movers and shakers in that field love to live in the Bay Area.
Pretty soon, it will come apart and more companies will move to Boise. And do it all over again, like what's happening to Boise.
23
I think that you’ve pretty much put your finger on both the problem AND the solution. While every tech-savvy person in America would like to live in San Francisco or environs—I know, because I once lived there, too—this is no longer sustainable. And in an era of telecommuting, we don’t need to keep trying to make it so. Still, we keep trying, don’t we, because the San Francisco views are beautiful, no?
I don’t know what’s happening in Boise, but Albuquerque in particular, and New Mexico in general, both have plenty of room for growth.
Maybe one more really good earthquake in San Francisco and/or LA would persuade some of our tech geniuses that life on the stable craton offers some benefits.
It’s gonna happen sooner or later.
3
Too many people - not enough housing or jobs.
8
Some thoughts for reflection. I invite any reader to comment, think about it.
PART ONE OF MY COMMENT (there is also a part 2)
The situation in San Francisco is spilling over to Northern California. San Francisco workers –I guess not high tech or even high tech (who want to be owners—I happen to know one personal) are commuting from San Francisco to Stockton, Woodland, Sacramento above all.
Sacramento is a working town city with many working poor neighbors (at least 50%) – rents for apartments have gone up to 50% and 60% in a matter of less than 2 years. There are a lot of $3000 monthly-earners and these are being forced to rent rooms or split an apartment. I know of 1 bedroom apartment situations where 3 people live in a unit – 2 in the bedroom and one in the living room. This situation is OK for young people. Or middle aged—it is not. This conomdrum is proper, not of a leading country - but a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.
I happen to be a senior with a not-high retirement. There are many seniors here in my situation, and they are being left either homeless or forced to move in with a relative. This is not indicative of a leading but of a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.
I personally know a couple of people who are landlords in Sacramento---their incomes HAVE DOUBLED. Their expenses are about the same. There are contributing to the improvement of the country but the improvement of their BANK ACCOUNTS.
14
The US, which includes CA, has in successive years grown smaller. It no longer is capable of big thoughts, great endeavors, the leader among those which think they lead. Instead it has turned upon itself.
As the article states, 95 apartments, almost 7,000 applicants. Instead, it should be 10,000 apartments, over 7,000 applicants.
Think Liberty Ships ! We used to build them
8
Charles, great comment! That's the way we need to think of problems like this. Why can't we as a nation simply ask ourselves, "How can we provide decent housing for all of our people?" Of course, our government could get more involved. But how about the private sector, and especially the tech giants who are partly (largely?) to blame for this problem?
For example, Apple has about $285 billion (that's a "b") in cash in the bank, with no good way to spend it. Let's say it costs $200,000 to build one apartment. To build 10,000 as you suggest would cost $2 billion, less than 1% of this amount. And of course Apple could then get the resulting rental income.
3
Err...
San Francisco encompasses about 47 sq. mi.
It, like most of the rest of the Bay Area, is already excessively built-up.
Where, exactly, are you and Apple going to build these “Liberty Ship” apartment buildings with access to low-income work in the Greater Bay Area?
Nevada?
Judging from the picture of those workmen fussing over the caulking on those ultra-streamline and very expensive modern curtain walls, affordable housing is unlikely to be cheap.
4
That's nothing compared to New York City which has around 1.5 million more people than San Francisco, and a rampant real-estate market that shows no signs of slowing down -- even though the average New Yorker can barely afford the rents here which increase between 2-5% each year, depending on the type of lease one has.
Meanwhile, the only thing being built is Luxury Condos for the outrageously wealthy, and apparently this is the same problem going on across the country.
There is something seriously wrong with this picture, and there's no way that this president or Ben Carson, the Secretary of Urban Housing and Development, is going to help.
That's why as shameful as it is, the surge in the homeless population, in a country as wealthy as this one should come as a surprise to no one.
15
New York (including all boroughs): 8 million
San Francisco (up to city limits): 800,000
5
Agree.
It seems like "how bad things are in San Francisco" is a weird screen repeatedly placed by the NYT between itself and very, very similar problems in its own city.
2
Population of San
1
With 6500 applicants, it's obvious there were not sufficient apartments built to house everyone at reasonable cost. No one should ever have to pay more than 30% of income for adequate housing, which would include a full bath and a full kitchen.
What is wrong with this country that landlords aren't building and offering family housing in the $400-$800 range? We need to take a good hard look at the median income of families who work in the service industries: hotel housekeeping, fast-food services, cashiering anywhere, lpns, cab drivers, etc, whose earnings rarely top $20,000/hr. Why would landlords need $20,000/month from their rosters of low-income tenants if $8,000 is sufficient for covering all expenses and a reasonable net income?
It's all greed, pure greed. Avaricious apartment owners are becoming wealthier on the backs of those who have a tiny fraction of their landlords' earnings.....
God save America; may God condemn the "ugly" American landlord/developer.
8
"Why would landlords need $20,000/month from their rosters of low-income tenants if $8,000" - it seems obvious to me that businesses generally ought to maximize profits. A small mom-and-pop developer can do as they see fit, I suppose, but at any decent size scale we are going to see public companies, REITs, etc, and no shareholder buys shares in a company that willfully leaves money on the table. It is fiduciary responsibility, NOT "greed, pure greed" if a large pension fund invests in a REIT and then demands that rents be set at market rates. Welcome to the American way of free enterprise - it has its flaws but everything else is far worse.
2
It's greed when profits are worshiped at the expense of service to people who need affordable housing.....
Greed: Wanting more than one needs to sustain the livability of properties one owns/manages.
Greed.
I have been a landlord since 1972. I don't need three-four times what I already earn. Who does?
Stop blaming all the tech companies and the "rich" people living in cities.
This is at its heart, an abject failure of government to adapt and make available new housing. It's a failure of the entrenched voting citizens who have gotten to live in the cities for 20 years to overcome their desire to keep things the way they are and make room for new residents.
None of the "liberal" solutions like rent control, tenants rights laws, housing lotteries, will alleviate the pressure of the need for more housing. And the effects of this inability to put in place effective solutions are that of course the poor get pushed out, new residents (disproportionately young) have to pay ridiculous prices, and the wealth gap gets larger and larger in these cities.
What SF (and other cities) need to do is allow vertical development essentially everywhere, remove housing restrictions that only benefit those who've already gotten lucky living here, and stop crediting the argument that "neighborhood character" needs to be preserved. Those are all just thinly veiled tactics to keep the rich richer -- and by rich I mean the 50 year old who has gotten a rent controlled apartment 1/10 the market rate for the last 20 years.
How about the young people who move here for jobs, or the immigrant family who wants an affordable house to live in? I favor them over the suburban liberals who are actually conservative when it comes to having to put up or shut up.
6
All of this with a Democratic super majority legislature and a Democratic Governor who boasts of a budget surplus. No wonder Trump is President!
3
Ahh. Yes, yes, yes.
Let’s allow unlimited “vertical development” in San Francisco and elsewhere.
Ever heard of the “San Andreas” and “Hayward” faults, among others, Mr Schmitt?
When that “vertical development” rains down on your head with the next significant earthquake, you may think differently about your brilliant suggestion.
7
The question is not whether a family of 5 should cram into a studio apartment and pay an exorbitant rent in the process
. The question is neither one of why do people feel they have the right to affordable accommodation in one place when there is affordable accommodation only in other places.
No, the question ( that no one ever asks ) is why as a society do we even allow such grotesque use of space ( people or families having 30,000 sq ft homes for just themselves and/also with multiple said homes ) while all resources on our planet diminishes at alarming rates ?
You do realize at SOME POINT we are going to have to ask that question, when there is literally no other place to go, right ?
Right ?
3
You ask "why do we allow it?" - I don't need anybody to "allow" me to spend my own money on the lawful purchase of real estate. This is the United States of America, not Cuba, and the government serves the useful role of recording and publishing real estate ownership and transactions, and it even plays some moderate role in determining practical/safe land use, but I don't go ask some government official for permission to spend my own darn money on a house that I want to live in.
9
@FUNKY: Perhaps the question should be why do people continue to have children that they cannot afford to feed, clothe and house and expect the rest of us to pay for them?
9
So move. You don't have some abstract right to live in an expensive city you cannot afford whether you like it or not. Move, get a job to pay all your bills, and stop living off subsidies torn from other families who behave responsibly.
26
"So move. You don't have some abstract right to live in an expensive city you cannot afford whether you like it or not."
So who do you propose will operate the myriad shopping malls, grocery and convenience stores, gas stations and auto repair shops, barber and styling shops, child-care centers, coffee shops, and every other job in the economic sectors that support the high-paying jobs?
7
Here's the larger issue: why should Federal dollars be used to subsidize low income housing in San Francisco? If San Francisco wants it let them pay for it. I work too hard in Colorado to see my money go to pay the rent for families who might want to have fewer children.
18
Who needs affordable (aka "non-'luxury') housing for non-rich when landlords and 'developers' can make killings and foreign oligarchs can money-launder their ill-gotten lucre via cash purchase through shell corporations (paying no taxes of course!) ?
6
Perhaps corporations could be encouraged to build satellite facilities in areas of the country where housing is inexpensive. There are many attractive rural areas with decent infrastructure and excellent quality of living where good houses can be purchased for 50,000 to 100,000, and rentals are available for 500 or less (large chunks of the Great Lakes states, for instance). It might be easier than convincing someone to subsidize 1000/mo apartments in a 3000/mo market.
1
Corporations attract high-quality employees by locating in areas where people would like to live. Places which have recreational amenities in addition to a comfortable workplace.
The young people these corporations want to attract do not want to work, then just go home and watch TV. That's why cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and New York are expensive places to live: People want to live there as well as work there.
1
Allen, many rural areas have world class, year-round recreation, good internet, clean air and water, plenty of bars, and aren't that far from cities. I will admit that outside of large cities interesting restaurants are harder to find, but that would change if there was more demand.
I agree that the electric buzz of big cities is powerfully attractive (I lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn for 15 years), but spending 3000/mo for a tiny apartment shared with cockroaches is not all that wonderful after a few years, especially with a family. I'm not saying that everyone should go live in a cornfield, but there are beautiful, affordable places to live all around the country that could blossum if they were given half the money needed to create a handful of subsidized (but still expensive) apartments in San Francisco.
@E.S.: You are correct. Many rural communities are near recreational activities, but most are outdoor attractions. Having lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn you already know that NYC has 150+ museums with changing exhibits, 250+ live theatre venues, 30,000+ restaurants (although about 3,000 serve pizza) and some hugh number of bars. And how many cities, let alone rural areas, have five zoos? Lots of things for young adults to do when they're not working - all a short subway or cab ride away.
This is why rents in NYC are high - It's the demand.
I was born here and lived here all of my life. I have spent time in major cities around the U.S. and Europe and enjoyed being there but I wouldn't want to live anyplace else.
1
'Affordable housing' is subsidized housing. Land in a city is valuable and should be used to house those who can afford to live there and to pay for the benefits of a city life. Why should tax-payers provide housing for those who pay less (if any) in taxes than it costs to support them?
Think of it in terms of dining: We provide basic meals for the indigent, no more; we don't provide vouchers to upscale restaurants. We don’t provide a fine dining experience to someone just because the best they can afford is fast food.
Affordable housing should be built in less expensive areas where land is cheap. Public transportation should be available so that those who have jobs can commute to work and earn enough to move somewhere better. The long commute is the price they pay for failing to get an adequate education and learn marketable skills.
If they want a better lifestyle, let them earn it; otherwise, they should get used to having a less-than-middle-class life.
24
To Allen in Brooklyn, who believes affordable housing should be built only where land is cheap - Here's why (not). Many of the jobs that would not pay the rent in a high rent city such as SF or NY are just as essential to the functioning of that city as they are to the functioning of less expensive cities and towns. And the higher the housing costs go in the city, the higher they go in the suburbs. When the only affordable units the lowest-paid employees can find are a three-hour commute from their city jobs, they'll move, and the jobs they left may go a long time unfilled. How many cities can get along fine without people to sterilize the surgical instruments in the hospitals, clean the toilets in law firms and company headquarters, wash the dishes in the four-star restaurants, provide day care for the children of dual-income couples, bathe and feed seniors in nursing homes, etc?
12
Part of the problem is California is so socialistically weirded-out that more than half the space actually legal to build on is already fully developed. The elites demand nice views and enforce that through Stalinesque zoning.
1
Curious. What is your marketable skill?
5
There are really only two ways to solve the housing crisis in this area. Either lower the cost of all housing until homes and rents are affordable to all, or subsidize individuals for housing. Lowering the cost of all housing is politically impossible: all the current homeowners love having a million-dollar asset they may have paid only 1/10 that amount for... and the new buyers paying $1 million do it in the firm belief that in the future they will sell for more, not less. So that leaves giving away money, essentially, one way or another. The bigger question: does society have a responsibility to house all its members? If it does -- who pays, how much, and how is it allocated? A lottery is one option. Tax breaks for investment in 'below market' housing is another. Taxing income and spending the revenue to subsidize 'below market' housing yet another. Tax breaks for home buyers, renters tax credits... all are ways of trying as a society to shape too few houses to take care of every person. The "free market" solutions favored by some won't work in this case, unless unlimited building is allowed, which is unacceptable to so many others. NIMBY is a common reaction, one that isn't seen as selfish greed by those espousing it. Self-righteousness abounds: "I worked and save to buy this house! Why should anyone get a break?" Answering all these questions is necessary, but we instead continue to nibble around the edges, inadequately.
1
Just for a little perspective, not a prescription:
Let's say it costs $200,000 to build a two-bedroom, not fancy but decent apartment in a building with fifty units. A thousand units would cost $200 million. If the entire cost was mortgaged at 5%, the monthly payment would be under $1100. Throw in another $400 to cover maintenance and insurance. You get a rental of $1500/month. I believe currently in San Francisco $1500/month might get you an indoor parking space.
The 6000+ people referenced in this article could have new apartments for around $1.5 billion. But that would not be a subsidy inasmuch as the monthly rent would, through a mortgage, pay off the costs.
There are individuals in the Bay Area for whom $200 million is little more than chump change, some for whom $1.5 billion would be little more than noticeable, and who, if they financed such a project, would be earning 5% on their investment in any case.
Another aspect, one ignored in the article, is the issue of zoning. Much of San Francisco's (and other place's) housing problems could have been nipped in the bud and could be currently ameliorated by refusing to allow new commercial developement that adds job openings in excess of businesses that close or reduce employment. For instance, San Francisco could have said NO to Twitter.
Unless voters understand this and elect officials capable of saying NO to fantasies, as well as developers' campaign contributions and other compromising promises, little will change.
6
It is not a reasonable estimate to think $200k could build a 2 bedroom apartment even in the outer boroughs of NYC. Our co-op property in Flushing consisting of 2 buildings totaling 134 apartments was valuated at $33 million last year. This works out to $246k per unit for a 61 year old building. Construction costs today would far exceed this.
5
Ignored here is the issue of zoning. Much of San Francisco's extreme housing problem could have been nipped in the bud and could be currently ameliorated by refusing to allow new commercial developement that adds job openings in excess of job losses from businesses that close or reduce employment.
Unless voters understand this and elect officials capable of saying NO to fantasies, as well as to developers' campaign contributions and compromising promises, little will change.
Putting it another way, Ed Lee and other San Francisco politicos could have said NO to Twitter. Perhaps the company would then have taken its business to places, such as Modesto, that need that type of commercial developement.
7
Three thoughts.
One, housing prices are a reflection of supply and demand. That means that as population grows via various means, including both legal and illegal immigration, our stock of affordable metropolitan and suburban housing stock must either grow proportionately or become increasingly prohibitive.
Two, as this article courageously underlines, the current home mortgage deduction unfairly advantages home owners at the expense of renters - while also encouraging moral hazard. It should be traded in for a Federal housing credit / deduction on IRS 1040 that every citizen would be able to benefit from, including the homeless.
Three, the next time that the real estate market implodes, we should let it - instead of looking to bail out lenders, owners, and landlords, and thus artificially prop it up - as that is the only method that I know of for allowing housing prices to reset and again make sense.
17
The roads in any of the major California urban hubs (and those leading into and out of them) are absolutely jammed with cars. So many that a commute of 5 or 6 miles can take an hour or more. There are so many people competing for housing that prices have sky-rocketed to obscene levels. There is no spontaneity allowed when living in L.A. (and presumably S.F.) because if you decide to go anywhere on the weekend after 10 am you won't get parking. My wife and I are just getting by.
Maybe the answer isn't to make it more affordable for people to live here. Maybe this is true overpopulation - and its consequences - right before our eyes. Maybe California is just full?
45
I agree with all of this. However, wouldn't efficient public transportation solve this? If you could most people (in the major cities, at least) could walk to a train/BART/light rail station that could quickly take them to most of the places they want to go, it would solve a lot of this.
If it was more efficient and took people more places more people would use it, taking people off the roads.
18
Public transport that is jammed packed is not a answer either.
1
It seems to work in NY, Maureen. I lived in Manhattan in the 70s. The subways were nasty, brutish , crowded and extremely efficient at carting people around.
4
To those who are saying: why not move to where housing is more affordable... the problem is complicated by the fact that San Francisco is where the JOBS are.
California is now the 5th largest economy in the world -- in no small part thanks to its tech hubs. Those tech workers need meals served, garments dry cleaned, children minded, and so forth. The employment opportunities are therefore enormous, across all income brackets. But -- and this is a big but -- the salaries paid to these auxiliary workers have NOT enjoyed the same stratospheric rise as the tech workers. That software engineer might be earning $200k, but his valet is still on $20/hr. Meanwhile, housing and rent prices have shot up in line with the HIGHEST earners, not the lowest.
Another commenter has pointed out that historically Americans have gone where the jobs are. My point is: the jobs ARE in San Francisco. It's the affordable housing that isn't.
103
San Francisco is where very high paying jobs, and a host of lower paying service jobs, are. If you're not a Google engineer or venture capitalist, prospects here are not good. Saying that San Francisco is where the jobs are is a gross simplification. It is not where decent paying middle class jobs are, and those are the basis for building a life for most people.
There are two sides to affordability: income and expense. It makes economic sense to move, for example, to San Antonio for marginally less income than San Francisco, but a drastically reduced cost of living.
18
Move to Houston. Tons of jobs here and you can buy the Taj Mahal on a decent salary with out having a 3 hour commute.
12
The article is about THE POOR, not the middle class. As such, when I write "San Francisco are where the jobs are", I am referring to the poor. In reflection of this: the "host of lower paying service jobs" you mention are exactly the ones I have cited in my comment!
Liberals want to talk about these people one-on-one when it suits their purposes, and as a downtrodden group when that does.
I will do both as well.
As individuals, I read these stories and invariably I see, shall we say, sub-optimal choices of having unaffordable children, insisting on living in unaffordable cities, etc. They aren't mentioned here, but when these articles details victims of the Great Recession, there also are usually things like dropping out of school, pregnant at 15, drugs, petty crime, etc.
As a group, people say that affordable housing is needed for all the "little people" to be able to do all the supportive jobs like janitors, teachers aides, cops, what have you. How about we let the market fix this? If SF or Seattle or Honolulu or wherever get too expensive, how about people who no longer can afford to live there on meager salaries act rationally and just leave? What must happen? NIMBY zoning and other restrictions would have to end. If people REFUSE to drive 2 hours to work, it would change. It's not like downtown in these cities account for a gigantic fraction of the jobs in this country. Essentially, just say no more.
37
The middle class can't afford to live anywhere either, you don't have to be low income, homeless to see that affordable housing is a massive challenge!
8
"Ms. Calderon and her husband had been looking for a home for two years," while living in an apartment, yet still chose to have a THIRD child, which caused them to lose the roof over their head.
Maybe, just maybe... when you are unable to afford even a two-bedroom apartment, that's not the time to have yet ANOTHER child. I am not without sympathy for anyone subject to misfortunes in life, but I have a hard time directing it towards those who bring it so willingly and recklessly onto themselves.
And, by the way, there ARE several thousand cities in the US less expensive places to live in than San Francisco. You know what I did the last time I couldn't afford to live somewhere? I moved. Yeah, wow, I know - what a concept.
29
Yes, Mtnman, how irresponsible of those poor parents to actually think they're entitled to bring children into the world! Kind of reminds me of Scrooge's quote in A Christmas Carol, "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?"
1
Affordable housing advocates, of which I am one, should stop harping on the mortgage interest tax deduction as a subsidy to the affluent. The MITD helps encourage homeownership and retirement security for the middle class--the truly wealthy are way beyond the mortgage limits and usually buy their homes with cash. Pitting the poor against the middle class is not a wise political strategy. Look at the most recent raid on federal tax revenues, the TCJA of 2017. The MITD was further curtailed, but the tax savings didn't go to the poor, they went primarily to corporations and the ultra wealthy. In fact, by curtailing the MITD and limiting the SALT deduction, the TCJA made it more difficult for states and municipalities to generate tax revenues for affordable housing development.
13
You have it exactly backwards.
The mortgage interest tax deduction is terribly bad policy that punishes the poor and middle class. It raises the price of housing and encourages people to take on unsustainable debt.
If the Fed only allowed individuals to take 10 year mortgages or 1 year auto loans, the price of both would plummet.
Need more proof? Imagine if college loans were not allowed, colleges would have to lower their tuition so that median family income and kids working over the summer could support. Otherwise they would lose 80% of their students and have to close, because nobody would spend $200k (plus 4/5 years of lost income) to study genders or medieval poetry.
10
" Imagine if college loans were not allowed, colleges would have to lower their tuition"
That's not "proof" rather, indeed, "imaginary" thinking. Those that can afford to go to college (to study whatever they want, btw) will and there will simply be fewer opportunities for others regardless of what they wanted to study. You are right in one sense, they (colleges) would close.
Just curious. How much profit do you think is in the price of an automobile? How much could the less expensive (and cash strapped) public universities lower their costs? Finally, since you advocate that the government stay out of the free market, why should they limit mortgage terms?
1
Are you serious? Really?
Colleges could lower costs overnight. Have you seen the epic athletic facilities on most campuses plus million dollar coaching staffs and 100’s of free scholarships? How about the new student centers with 21st century facilities- which didn’t exist 25 years ago? New buildings? What about ridiculously easy majors and academic departments that didn’t exist 25 years ago, because there was no ‘free money’ to pay for them? All this was added to induce marginal students to attend and pay $250k. None existed 30 years ago because degrees were $20k not $250k.
Take away the Federal money and colleges will do what they have done for eons- educate serious students cost effectively.
Most people have no business in a traditional college and for most people traditional college does not increase earning power over their career. Loans only get these people into trouble.
When I went to college 30 years ago, there were almost no loans and college was affordable. What has changed? ‘Free’ money.
I had to jump through hoops for even a small loan. (I took out a $1000 loan my last year of MBA to buy two interview suits, ox blood Florsheim wingtips and pay for a weekend of beer drinking in Lauderdale with my future wife of 30 years.)
At the time College could be paid with small jobs, of which I held down 4. Just as my father did 30 years before.
Yes, I think the Fed should limit mortgages to 10 years, but builders are addicted to selling McMansions.
Is the housing crisis contributing to obesity, Diabetes and other diet-related health problems? Healthy food and cooking for oneself and one's family means having a kitchen/kitchenette and a fridge for those perishable but healthy foods such as fruits, veggies and lean meats. No wonder poor people are more likely to be obese or have other health problems! Even when they can buy fruits and veggies, they don't have a place to cook/prepare them.
2
Maybe San Francisco should raise property taxes so high that the city can seize a few hundred large (tax delinquent) properties to build affordable housing on.
4
Like New York City, San Francisco makes it hard for anyone unable to afford to buy a home or apartment now. How may buildings have been forced to reduce their size or spiked altogether by restrictive zoning laws? People routinely make apocalyptic arguments about the decrease of "light and air," or plaintively ask whether "every morsel" of ground needs to be built upon. While some residents and city councilmen argue that certain neighborhoods are somehow reserved for certain racial or ethnic groups. The result is a severe housing shortage which drives up rents for everyone and makes saving for a down payment on a home or apartment impossible. Simply put, we need more housing for everyone in our cities.
6
What if a tenant's income rises, so they no longer meet the low-income criterion? Do they get to stay in low-income housing? Whether they do or don't continue to meet the criterion, it sounds to me like a perverse incentive to stay poor.
15
You are catching on. This, and a host of other reasons, explain why full Communism doesn't work, and never has.
5
Another reason to get rid of the new tax structure.
5
As long as the goal of government is to savagely increase the level of inequity, affordable housing for both the poor and middle class will largely be a fantasy. To see the 421a tax abatement program used to permit the development of luxury housing in New York City is to witness one of the principal abuses of the DeBlasio administration.
We do not need a few token units of affordable housing in otherwise luxury buildings with a seperate door for the poor and no access to the amenities of the structure. Luxury housing should be taxed fairly and part of the taxes collected diverted to the development of real affordable housing for both the poor and middle class. Whet we have now is a mean spirited upstairs/downstairs mentality subsidizing oppression.
10
What is "taxed fairly"? And you are absolutely confident that you possess the ability to decide what level should be considered "fair taxation"? Tell us, please, how did you develop the ability to decide what is "fairness"? Is your method systematic or intuitive? Was your method taught or did you receive it as a gift from Heaven? Is your idea of "fair taxation" a fixed rate or does it vary over time? When you consider a "fair" rate, how much of your calculation is driven by the need for a certain amount of revenue? How much does emotion play in your calculation? That is, do you just want to "stick it" to some group whose conduct has angered you? Don't dodge these questions. Enlighten us with a display of liberal sophistry.
3
Increasing taxes on people, bloating the population through illegal immigration, and codifying mind-boggling restrictions will tend to bring ruin and misery. Add to this, representatives who really couldn't care less about their constituents and have gamed the system to ensure their own success and you've got a prescription for disaster. That is how it has been for decades.
33
Bingo...the solution is then to tax people in other states so it can then be used to bail SF out...
4
My city faces a reckoning at some point soon. This was a well-written article, and the Times has also chronicled recently that SF cannot check its homeless population, will not renounce its sanctuary status for the constant stream of illegal immigrants, and risks catastrophe by building more skyscrapers on what is essentially liquid bay fill during an earthquake. All of these things affect each other, and cannot continue indefinitely. On top of this, San Franciscans don't want the city to become L.A., Dallas, or Chicago--which sprawl in all directions into suburban burgoo. I've given up trying to guess what's going to happen, but we can't continue on this trajectory forever.
38
I agree with everything, except that it doesn't matter whether SF wants to emulate Dallas or Chicago or doesn't. Of course, ot doesn't, but it can't.
There's no room, geographically, just a lot of water. Illegal immigrants and the homeless flock; Google engineers come; and baristas survive 4 to a small apartment. That's San Francisco's increasing demographic. Oh, and no kids, except for children of illegal immigrants.
10
Some blame should go to the Federal Reserve and its asset inflation program (aka Quantitative Easing), the admission of immigration by the federal government without overriding the zoning restrictions of cities where immigrants relocate, our national government's desire to stimulate population growth in order to goose GDP growth, and most importantly, cities competing for employers without adding to the housing stock.
8
I've lived several places in California, north and south, and I never saw a municipality that didn't love a developer. They receive all manner of taxpayer dollars and incentives.
But you sure hear loud cries of when tax dollars try to help the neediest.
13
As a developer, I welcome you to joining us.
Solve the problem. I'll applaud you for finding the solution.
2
In NY before rent control was put in place there was plenty private housing available, people at all levels of income moved all the time to new apartments. after regulation was instituted new building dried up and older buildings went not maintained. the housing stock in NYC actually shrunk.
then the government put up huge public housing projects which became centers for drug and gang activity. people living in regulated apartments in good neighborhoods have great deals but live in gilded cages.
they cannot afford to move because the government through regulation has created a distorted rental market resulting in sky high rents in the uncontrolled section of the rental market i.e. luxury market and low vacancies rates for everybody else. there are people living in subsidized 1 bed room apts in midtown manhattan for $300/ month. it is a ridiculous situation with no end in sight.
14
Rent controls don't get enacted where there's plenty of housing. They get enacted where there are severe shortages.
4
You have it backwards.
Landlords will always want to build buildings if they can make a buck.
If you ‘control’ what they can charge they won’t build.
Think is is true whether you are selling tacos or renting apartments.
Rent controls tend to make shortages worse, not better. Abolishing market forces will naturally discourage sellers from bringing new product (in this case housing) to market.
Unfortunately, the loads of cash the tech industry millennials are carrying around have driven up the prices so incredibly high, only people making 200k a year can afford to rent an apartment. The city is completely overwhelmed with construction of "mini-condo" high rises to squeeze out as much money as possible. Regular cuts of meat in the high scale markets are going from $35 - $40 per pound. The lines waiting for the trendy restaurant fare are blocks long with "selfie sticks" all around. The culture and people of the mission district that was vibrant with voices, song and smells is a thing of the past. An artist enclave known as "dogpatch is now filled with 20 story "micro units", forcing colorful characters and artists elsewhere. The values in this town, that my family has lived in since the 1840's, has devolved into something very unpleasant to the people who grew up here and raised families for generations. The homeless are ignored for the golden egg laying goose - the millennial techies.
21
Really? 95 apartments, 6,580 applicants?
I'm a Manhattan resident in an (125 year old tenement) one-bedroom that my middle school daughter and I have outgrown. I'm on a bunch of NYC apartment lottery waiting lists for tax abated (mostly) new construction in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Some lottery data:
94 apartments, 76,257 applicants
36 apartments, 55,482 applicants
90 apartments, 76,310 applicants
166 apartments, 73,835 applicants
48 apartments, 59,474 applicants
I'd be delighted with the San Francisco odds. Oh, the $1,200 per month rent would be awesome. If I'm lucky, my rent would be roughly double.
And for those inclined to "why don't you move" snark: I've lived here all my adult life and don't think it's too, too much to ask to stay in the city I call home, right?
23
Me thinks it is too much to ask. This is the society in which you and I have lived for all of adult live and so we must take responsibility for the state in which you find it. I moved from the Bay area recently (need to change my profile!) for precisely the reasons many mention regularly on these boards. Taxes, traffic, housing costs. Oh yes and the obnoxious ATTITUDE that seems to have accompanied the new wealth. I am surviving quite nicely elsewhere and respectfully suggest you try it.
14
Wrong. It is a preference. It is your preference. You can't afford your preference, and you want the taxpayers and the government to force someone to subsidize your preference.
I double-down on what you characterize as "snark", but is in fact Business 101: if you can't afford it, you can't have it.
12
If you cannot afford it, it probably is too much to ask.
11
My comments:
1) It is really unclear at what level rents need to make money on such a building. Is Natalie Grubbs profitable at that level of rent. Knowing such a fact may make a difference in how people perceive such public programs.
2) It should be strongly emphasized that not-drastic housing shortages lead to drastic increases in rent and prices. And the housing shortage has multiple causes. In coastal cities, one of the big factors is simply the fact that the city can't expand into the ocean. Others are booming economies, zoning, and regulation.
3) In large cities, the poor need to buy cars to move out to cheaper areas. The initial costs of such a move are huge. The commute costs aren't cheap either. It locks people into a geographic area.
5
This is simply bizarre. There are plenty of areas with thriving economies, from Texas to Florida to North Carolina, with abundant cheap housing and an excellent quality of life.
If you insist on living in SF, then prepare to pay the market price.
74
So, basically, you're saying that San Francisco should have no hotels, groceries, garbage collection, housekeeping services, public laundries, government clerks, fast food outlets, retail stores.....
Nearly everyone in these industries earns less than $25,000/year. They should be paying less than $650 in rent or mortgage per month. Does San Francisco guarantee in any way that decent, affordable housing is available near their places of work? Surely, they can't afford cars on $25K/yr.
Or are SF residents in the service industries earning $55/hr for providing for your needs? Your housekeeper? Your grocery check-out clerk? Your sanitation worker?
16
wow nobody responded to you? businesses will have to adjust their wages and prices to adapt to the shortage in laborers.
Menial jobs are for entries into the marketplace. I've seen a $550 room in fremont (no sexual services required) and a $700 room in berkeley. not even considering room shares. I personally lived in a $400 room in North Richmond, with my own bathroom.
When I was making minimum wage in Santa Barbara, working part time, I was able to afford a car, and at no point did I have less than $3000 in savings. Why? because I worked and saved. I wasn't living a luxurious life, but I wasn't earning one either.
Eventually I decided that I was priced out, wasn't "fit" enough to compete, built a trailer out of largely garbage in my friend's front yard, and traveled around the country in a CRX.
p.s. a starting wage for a garbage man in SF is 42K, which reflects some of that natural capitalist tendency that I was describing above where employers must compete for employees. (http://salarygenius.com/ca/san-francisco/salary/garbage-man-salary)
That affording a car on 25K comment? very liberal. plainly wrong.
We experience these troubles because there is no longer a free market for building. Everything seems to based on tax credits, not demand.
New buildings, by nature, are expensive, because they're new. There is NO SUCH THING as "affordable housing". It is a social construct which requires that someone else pay for it. You cannot simply "clap your hands twice" and create affordable housing out of the blue.
Even with tax credits, based on results, there simply wasn't much incentive to building new buildings, especially when a builder which restricted by rent control (or a variation of it).
No, let the market be FREE! No rent control! No tax credits. Build because there is demand. Cheaper rent will come because new supply will be added and competition will ensue. Otherwise, this mess will grow worse and worse.
15
Ignored here is the issue of zoning. Much of San Francisco's (and other place's) housing problems could have been nipped in the bud and could be currently ameliorated by refusing to allow new commercial developement that adds job openings in excess of businesses that close or reduce employment.
Unless voters understand this and elect officials capable of saying NO to developers' campaign contributions and other compromising promises, little will change.
Putting it another way, Ed Lee and other San Francisco politicos could have said NO to Twitter. Perhaps the company would then have taken its business to places that need that type of commercial developement, such as Modesto.
11
Subsidized housing and strong rent controls have a place in any big city but the situation described in this article is just nuts. Rather than housing lotteries, there needs to be a fund to help people move to other more affordable cities. A couple with 3 full-time service-type jobs between them can't afford an apartment? Time to move out of SF (and NYC and Seattle etc).
When service people (from baristas to teachers!) cannot afford to live in SF, they have to leave. Only when the affluent tech types confront a real labour shortage will the wages for service people will rise. Not before. Supply and demand.
49
Yeah but who's going to do all of the dirty, low wage and domestic work? And put out fires, police the streets, be part of hospital staff, EMTs, teachers, etc.?
6
Sam: precisely. That's how the market works. When the dirty work is not done, SF will become a less desirable place to live, reducing rent pressures and allowing re-entry.
I admit that's kind of a Keynesian "in the long run we're all dead" solution, but the monied class in SF can certainly afford to pay more for their lattes and garbage disposal.
11
>>> ". . .there needs to be a fund to help people move to other more affordable cities."
And make sure living-wage jobs are available when they arrive in those more-affordable cities. Right?
4
Since salaries of teachers and others no longer provide a living wage, perhaps we need to consider innovative thinking like that of Chris Hughes who proposes a guaranteed income/supplement based on work salary in his book, Fair Shot.
16
And what makes you think that a guaranteed income system would work? All such a system would do is ratchet up the rents until the system is as unbalanced as it is now.
8
Teachers always gripe. Teachers in NY with 12 years make 84K+ benefits unheard of in the private sector, most have mates who also have jobs. you can live quite comfortably in brooklyn or queens.
there is god-given right to live in the center of mid-Manhattan or for matter in downtown brooklyn.
9
Teachers at least get benefits, those of us stuck in the gig economy never so much as see anything except an ever shrinking check.
8
Nothing says more about the economy of 2018 than the fact a significant number of Americans in cities across the nation are entering lotteries hoping to win the privilege of being able to pay own their hard-earned money for an apartment.
You - yes you - might be lucky enough to allowed to exist in this economy!
There is an enormous amount of money sloshing around the market with nowhere to go, often directed in pursuit of One Weird Trick unicorn investments to "disrupt" existing markets and see fabulously high returns.
We have the richest of the rich telling the public they're long past the point of knowing what to spend their money on (see also: Bezos, Jeff).
But housing is just impossible. At least that's what we're told. There's just no way to make it affordable. It's beyond our abilities. There's no way to pay construction workers decent rates and build units that American workers can afford with 2018 wages.
We don't need more "disruption", we don't need to be told there's nowhere left to spend money. We need many, many, many more housing units, and wages that keep up with what it takes to exist in the world.
The two problems are linked and need to be solved together.
45
Plenty of affordable housing in Texas. Plenty of good jobs as well.
My last employer shut its SoCal Office and moved us to Houston.
9
" We need many, many, many more housing units, and wages that keep up with what it takes to exist in the world.
The two problems are linked and need to be solved together."
Without a doubt, wages have NOT kept pace with the cost of living, especially housing costs.
11
Just for a little perspective, not a prescription:
Let's say it costs $200,000 to build a two-bedroom, not fancy but decent apartment in a building with fifty units. A thousand units would cost $200 million. If the entire cost was mortgaged at 5%, the monthly payment would be under $1100. Throw in another $400 to cover maintenance and insurance. You get a rental of $1500/month. I believe currently in San Francisco $1500/month might get you an indoor parking space.
The 6000+ people referenced in this article could have new apartments for around $1.5 billion. But that would not be a subsidy inasmuch as the monthly rent would, through a mortgage, pay off the costs.
There are individuals in the Bay Area for whom $200 million is little more than chump change, some for whom $1.5 billion would be little more than noticeable and who, if they financed such a project, would be earning 5% on their investment in any case.
Again, this is just for perspective, not a prescription given current, real-world politics.
22
Steve, you have (perhaps unintentionally) articulated exactly what the free market could provide for San Francisco without ANY charitable or tax dollar contribution whatsoever. If the free market were allowed to function in San Francisco.
3
Unfortunately, your assumed costs are wrong. San Francisco approved a subsidized development in the mission building 78 units for 72 million $$, i.e. just under 900k/unit. It was comprised of 1,2, and 3 bedroom apartments. If those were managed a way a typical private building was managed, you end up with about 36000 mortgage/capital cost at 4%, about 12000 property tax in San Francisco annually and about 300/month for maintenance. This means the cost is about 4300/month, assuming the cost structure of this particular subsidized building in San Francisco. Taxpayers will need to cover the difference.
It’s just also very expensive to build here. Seismic requirements, either infill stabilization or pile driving, high labor rates. No 200000 apartments can be build here, maybe those micro units.
3
In most US cities, the market provides plenty of housing with vacancies and healthy turnover. I’m a landlord, good tenants are golden and there aren’t enough of them.
All of the cities with insufficient housing are run by restrictive (usually liberal) local governments. These governments claim to ‘help the poor’ but their policies are destructive.
Lack of tax credits, tax policy, etc isn’t the issue. A decent economy will support a good well run building without all that. The issue is policies that restrict new construction. All of the places with high rent have them.
24
Combination of NIMBYism, slllloooooooooooowwwww approvals for retrofitting and rezoning, market-warping renter policies, and, I believe, not enough restrictions on foreign investment in San Francisco/Bay Area real estate. There should be SEVERE financial penalties for vacant properties. Oh, and shut down AirBnB businesses -- can't have more than two AirBnB properties. I love AirBnB as a consumer, but it's warping rental prices even more (see penalties for unrented units).
12
No need for legislated financial penalties to end vacant housing.
At present, SF rents are rising so landlords know if they wait 3-6 months the rent will be higher. Why rush?
Simple solution? Authorize a million new permits in SF with expedited zoning. Landlords won’t be able to rent fast enough because they will know a tidal wave of new apartments is headed their way. Conversely, tenants won’t have to jump at the first tenement that opens up. Prices will fall.
Problem solved.
We have high rent in Seattle (along with the world's richest humans) and more construction than just about anywhere in the U.S. The problem is that the new construction can only be afforded by the Amazon crowd. Businesses have been going out of business because they cannot afford the tripled leases since the arrival of Bezos and his cult.
I took a walk through my old neighborhood yesterday and took notice of how many of the buildings were new in the last 10 years. It seems like half have been torn down and rebuilt. The quaint neighborhood businesses keep getting replaced by swanky, expensive, New York City style restaurants. The neighborhood that gave us Kurt Cobain and gay bars is now by and large over run by Amazonian hipsters. Imagine an entire neighborhood of people that look and talk like the Verizon spokesperson in those annoying commercials:)))))
There are now an estimated 10,000 homeless people in Seattle. Unless my math is wrong, Bezos could put each of these people into a $1500 per month apartment (easy to find in Seattle) for $180 million per year. I think he made this much in interest on his billions in the time it took me to type this reply.
9
LBJ proposed federal fair housing legislation in January, 1966. The bill died in committee due to national bipartisan opposition. Until April 11, 1968 when the bill became law in the wake of the rebellions arising from the murder of Dr. King on April 4, 1968. The enforcement mechanisms and penalties are weak. Without testing and investigations violations go undetected and are not punished. Ben Carson is openly opposed to the socioeconomic equity goals of the legislation.
8
Blackmamba, you can't legislate socioeconomic equity because no two people are truly equal. I cannot run a 4-minute mile no matter how much training I do but then again, most people cannot run an LC/MS/MS either. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and you can't legislate that away.
3
If I couldn't afford to live in Manhattan, I'd move to an affordable area and not expect the Government to provide subsidized housing for me.
Despite my Epilepsy condition I've held down jobs for nearly 40 years.....paid my taxes and saved for a rainy day (retirement). I read the article and just feel like there are way too many entitled folks out there looking for handouts.
Though I don't agree with all aspects of Trumps Tax bill, it highlights those Cities/States who "live beyond their means" and tax, tax, tax....
57
You benefited from an economy that allowed you to succeed in ways that the world of 2018 would not.
40 years ago it was entirely reasonable that someone could pay for their college education with a summer job. Now, it's incredibly common to leave college with decades of debt and monthly payments >50% of rent.
40 years ago it was entirely reasonable that a single income could provide for a family. Now, you have many, many single, well-educated and hard-working 30-somethings living with roommates.
40 years ago, pensions were the norm. It was easy to save for retirement with a defined benefit plan to support you irrespective of how much you saved. Now, millions don't have / haven't had 401Ks long enough, or the ability to make catch-up payments.
"I'd move to an affordable area" doesn't address the contemporary systemic problems that put workers at a great disadvantage that's not remotely comparable to what their parents faced.
"I'd move to an affordable area" doesn't address the problem of finding well-paying work in that area, as employment centers tend to be less affordable.
The notion that hard work will simply provide for an individual and a lack of hard work will be evidenced by poverty is a way to willfully ignore the ingrained problems in our society and permit wealthy politicians to punish the poor for their "mistakes" - as poverty and struggle become synonymous with personal failure, and not a clear statements of fact that the dream itself is over.
183
Whining and making excuses won’t feed your family.
A single income can still provide for a family. The median US salary is $50k. My wife and I started out (with a baby) on far less. We also filled our 401K every year and had 3 more kids- on one salary.
However, prudent choices and sacrifices have to be made.
Prudent choices include not taking on $100k in debt for a non-commercial degree and living in an affordable area.
WRONG!
The median salary (from Soc Sec annual data) is around $28000.
The median household income is around $50000.
Seattle, too, has a homeless crisis and it angers me to the core that the media blames the homeless.
The national/international housing crisis is the fault of the same Robber Barons who are trying to take over OUR lives and the world right now.
Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft are taking care of their own at the top and their Robber Baron "investors".
Those same "investors" caused the global financial meltdown in 2008. They caused one-half of Americans to lose one-half their retirement wealth. They caused Americans to lose one-half the value of their homes. They caused families with little wealth to lose their homes. They they bought up those homes - from Robber Baron bankers - for pennies on the dollar and are now manipulating the rental market.
Stop blaming the victims. Stop giving "developers" OUR hard-earned taxpayer money, resources and keys to the cities. Stop letting the Robber Barons try to stike "fear" that they will move jobs.
Start making Robber Barons like Amazon and Apple - and Boeing - pay BIG taxes to make life affordable for the rest of us. NOW.
106
My daughter works for Google, but she sensibly took their offer for Pittsburgh instead of Boston or Mountain View. She had choices, but janitors, teachers, et al. don’t, and are needed where they can’t afford to live.
11
How many of the homeless in Seattle are on drugs? A lot.
They couldn’t pay the rent and a landlord would be crazy to turn over an apartment to a drug addict.
15
Next, I'd like to see an in-depth analysis of the choices these individuals made to land them in this situation. The harsh truth is there is no "savior" who can rescue them. It's taxpayers, many of whom have their own struggles and receive no assistance.
If only more money were invested in helping people take personal responsibility. That's probably the best investment of our tax dollars we could make.
51
Why do individuals have to take personal responsibility for tax laws that favor luxury developers? The point here is that demand for affordable housing far exceeds supply. Voters have shown that we no longer think that affordable housing is a public good. How is that related to these individuals' "choices"? They cannot make a full range of choices given current structural constraints.
42
New apartments- luxury or not- add to supply.
Today’s ‘affordable’ housing was probably a higher end apartment 20 years ago.
As people move up the wealth chain they leave behind starter housing for those just starting out.
Did you read the article? One couple held down 3 jobs and still couldn't afford an apartment in San Francisco, they were in a homeless shelter. This is not about personal choices, it is about an out of control republican tax scheme that enriches the obsenely wealthy, Sean Hannity's et al, and leaves the poor and middle class homeless.
10
This is the result of decades of politicians wallowing in dollar diluting deficits and immigration policies which have destroyed what used to be the middle class. The last 9 years were the final straw. Like ancient cultures from Rome to China, real catastrophe is up ahead. Neither the Nanny state or corrupt capitalism will stop it.
29
Mr. Caratowsa grinds my gears. He was housed--he just wanted a nicer place, and he's gotten lots of financial assistance. In the meantime, the large family is squeezed into a studio that they had to move heaven and earth to get.
90
Not sure what you think should be the answer...he was in the lottery, he won, good for him. A large family squeezed into a studio they moved heaven and earth to get? Also deserved, didn't win, and there is the issue. Not enough affordable housing for people, so some will win, some won't until that situation is remedied.
Don't begrudge him; he was eligible, he followed the rules/protocols, and he was fortunate. Maybe that family will be so too, at some point.
16
I’m sorry that I bother you but don’t you think it’s the people who run the lottery you should be mad at? What did I do? I only participated in this article in hopes that others who are on disability and don’t have families are given a fair chance as well at the housing lottery. I left my place in the Tenderloin because.... well it’s the Tenderloin. Me leaving opened the door for whomever was on the list after me. Do you think only families should participate in the housing lotteries? If so, hey you’re entitled to your own opinion. But don’t knock me for trying to move to better neighborhood. I only got the key because I paid attention, was patient and kept trying. That’s how you survive in San Francisco. That’s how I survived in SF for 15 years. I take it you wanted to live here at one point.
7
Yeah, this whole fiasco is created by do gooders. Why in all that makes sense does the government have to build affordable houses for people? I noted in the article there was a little snide reference to how the tax cut "we the people" got was going to cut into the welfare money used to build these places. My thoughts: so what. My money should not be used so that people can live in places they can't afford. Everyone reading this knows there's a word for that type of society but they won't use it out of fear of political correctness.
41
"Your" money is used for all kinds of benefits, including infrastructure and disability and unemployment insurance.
It's also used for items that the builders can already afford, like tax breaks for new sports stadiums and shopping centers. So "your" money is often also used to subsidize people who have money. Is that better?
72
Are you being subsidized through MID, if so you are receiving more government welfare than anyone who has a section 8 voucher.
The takers aren't the poor, the takers are the rich who game the real estate market and tax laws. The takers are the big ag industrial farmers who gobble up farm Subsides and moan about the 140 pennies per meal alloted to SNAP recipients.
10
Notwithstanding the article's subhead referring to the "nation's housing policy for the poor" and its specific mention of the recent reduction in federal corporate tax rates making certain federal tax credits for low-income housing less valuable to investors, the issue here is mainly one of state and local policy towards development.
17
Development makes no sense at all in a place where there are insufficient water resources for the current population.
People in the eastern U.S. fail to recognize that water is the #1 issue in the western U.S.
Given what global warming is doing to the Sierra snowpack, California's population has to decline, not increase.
13
PacNW:
You do not consider reverse osmosis water treatment plants and the electrical power required to operate them.
5barris: Reverse osmosis is energy intensive and will only exacerbate the global warming that is reducing the Sierra snowpack.
I don't understand why someone who can't properly house her current family would choose to have another child.
216
Her prospects would also be greatly enhanced by learning to speak English. Unfortunately, in large swaths of the Bay Area, this is the norm. I experience this in both my work and my personal life. My family and I recently stayed at a resort in Sonoma. Some members of the staff we dealt with spoke no English - not some English, not poor English - no English at all. The same is true of more than half of the folks I encounter in my job as a mental health evaluator. Across the U.S., the rate of no English spoken is alarmingly high, according to US Census data. This self-inflicted handicap dooms millions of wonderful people to permanent economic disadvantage.
108
Do you support Women making their own choice about their bodies, Mark, or are you a pro-lifer?
What about the men who caused those babies? No fault there?
Your comment is ridiculous.
41
And the discussion to stop funding Planned Parenthood goes on.
24
So let me see if I understand this properly... this is the city that is supersaturated with tech companies that love to talk about how socially responsible they are, and yet it is the business of government to tax all corporations, including your true local businessman, to pay for subsidized housing? Why don't Google and Facebook and whomever else pony up and be, yanno, socially responsible in their own backyards?
110
I work for a Non-profit. Sadly, MANY of these socially responsible tech companies are more interested in helping improve conditions in third world countries than improving things in their own back yard. Building huts in a far off village is more exciting sounding then helping the people in their own communities.
13
This article is missing any hint of gratitude to the very wealthiest Americans who have paid and continue to pay for the initiatives that do exist. The wealthiest Americans also pay for the mortgage interest deduction for homeowners.
To pretend like somehow the government is paying for it all, or the wealthy are taking money away from the people is laughable and absurd, it's a shame that this appears to be an intentional oversight.
20
The development of affordable housing by private companies is an oxymoron. A declaration of, "Let them eat cake!" from the very wealthiest, does not represent a particular long term commitment. With too much money on his hands, Jeff Bezos now prefers to go to outer space. As a homeowner, I am not attached to the mortgage interest deduction. Ive never understood why it exists. It appears to be a mechanism of social control to keep Americans neatly and passively lined up in homogeneous suburbs.
17
Mr. Caratowsa in this story doesn’t come across in a particularly sympathetic light.
He believes the lottery is somehow fixed but wins an apartment anyway.
Then when he is approved he suddenly realizes he’ll need model to bridge the time while he transitions from one apartment to another. Lack of basic planning on his part right ?
Perhaps rather than being interviewed by the NYT he could spend the time better and enroll in a class on financial basics. He certainly had long enough to arrange bridge financing ahead of time.
28
To fill in the gaps for you since you’re talking about me. It took me 6 years and 25 housing lotteries to finally win. 20 lotteries in I was dealing with the old fashion way where they would shake the lottery numbers in a box. The lottery numbers were on papers that would easily stick together, so I lost hope. I didn’t think everyone was getting a fair chance. My social worker convinced me to keep trying. They finally put the lottery online and 5 more lotteries later I won. I’ve been in San Francisco for 15 years and have lived in many different housing situations. My last place was in the Tenderloin for 5 years. Have you ever lived in that area? All I’m saying is I’m grateful to even have a roof over my head, but it took years to get here, let alone a safer neighborhood. I just so happen to also win the lottery for the neighborhood I’ve always wanted to live in. A lot of people complain about this city, well yeah, because it’s thriving. Look pass the book cover and read the details and you can survive here as well. I won this fair and square and because I kept fighting. Things like this don’t happen over night.
5
One way to be able to afford a place to sleep and eat is to choose to limit the number of children you produce. Yes, this does mean men should wear a condom even if married, yes, this does mean women should choose the pill or a spermacide to ensure they limit their number of children who are theirs.
Mr. Caratowsa, being single and without encumbrances, had a much easier time of it than those with children.
126
The situation is the same in NYC, especially Manhattan and Brooklyn. 40 units open and 100,000 people apply for it.
After WW2 rent control helped cripple NYC.
Now it is the opposite. It is just a matter of time when the bubble bursts and you get high rent blight like what happened in the South Bronx in the 1980's only in reverse.
12
The government needs to get out of housing. The more the regulations, the higher housing costs are. In Houston, we don't have zoning and we don't have a shortage of housing!
19
So let me get this straight: An absence of zoning allows Houston to build homes in flood plains. Now the city needs $180 billion to recover from Hurricane Harvey? And, you think that's a good idea?
126
Perfect example. You actually make his point.
Harvey dumped 50+ inches of rain in a matter of hours- no zoning laws were going to prevent that.
However, a short time after Harvey passed, Houston was almost back to normal, with an over-abundance of housing. I have to fight for good tenants in a nearby town.
San Francisco, Seattle, NYC? They’ve had housing shortages for years, with no end in sight.
Houston works. Those other cities do not.
1
Actually, Jack is right in that the flood in Houston was unprecedented and exceeded even reasonable zoning plans. In fact, much of America lives in flood plains, tidal shorelines, river valleys, earthquake fault zones, and the like. We can't turn back the clock on that. In other words, risk free zoning plans and housing development will never be a reality given population growth and geography. We can only do what's reasonable.
Where Jack is incorrect is equating Houston with NY City or San Francisco is that (in NY particularly) there is no more room to sprawl. Much old housing is torn down and replaced with new. While some of it is more modestly priced housing, much is not. Of late, however, supply has ticked up somewhat and, perhaps, pricing stabilized to some extent.
Either way, though, both Houston and New York City work, just differently.
"Last year San Francisco moved the entire (lottery) program online."
The very poor, the severely disabled, and the elderly now face an additional barrier to participate in this seriously flawed lottery. It appears luck and access to a computer and WiFi are now more important than true need. Shameful!
17
How do they now face an additional barrier? If anything, it becomes easier for those people who no longer have to trudge to the physical place the lottery is being held and then sit for hours while the drawings are done. They can go on that day if they want to, but they don't have to.
While the applications can now be done online, they are not refusing paper applications from the groups you mentioned. It's just that the management of the program including randomizing a "draw" is now done by computer in seconds instead of sitting there doing a physical drawing by hand.
While it is sad that San Francisco has become so over priced that people have to participate in lotteries for the right to rent an apartment, they are trying to do that lottery as fairly as possible and going to an online randomizer is much more fair than the methods they had been using before. Each applicant now at least truly has an equal chance to be drawn.
10
A trip to the public library, with free computer time, would solve that.
9
I have been homeless and NEVER had an issue with access to a computer or wi-fi. Obama provided a phone for any and all so that case managers, doctors, and pharmacists could easily keep in touch. And if need be, the police could track the phone and check up on a very sick person.
The libraries all provided ample computers to use and it was a favorite camp out for the homeless because it was warm, quiet, dry, and had a bathroom one could use.
And every case manager has computer access to any and all programs and can help people keep up-to-date on any and all changes.
4
The recent building boom in NYC has centered on mega expensive apartments that will be bought for millions of dollars. They will then remain empty for most if not all of the year as their international buyers are simply parking money. Imagine if those buildings had been built for the rental market with a certain percentage set aside for low income renters? Instead of floors of empty apartments NYC could have buildings and neighborhoods filled with life again.
But doing that would mean the developers make less money.
47
Not all those will be vacant. Many will be purchased by people trading up.
Those people in turn leave behind less expensive housing that will be purchased or rented for less and so on.
More housing expensive or not adds to supply.
4
@Jack - you are under the impression that the old housing keeps its current price which never happens. As soon as someone moves out, the owner will raise the rent.
1
A very thoughtful, thought-provoking article. For me, it reinforces that the whole focus on building expensive housing with a fraction subsidized and given away by lottery is no real solution, just a salve to the conscience.
This seems like an area where both the right and the left have failed, but some hard thinking by both sides might be the solution - what exactly do we a a society owe to our comrades that are struggling, and what are we prepared to share?
26
This is the crux of the matter. Even if I could cover a minimum rent of $1K per month, I still need quality food, dental care and clothing for myself and my children. Personally, I am more than willing to share. Let my former deduction for mortgage interest go to a fund that has its purpose of bringing quality to all our lives rather than just a few. I have had the idea that on tax returns there should be options to donate to repárations and to improving the lives of those less fortunate.
8
Encouraging people to go into debt was always bad policy.
1. Raised the price of housing. Look at what student loans have done to price of college.
2. Discouraged people from owning their homes outright, which is a safety net in the event of a downturn.
Rather than being "very thoughtful", to the extent the paper is positioning this article as being about the "nation's housing policy", I would call it close to negligent.
The article did not discuss at all the main reason the supply of housing is so low (and therefore prices so high) - decades worth of local government refusal to allow more of it to be built. It also failed to analyze how this one market, SF, is similar to or different from the rest of the nation. I would argue it is a lot closer to "different" than "similar" to the nation's typical housing markets.
11
Unfortunately, any city that people WANT to live in becomes expensive.
I watched it happen in Portland, Oregon, which I would love to move back to but can no longer afford, and it is starting to happen in Minneapolis. All the new apartment construction is much more expensive than existing buildings.
Cities are not helpless in this regard. They issue the building permits. Why not refuse building permits to complexes without affordable units?
Or if that seems too draconian, why not offer large property tax breaks proportional to the income level that the units are geared for: a 10% tax break for buildings affordable to households at the median income, a 25% tax for buildings affordable to households at 75% of the median income, a 50% tax break for buildings affordable to households at 50% of the median income, and a 75% tax break for buildings affordable to people at 25% of the median income.
Such programs already exist in many places, but they have an expiration date, at which point the owners tend to evict the low income tenants and raise rents.
Under my proposal, owners would be free to convert the building to market rate housing after ten years, but they would have to pay back the property tax breaks they received for however many years, which would provide a disincentive to kicking out the lower-income and middle-income tenants.
23
You KNOW what happens when government tries to social engineer. With marriage not a requirement the partner with low or no income applies then the one with income moves in. It becomes “racist” or “unfair” or “discriminating” or “harassment” to inquire or verify. The other thing that is rampant in housing is subletting the so-called affordable units. It might be affordable for some bit in actuality SOMEONE is paying - you and I.
20
Maybe you know people who would do such things, but they are outnumbered by honest people.
A landlord can (and many do) require that everyone in the household over the age of 18 be evaluated for their contribution to the household income and be named on the lease: no dot-com millionaires with non-working lovers need apply.
As for the other problem—ever hear of a no-sublet clause?
Articles such as this one seem to reflect more fairly the reality of life in states like California, or at least cities like San Francisco. As a midwesterner, particularly after the last presidential election, I have grown weary of the portrayal of California as some sort of modern day Utopia. Sounds a tad self-righteous to me. 6,580 people applying for 95 affordable apartments, teacher shortages in part because wages are low and teachers can not afford to live in the communities where they work, homelessness that has become a public health problem. This does not sound like Utopia to me. No doubt, it's a wonderful place to live for some people but how about being a little more honest about the reality for many others.
71
The average median wage for a high school teacher in California is $69,000 per year. For 9 months worth of work. Plus every benefit under the sun. Any other job with that kind of wage requires 50 hour weeks 50 weeks a year. I was going to be a teacher, was in that world, been there, done that, and as I used to tell my colleagues then, "If you're not smart enough to find a way to make money over the summer, running some small business or even just tutoring or something, in what universe are you smart enough to be a teacher?"
The 'teacher shortage', like the housing shortage is not a supply problem it's a demand problem- we're letting too many people in.
12
Speaking as an educator myself, I'm relieved to hear you you decided against being a teacher.
1
That may be true in CA but here in NJ we have lost benefits & the median wage isn't even close to that. We have some of the highest property taxes & housing costs in the country. Corporations get big tax breaks here while workers struggle.
I say this as someone who had a corporate career before I even got into a classroom. Yes, I made considerably more money & put in about the same hours I do now.
However, if you're living for money only you're doing it wrong.
I left corporate because I saw too many kids of color not engaging w/successful POC. Many in my generation, who had any form of success and came from modest means never went back to support our communities. For me, I felt called to do this work. But that doesn't mean I should be paid a pittance to do a needed job.
Teaching requires more than just a few years in. Half who enter the field leave in 5 years or less. You have to love it to do it. Obviously you didn't. That's you're choice.
The agreement was you got free healthcare, a modest pension & summers off. You made do & accepted it because it was a respected field that gave something to the community.
Now? No respect, pensions, healthcare & low pay. It wasn't like this when I started. No one in their right mind would get into this now. That's the reason for a teacher shortage. Because the pay doesn't reflect it's societal value.
Teaching in public school is not a religious order where you should take a vow of poverty to do your job w/ excellence.
The problem isn't lack of funding due to the tax cuts(taxes were at an all time high when Obama was in office and the city still had inadequate housing). The problem is how the city and state spends it's money. I live in a city that had 500 perfectly good, solid concrete apartments...built in the fifties that were recently knocked down and replaced with newer units. The reason?.....they had no air conditioning (something we didn't have when I was in Cuba as a kid).
Common sense would dictate that it would be cheaper to upgrade the existing units or keep them as they were. Instead, the city used vital monies that could have been used to build additional housing to replace what was already there. A plaque on the property gives credit to the city council for their decision.
33
Carlos, your comment makes it pretty clear that you have absolutely no experience in building, maintaining or renovating housing. Concrete buildings constructed in the 1950's have reached the end of their useful lives absent extremely expensive and constant maintenance, the cost of which is far higher than new construction. That's just a fact. Your conclusion that the decision was made due to a lack of air conditioning is just specious.
22
That's probaby true, New Haven. What I've seen over the years in NYC is when old buildings go...they are replaced with high rent condo's or just high rent period.
Fact is, your every day waiter, dishwasher, retail sales, administrative assistant, teacher, nurse...cannot afford to live in the city or even in surrounding suburbs.
That's a problem that has been ignored for years....it is easier for government and industry to pass on solving the complex issue and go for the high rent and gentrification.
The problem with 'need' as a criteria for getting to the top of a list is that it penalizes people with family who help them. My handicapped brother was on waiting lists for affordable housing for at least 10 years. In the mean time, my parents were getting older and frailer; they were in their 80s before my brother got an apartment. He doesn't have the skills to deal with a crisis, which is what losing his home would have been.
15
There are hundreds of empty homes in Syracuse NY. Or Detroit . And many other places.
I.e. there is no National Housing shortage of affordable housing. There is a local housing shortage in SF, a city that has no land to expand into and his been taking over by the global elite.
Federal housing money would be spend more efficiently by generating jobs where jobs are needed and houses are affordable.
People will move to where jobs are.
135
If they have the money to move where the jobs are; poor people probably do not. If they have a vehicle to move where the jobs are; poor people probably do not. If they can be assured that a job is waiting for them on the other end; nobody can guarantee that. If those jobs on the other end pay a living wage; if the current economy is any metric, many of them do not. Moving is not free and easy, it is very expensive and without a job waiting on the other end, a great risk.
41
Where there is a will, there is a way.
It’s easy to be a victim of your circumstances. Circumstances that many create for themselves by the way.
People can always make excuses for why they are stuck, but successful people figure out how to make things happen.
Woof writes "There are hundreds of empty homes in Syracuse NY. Or Detroit . And many other places."
Why are these houses empty? Could it be that people moved "to where jobs are."
43
40 years ago I skipped NYC because of the cost and moved to Atlanta, which offered opportunity and very reasonable cost of living for a young family. I didn't have any family there, but 40 years later, all my children have stayed in Atlanta and it is our new family hometown. It is my understanding that our immigrant ancestors made their way to places that offered opportunity and affordability. NYC and Calif are so expensive, I don't understand why people choose to stay there when living in other towns is so much more more affordable and promising. People, come to your senses!
103
@Bruce
“…I don't understand why people choose to stay there when living in other towns is so much more more affordable and promising. People, come to your senses!”
Poor people are not stupid. While some remain in an expensive area when other options are available, many do not have realistic alternatives.
Remember, it costs money to move to another state, and it’s hard for a poor family to accumulate the funds needed for travel, possibly a small “U-Haul,” first and last month’s rent, and a security deposit.
In addition, there is no guarantee of finding another minimum wage job in a new city to replace the present one.
66
Bruce actually makes a valid point. Why should society spend $400k-$500k to build a brand new residential apartment when it could spend far less money helping people relocate to areas of the country where they could be self-sufficient? Migration Assistance could be one effective tool in the toolkit of methods to increase overall Affordability in the US. Unfortunately, "Affordable Housing" has been traditionally seen soley as a housing-issue and not one that interrelates with other urban-economic issues. Other ways to efficiently spend government money to increase "Affordable Housing" are to divert money to education and transportation within cities rather than build more new housing.
"I don't understand why people choose to stay there when living in other towns is so much more more affordable and promising"
Because that's where your JOB is?
And because that's where your family is, including older parents who need your help and care?
17
I'd love to live in SFO or Manhattan but don't because it is too expensive. I live in flyover country because it's within my budget. The winters are terrible here in the upper Midwest but nobody would feel sorry for my circumstances. Incidentally, I'm a long way from poor. Where is it written that people have some kind of inalienable right to live in an area that they can't afford?
200
You can also bet with certainty, that the cost of building these 95 apartments grossly exceeds what it would cost to build a 200 apartments if the project was in the private sector.
29
Even the most affluent cities need janitors, restaurant cooks, daycare workers, retail sales clerks, and other service personnel. If such people have to live an hour or two out of town, especially if they have to move to areas with little or no public transit, then 1) traffic worsens on the freeways that lead to the city, and 2) these low-income workers are forced to maintain reliable cars, an outlay that drains their incomes further.
142
Where does it end? Should the public pony up the funds to make housing affordable for toenail painters, massage therapists and barber/stylists? Isn't the magic of the market supposed to correct these issues?
1