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| Economy |
| Why we need social housing in the US |
| 2018-04-06 |
| [Guardian] The debate about how to resolve our nation’s housing crisis is stuck in a frustrating rut. One side of the divide, calling themselves yimbys (Yes in my back yard), say we should allow private developers to build more housing units. On the other side of the divide are anti-gentrification campaigners who maintain that unleashed private developers will construct luxury housing that pushes up neighborhood rents and displaces local residents. What makes this debate so intractable is that both sides have a point. The only way to fit more people into an area is to build more housing units. This is just how physical reality works. At the same time, we have seen neighborhoods across the country change rapidly after an initial stage of new developments or amenities made living in the surrounding housing units more attractive to affluent renters. Adding luxury housing units can bring down the rents of an overall region while simultaneously raising them in a specific neighborhood, causing displacement. There is a solution to this impasse though. In a paper released by People’s Policy Project (3P) on Thursday, my colleagues Peter Gowan and Ryan Cooper propose that municipal governments across the country build millions of units of social housing. An influx of publicly owned, efficiently built apartments would add to the housing supply while minimizing the displacement risks caused by luxury developments. Under the 3P proposal, municipalities would finance the construction of new housing through municipal bond markets, loans from the federal government, and federal grants that mirror those already provided under the low-income housing tax credit program. The buildings themselves would be erected by construction companies through the same process that cities use to build libraries and other public facilities. Once constructed, the management of the new housing units could be done either through a public authority or by contracting with a property management company. Expanding the housing supply through this social housing approach has many benefits over private, market-led development. About the author - Matt Bruenig is currently the president of People's Policy Project (3P). Bruenig previously worked as a lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board and as a policy analyst at the Demos Think Tank. His prior work primarily focused on inequality, poverty, and welfare systems. Yes, the author is probably a communist. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #16 Cluster the super-poor together and you can create a Democrat enclave in an otherwise red city. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2018-04-06 18:35 |
| #15 Those who have not studied history are doomed to repeat it. |
| Posted by: KBK 2018-04-06 17:53 |
| #14 I imagine if the housing was free it would be even worse Look at the crime maps in the neighborhoods around Section 8 housing (either clustered or individual). Usually pretty depressing. |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2018-04-06 16:19 |
| #13 Still lots of cheap vacant land in the Dakotas. Small towns there are evaporating as the young leave for greener pasture$. Dirt is cheap, except in the popular areas. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2018-04-06 15:59 |
| #12 @Abu Uluque All that's gone up is the cost of land(cost of land/average wages), a negative for the economy... And in part because the central bank works for the benefit of the establishment. Just like they do with subsidized migration. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2018-04-06 15:25 |
| #11 See 'Teletubbie'. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2018-04-06 12:23 |
| #10 I agree - just build it in New Mexico or some such. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2018-04-06 12:19 |
| #9 I actually visited this place with a number of senior Nixon Admin HUD officials. Colossal mistake as a policy matter. https://amp.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/22/pruitt-igoe-high-rise-urban-america-history-cities |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2018-04-06 11:46 |
| #8 You can bet your bottom dollar that whenever somebody starts talking about affordable housing they are working some sort of a scam. They've been talking about it here in San Diego County for as long as I can remember and that's a long, long time. They've been building as fast as they can all that time and the cost of housing continues to skyrocket. A house around the corner from me just went on the market for over a million dollars. In 1994 that same house sold for a little over $200,000. That is in spite of a building boom that has transformed vast rural areas into suburban sprawl with corresponding over crowding and degradation of the quality of life for people who already live here. The developers get rich on the backs of illegal alien labor and they bribe local pols. Everything they say is a lie. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2018-04-06 11:31 |
| #7 Carlsbad. I used to go there. After work we always went to Del Mar where the officers lived. Nice area. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2018-04-06 11:11 |
| #6 val jar slumlord extraordinaire, claws in many, many places and BACKS in shitcago. I guess you could call the iranian, the shitown hustler "HO" |
| Posted by: ranture 2018-04-06 10:21 |
| #5 California has some kind of law that says they must have so many units of affordable housing for so many population or something like that, but there is a carbon-credit style loophole that allows rich communities to pay another community to house their poor for them. My city, Carlsbad has earned extra money by building such housing on behalf of La Jolla (really wealthy) and Rancho Santa Fe (also really wealthy). It's a great idea for the budget of Carlsbad, but I went to a crime mapping website one day and found all of the crimes in Carlsbad seem to cluster around the housing complex near my home. Mostly domestic type stuff but a number of car break-ins. I imagine if the housing was free it would be even worse. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2018-04-06 10:12 |
| #4 2 words: Cabrini Green I'll raise you to three: Grove Parc Plaza (link) - Operated by the Habitat Company who's CEO was Valory Jarret. Even the Boston Globe found it a stunning failure. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2018-04-06 08:48 |
| #3 Army of the poor. Still an army. There's an amendment that covers that.... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2018-04-06 08:23 |
| #2 publicly owned, efficiently built apartments Turn the oxymoron dial to 11 +. 2 words: Cabrini Green |
| Posted by: AlanC 2018-04-06 08:03 |
| #1 Why we need social housing in the US Because it has worked so well in the past? East German, Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis public housing models are the most equitable? Firearm sales need a boost? The clustering of the unemployed actually helps them gain employment? 'Identity politics' is the key to the future ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2018-04-06 06:34 |