Study: Homelessness Rate Correlated With Median Rent, not Rates of Poverty or Mental Illness

[FireDragon76]

And yet to deny that mental illness or drug use is either the cause of or the result of homelessness is denying that these certainly contribute to their continuing problem.

The evidence doesn't support mental illness as a major cause of homelessness. The evidence for high housing prices causing homelessness is stronger.

 

[civilwarbuff]

Or, we can just solve the immediate problem, and let those other factors work themselves out.

Treat the symptoms not the problem.....that actually does not work too well in the medical field. You've got to get to the disease itself to cure it.

 

[civilwarbuff]

Forget about HUD and all low income housing. What I'm talking about is lowering everyone's home prices by increasing regular home and apartment construction everywhere. Real estate is a market based on demand.

If we applied our tax dollars to fund new homes, the incentive for everyone becomes cheaper housing for new buyers, renters, the currently homeless, etc.

A home is the one asset that many people count on especially in their later years and you want to destroy its value and take that away from people? That makes no sense at all......

 

[ottawak]

And yet to deny that mental illness or drug use is either the cause of or the result of homelessness is denying that these certainly contribute to their continuing problem.

Do you have any numbers to back that up? Or are you just going by the strung-out babblers you see hanging out in the streets? There are many more homeless people than that--people with regular jobs and families as well.

 

[durangodawood]

A home is the one asset that many people count on especially in their later years and you want to destroy its value and take that away from people? That makes no sense at all......

What makes no sense is people profiting from artificial scarcity induced by govt over-regulation.

 

[essentialsaltes]

A home is the one asset that many people count on especially in their later years

Shouldn't more people have that? Or must the system keep the 'haves' and 'have-nots' separated by the best way of increasing household wealth?

 

[iluvatar5150]

And yet to deny that mental illness or drug use is either the cause of or the result of homelessness is denying that these certainly contribute to their continuing problem.

Nobody denies that.

Treat the symptoms not the problem.....that actually does not work too well in the medical field. You've got to get to the disease itself to cure it.

Did you bother to read the article in the OP? Mental health and substance issues are factors in individual situations (and can be as much a consequence as a cause), but aren't drivers on a larger scale.

 

[civilwarbuff]

Do you have any numbers to back that up? Or are you just going by the strung-out babblers you see hanging out in the streets?

What? You can't take 30 seconds to go see for yourself on a subject you feel qualified to discuss? I won't spoon feed you......

 

[civilwarbuff]

artificial scarcity induced by govt over-regulation.

And that is quite true in some places (Calif. jumps to mind).

What makes no sense is people profiting from artificial scarcity induced by govt over-regulation.

And yet would, as a homeowner I assume, not have a different perspective if a trailer court sprang up in your neighborhood and (justly or not) drove down the value of your own home? There are at least 2 sides to every perspective.

 

[civilwarbuff]

Shouldn't more people have that? Or must the system keep the 'haves' and 'have-nots' separated by the best way of increasing household wealth?

And your suggestion to make that happen? (without the 'haves' having to give up their 'wealth' if that is what you want to call it)

 

[essentialsaltes]

And your suggestion to make that happen? (without the 'haves' having to give up their 'wealth' if that is what you want to call it)

Landon's original answer was just fine.

What I'm talking about is lowering everyone's home prices by increasing regular home and apartment construction everywhere. Real estate is a market based on demand.

If we applied our tax dollars to fund new homes, the incentive for everyone becomes cheaper housing for new buyers, renters, the currently homeless, etc.

 

[wing2000]

I'd like to see California begin it by breaking ground in Southern California's High Desert, a barren landscape, hundreds of miles wide, only an hour or two from LA. Why this land all lays undeveloped while home prices an hour away are some of the highest in the country is beyond me.

It takes 2 hours to leave the sprawling LA metro area going East. More urban sprawl is not the answer IMO.

 

[Pommer]

Landon's original answer was just fine.

What I'm talking about is lowering everyone's home prices by increasing regular home and apartment construction everywhere. Real estate is a market based on demand.

If we applied our tax dollars to fund new homes, the incentive for everyone becomes cheaper housing for new buyers, renters, the currently homeless, etc.

But if we did that then homeowners wouldn’t be able to use their houses as ATM’s.

 

[civilwarbuff]

What I'm talking about is lowering everyone's home prices by increasing regular home and apartment construction everywhere. Real estate is a market based on demand.

If we applied our tax dollars to fund new homes, the incentive for everyone becomes cheaper housing for new buyers, renters, the currently homeless, etc.

So crashing the housing market and wiping out the gains of people who have worked a lifetime paying their mortgage is your solution? You don't remember the real estate market of 2008? How'd that work out for people? Many people lost their homes.....oh, wait....wouldn't that add to the homeless problem?

 

[ottawak]

What? You can't take 30 seconds to go see for yourself on a subject you feel qualified to discuss? I won't spoon feed you......

I have taken much more than 30 seconds and it confirms my conclusion that your ugly sterotype of the homeless is contrived and degrading.

 

[durangodawood]

...And yet would, as a homeowner I assume, not have a different perspective if a trailer court sprang up in your neighborhood and (justly or not) drove down the value of your own home? There are at least 2 sides to every perspective.

Its funny how we all have our arenas where we love and benefit from anti free market regulations.

One area where I find it particularly onerous is regulations that enhance your home as an investment vehicle at the expense of other people even having a home as a living space.

 

[essentialsaltes]

So crashing the housing market

I doubt, even if we made it a priority in the places where it is necessary, that we could build housing fast enough to 'crash the housing market'.

and wiping out the gains of people who have worked a lifetime paying their mortgage is your solution?

Anyone who has paid decades into a mortgage has gains that are unoutwipeable. The median home price 20 years ago was $150,000. Now it's $350,000. If prices suddenly fell by a third (as they did in 2008), the median house would be worth $233K, and the median buyer would still be well into gain territory over what they put into the house. And they would have no reason to sell -- housing prices will, inevitably, go back up again. And if they did sell, they'd be a 'homeless' person with more than $200 grand in cash to their name.

You don't remember the real estate market of 2008?

I remember that it wasn't caused by building too much housing.

 

[RDKirk]

We can also say alcoholism or even poor parenting are major contributing factors. It just depends on how far back we want to dig in getting to root causes.

...Or, we can just solve the immediate problem, and let those other factors work themselves out.

We can do more than one thing at once.

In my area, single-family home mortgages have simply become unattainable for a vast proportion of Millennial-aged families.

They aren't drug users, they aren't mentally ill, they're not unemployed. But you can look at median wages, look at the cost of living, look at the cost of buying a home, and do the math: Single-family homes mortgages have become unattainable.

The typical NIMBY action of those who have managed to get into those existing single-family homes is to vote against building multi-family housing all the time, every time. It's not even a question of whether the proposal is for low-cost housing or luxury apartment living. In our area, all the proposals are for apartments that would rent for about the same price we who have low-interest mortgages are paying monthly for our mortgages, which these Millennials are able to pay (albeit without a reserve ever to save for a mortgage down payment).

 

[RDKirk]

So crashing the housing market and wiping out the gains of people who have worked a lifetime paying their mortgage is your solution? You don't remember the real estate market of 2008? How'd that work out for people? Many people lost their homes.....oh, wait....wouldn't that add to the homeless problem?

You are presuming that an apartment building necessarily decreases home value.

This is kind of like the same argument used against racially integrating neighborhoods. The reason integrating a neighborhood would decrease home values is because of white flight--people moving out in droves solely because the neighborhood was integrated. But when people did not move out, homes did not decrease in value. It was a self-regulating situation: The prices of the homes regulated the income level of home-buyers. Staying in their homes assured white owners that black homebuyers would have to be at the same income level. They'd just be black.

In high-value areas, you build high-value apartments. A high-value apartment is still far more accessible for renters than mortgages the high-value cul de sac on the next block, but it doesn't decrease the value of the cul de sac if the current owners stay in their houses.

 

[civilwarbuff]

I have taken much more than 30 seconds and it confirms my conclusion that your ugly sterotype of the homeless is contrived and degrading.

Thank you for your opinion. It is duly disregarded.