US homelessness up 12% to highest reported level as rents soar and coronavirus pandemic aid lapses

Around here the camps eventually get rousted and the homeless have nowhere to go. I think the police just keep them moving. I think they should legalize their camps. It’s the humane thing to do. I don’t know they have their drawbacks. That need a place to be established. The rural areas are a favorite. But those counties don’t have the funding. We can’t expect the government to pay for everything.

Unqualified said:

Around here the camps eventually get rousted and the homeless have nowhere to go. I think the police just keep them moving. I think they should legalize their camps. It’s the humane thing to do.

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“Move along” is wrong but the humane thing to do is allow people to remain homeless but un-rousted?
Okay.

Unqualified said:

I don’t know they have their drawbacks. That need a place to be established. The rural areas are a favorite. But those counties don’t have the funding. We can’t expect the government to pay for everything.

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Government taking care of its own vulnerable citizens is a “bad thing”?

Homelessness is largely driven by housing costs, moreso even than poverty and substance abuse.

Pommer said:

“Move along” is wrong but the humane thing to do is allow people to remain homeless but un-rousted?
Okay.

Government taking care of its own vulnerable citizens is a “bad thing”?

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where would you suggest we cut to get the money to pay for housing. We are borrowing every year for the too much we are spending now..

if we don’t give them housing then to let them be is the next more humane thing to do.

I'm glad the pandemic spending kept people housed, but the end of that support is having an effect that's not unexpected.

I was interested this morning that the LA Times had an article...

Why clearing homeless camps is harder in California than most states. Will Supreme Court make it easier?​

But thanks to a series of rulings by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, public officials in California and eight other Western states face greater scrutiny and legal challenges when they move to clear encampments or relocate homeless people — even when the local laws are virtually the same as those used by cities outside the 9th Circuit.

But no other federal appellate court has followed the 9th Circuit’s legal reasoning and now the decisions are being challenged in the Supreme Court, which could take up the issue early next year.

According to a landlord I know, some tenants relied on the pandemic moratorium on eviction and didn't apply for rent assistance, at least not until the end of the moratorium approached. In these cases, back rent accumulated. The idea with both the moratorium and rent assistance was to help people that couldn't work due to the pandemic.

In the meantime, maintenance costs are going up, thanks to inflation. Property taxes vary from place to place, and if they've gone up there, the cost is passed along. The same for insurance. So we have a situation of increasing rent and people unable to pay despite the end of shutdowns.

There are homeless shelters, the availability depending on place to place. That sounds a lot like Ebenezer Scrooge's "Are there no workhouses?" And yet homeless shelters exist. So does low cost housing, what was once known as "projects." Where such exist with sufficient space available, the question is why do some homeless prefer to live outside of them. That's a legitimate question, BTW. If such relief exists and people refuse to take advantage of them, there has to be a reason why.

Allowing existing camps to remain presents the classic problem of sanitation, closely followed by disease. Allowing them to remain may seem humane, but can set up a worse situation for the residents.

Tuur said:

According to a landlord I know, some tenants relied on the pandemic moratorium on eviction and didn't apply for rent assistance, at least not until the end of the moratorium approached. In these cases, back rent accumulated. The idea with both the moratorium and rent assistance was to help people that couldn't work due to the pandemic.

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That was certainly part of the problem in some case, but the overarching issue is that rent increases are outpacing inflation and income - this means that people are forced to devote more and more of their income to rent, and those who are on the cusp of homelessness increasingly fine themselves over the edge financially.

We are all just pointing to the current confusion concerning this situation. Nobody knows what to do and it’s going to take a pile of money to do it. What are some of the ideas being talked about in your area. It’s almost winter and cold and rainy today. Tents are good shelter from the rain. Counties could provide portable toilets and keep them clean forever. Music festivals sometimes provide shower trucks. First aid could be available. The basics. CCC camp soup lines out there. What’s my tally so far?

We could stop fighting wars. if Christians would all tithe 10%- a pile of money. I’m tempted by isolationism thoughts. Can we still provide for ourselves?

RocksInMyHead said:

That was certainly part of the problem in some case, but the overarching issue is that rent increases are outpacing inflation and income - this means that people are forced to devote more and more of their income to rent, and those who are on the cusp of homelessness increasingly fine themselves over the edge financially.

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The issue I see, however, is that it is the "free market" causing most of the current increase in homelessness. The issue being that rich people buy up the land in the cities, increasing the cost of housing (both land and the rental costs, particularly as tax rates go up due to increased property valuations). The upper middle class, not being able to afford new homes in the city, move into the suburbs. The middle class, now being priced out of the suburbs, go to the "new suburbs" that are often 30 minutes or more from their work -- meaning that while their housing costs are similar but their transportation costs increase, causing a further strain on their budget. This causes the lower middle class to be completely priced out of the housing market -- anywhere they can afford to buy or rent is so far away that the can't afford to live there.

Some talk about public housing, but everywhere I've seen demand is too high. The last place I lived had at least a year wait time, and that is even if you had priority (such as some type of disability that pushed you higher on the wait list). I don't see how you fix this without methods to override the free market -- and even then that often causes unintended issues.

For example, rent-controlled housing in New York is estimated to have taken 10s of thousands of units off the markets, as owners have decided it costs more to rent the units, in upkeep and other costs, than they will make renting them out at the reduced rate. Some estimates claim 60,000 units are currently empty because owners are no longer renting them.

Other places, like Hawaii, are putting bans on using housing as short-term rental units, that they need to offer long term leases rather than to rent them out to vacationers on AirBnB. I'm not sure how you fix the problem when the rich see real estate as one of the strongest investments -- even buying extra homes to be used as 'vacation' homes that otherwise stand empty -- with the idea that they'll likely be able to sell them in a couple of decades at twice the cost they bought them for.

There is also a real resistance, particularly among homeowners, to creating new high density housing -- particularly "lower income" high density housing. But in most areas, such as a new project for a 20-ish story building in a recently revitalized (and gentrified) neighborhood, that even though it is for luxury housing there is strong opposition to the company trying to build it.

I'm really not sure what "fix" there is, particularly since it will likely cause restrictions on the free market, something Republicans typically strongly oppose, even while they are the ones that appear to be complaining the most about the housing issues.

SimplyMe said:

The issue I see, however, is that it is the "free market" causing most of the current increase in homelessness

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Yes, the issue (rent increasing faster than income or inflation) largely stems from a lack of regulation in the housing market. Short-term rentals, people buying single-family homes as investment properties, historically low interest rates, algorithms being used to set rents - these have all played a role.

I have heard a prayer request from the bbnradio's Family Altar program... "Please pray for our city which is being overwhelmed by the effects of homelessness from people of other countries."

But... With Democratics in office it's just a matter of time before the whole system goes belly up and we all end up on the streets with them!

dogs4thewin said:

What is wrong with buying single family homes as investment property? My late father was a landlord by his 30th birthday ( after growing up in poverty) he lived in a house and rented out a house he then sold both houses ( one to the renters who still live there 20+ years later actually and put down on this current house which we built what most people finance. By the time he died in 2015 he had paid off this house about nine months earlier leaving us with no house payment

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Nothing, in moderation. I don't really have much of an issue with someone owning 2-3 houses and renting the extras. But when you have investment groups and hedge funds buying up hundreds or thousands of properties across the country, that starts to become a problem - both because they're reducing the supply of homes for other buyers (since they can often come in with a cash offer, which is far more attractive to the seller) and because, since they're beholden to shareholders, they must show year-over-year growth, which often results in rent rising more rapidly than most tenants can bear. And, because landlords reference each other when setting rents, this has the effect of raising rent regionally, not just on the individual properties.

RocksInMyHead said:

Nothing, in moderation. I don't really have much of an issue with someone owning 2-3 houses and renting the extras. But when you have investment groups and hedge funds buying up hundreds or thousands of properties across the country, that starts to become a problem - both because they're reducing the supply of homes for other buyers (since they can often come in with a cash offer, which is far more attractive to the seller) and because, since they're beholden to shareholders, they must show year-over-year growth, which often results in rent rising more rapidly than most tenants can bear. And, because landlords reference each other when setting rents, this has the effect of raising rent regionally, not just on the individual properties.

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They're paying taxes and insurance on every one of those units, occupied or not. To see what happens when they go unsold and/or unrented, look at what happened when the last housing bubble popped.

SimplyMe said:

I'm really not sure what "fix" there is, particularly since it will likely cause restrictions on the free market, something Republicans typically strongly oppose, even while they are the ones that appear to be complaining the most about the housing issues.

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The fix often involves overriding the NIMBY homeowners and forcing the towns to expand housing. For all the junk the right likes to throw at him, Gavin Newsom is actually trying to do this in California.

Vambram said:

How can towns and cities be forced to expand housing?

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IIRC (and that's a big "if" - I'm very fuzzy on the details and can't be bothered to look them up at the moment), at least in California, the state is trying to invalidate some of the municipal zoning rules that limit density. I want to say they're also trying to require municipalities to increase housing by a certain percent each year - I forget the mechanism by which they're trying to do this, if it's just a legislative mandate or an additional requirement to be eligible for certain state funds or something else.

Tuur said:

They're paying taxes and insurance on every one of those units, occupied or not. To see what happens when they go unsold and/or unrented, look at what happened when the last housing bubble popped.

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Sure, but they're not going unsold or unoccupied. People are still renting them. The housing market is still active. It's just that the lower end of the income scale is getting squeezed harder and harder. They're saving less, they have less disposable income, and as I said, some are being pushed over the brink into homelessness. This is going to lead to serious societal problems down the road, but it's unlikely to result in a repeat of the 2008 subprime collapse - there will always be renters, because people will always need housing, and that's the last major expense that anyone cuts.

100$ rental applications are a cashcow