California homelessness? (Los Angeles, San Jose: low income, cheap apartments, renting)

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by EDS_

To be clear I'm not running you down I think your point has merit but there is more to it.

If visceral desirability was at the crotch of all this Vancouver Canada, Tokyo, Sydney and some others would suffer exceptional homelessness and or not be able to deal with it. Athens and Warsaw, neither particularly desirable in my book both have legions of homeless.


It's in the weeds but CA struggles doing anything about homelessness in great part because your big cities follow HUD guidelines. FWIIW Houston does as well but Austin and SA do not.


DFW has grown from well less than 1MM people in the early 1950s to around 7MM now....... that's desirable.

I’m not speaking for other countries. Nigeria, for example, has, I believe, the world’s highest rate of homelessness … not desirable by pretty much any definition.

That said, btw, Vancouver has a fairly high rate of homelessness. Something nearing 4,000 in a city of 650,000 / metro 2.5 million.

But, back to America and its particular capitalist model / culture - Texas is popular in substantial part primarily because of its affordability / opportunity dynamic. It has practically unlimited developable land, cheap by comparison to California’s desired areas. The weather in Texas sucks by comparison, as do natural recreational venues. People move to Texas because there’s work there of all kinds *and affordable housing* …

Honolulu, Seattle, Washington DC are other examples of extremely desirable cities where growth has pushed low-income into their streets.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by EDS_

I'm just not sure where you are coming from here. Among the long term homeless addiction and mental illness rates are exceptionally high.

In California, the major CAUSE of homelessness is unaffordable housing. (In other states, the major cause may be mental illness, substance abuse, unemployment, etc.)

https://siepr.stanford.edu/publicati...considerations

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by EDS_

I'm just not sure where you are coming from here. Among the long term homeless addiction and mental illness rates are exceptionally high.

Those rates being high does not equal *main cause*.

There are something over 10 million Americans with SMI - Severe Mental Illness.
There are about 15 million with severe alcoholism
There are over 8 million drug addicted beyond alcohol.

There are approximately 500,000 homeless.

If [severe] mental illness and alcoholism and drug addiction in themselves caused homelessness, we’d have at least 10x the number we see, if not 30x or 40x.

Furthermore, it is agreed upon by those who study homelessness that some of the associated substance abuse is at least severely exacerbated, if not in fact caused by - becoming and living homeless.

The reason millions and tens of millions with SMI and substance abuse disorders do NOT become homeless is: they have affordable housing somewhere, and often supportive family.

Understand also that, of those millions cited above with disorders, many are working in spite of having those conditions. I personally know and have known over the years, a number of drug addicts and alcoholics (and I mean severely affected / addicted) who hold down full-time, career employment. I knew, for example, a 20+ year heroin addict who maintained a marriage and raised two kids as a house painter … shot up but worked every day … good man … combat vet … honest as the day is long … it killed him eventually …. But he and his family were never homeless.

[njbiodude]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

In California, the major CAUSE of homelessness is unaffordable housing. (In other states, the major cause may be mental illness, substance abuse, unemployment, etc.)

https://siepr.stanford.edu/publicati...considerations

I posted a link earlier that said the biggest cause for single homeless adults was addiction. For families it’s lack of affordable housing. Either way addiction rates for the homeless are 15x+ higher than the general population.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by njbiodude

I posted a link earlier that said the biggest cause for single homeless adults was addiction..

I don't see it on this thread.

Originally Posted by njbiodude

Either way addiction rates for the homeless are 15x+ higher than the general population.

Read Tulemutt's post. Rates being high is a different issue than main cause. https://www.city-data.com/forum/65520559-post80.html

[Kurinji]

Originally Posted by NJ Brazen_3133

For a 40hr work week if that is still normal, you take $290/week times 4 weeks, that is $1160/month you earn but minus $900, you only have $260 left for the month.

Also, remember that landlords also commonly require 2x - 3x the rent to qualify for an apartment, so, a minimum wage worker would need to have roommates or live with family.

[Kurinji]

Originally Posted by blameyourself

Hmmm....don't know anything about the bolded. I know in San Francisco, it used to be if you built a luxury condo building you also had to build an affordable housing unit or dedicate some units to that (had a friend that worked in the industry). Not sure if that's still the law but it was.

Previous law: Here’s the current rule: New SF housing developments must dedicate at least 21.5 percent of new units as affordable to a range of incomes, from below the poverty line to incomes that in most other places would be considered comfortably middle class. Some projects must have a mix of affordable units as high as the equivalent of 33 percent. (More about “the equivalent of” in a minute.)

https://thefrisc.com/sfs-unique-way-...s-a01f5c6781c5

Thanks very much for that link. It was an interesting read. I found out through a friend that Atlanta had a similar program, but I haven't yet dug into the details. I recently visited Atlanta and stayed in a neighborhood where quite a bit of construction was going on, the Old Fourth Ward. The building we stayed in had a sign advertising one bedrooms for about $1500+/mo and two bedrooms for $2100/mo. george’s minimum wage is $5.15/hr.

[citizensadvocate]

its interesting how there are also very little homeless in comparison some of the least affordable cities in the world, it appears culture and family also play a role, Ie there seems much less homeless from the Asian community living in any part of the world in or out of Asia. And they mostly live in the most expensive communities whether in Asia or other parts of the world. There also seems less from Latin countries aside from refugees who escaped their country due to government/cartel control and cut off from US support.

In the US it appears kids often run away from broken families and get little support either from relatives or any other means. Orphaned kids seem on their own when they age out of foster care. Its also relatively common for divorced parents to abandon their "child" after they outgrow mandatory child support from the other parent. Sometimes out of necessity. And parent(s) and child may both have issues with substance abuse and domestic violence.
As I mentioned earlier not many shelters would others would want to take in ones with drugs, guns, other weapons, or pitbull dogs so they are forced to sleep on the streets.

Apparently, California seems the land of broken dreams, which Hollywood and others attracted so many people to move there from all over the country and world in the past fifty years or since the hippy movement or should I say gold rush whether they have the means or not thinking they can get wealthy. Remember when dot com industries once advertised six figure incomes in 1990s which was rare back then, and how "millionaires" turn to poverty overnight especially but not just when the stock markets crashed in 2001 and 2009? Relatively not as many people moved to Texas in masses until rather recently. Texas's relatively hi property taxes and lack of prop 13 also discourages investors from buying up large amount of housing to just to rent them and resale at inflated prices. I am also thinking people are more careful to make sure they get access to heating and cooling in places where climates are harsh as it can be a death sentence to be unsheltered when its 110+ with lots of humidity or dryess i.e Arizona, or sub-freezing constantly. , And others in the community and government make it a priority to rescue them some how end up on the streets if they accidentally end up there when its freezing or during extreme heat or severe weather. But in CA people think temperatures would almost never go out of survivable range so they leave them there. In fact a good number of people in CA often don't budget for heating and cooling needs at all even with nice homes and a good income, even where it gets to triple digits and freezing every year. They would just say they cannot afford to get proper heat a/c even though they live in a contemporary 1990 home/apartment. The eco movement is also very strong though in CA , I remember the war against air conditioning in many communities due to the ozone layer back when Central A/C installations were booming. And you don't even need to get central if you cannot afford it or lack ductwork a window unit costs $250 with heat and cooling. A split unit costs about $1000 for smaller apartments. Yet they say we wished we had a/c or that landlord provided one but oh well.

In other parts of the world indoor climate is entirely up to the inhabitants to provide though thus window and minisplits are very common and portable from place to place when they move. Kind of same in the south and east of US as well. But I guess in CA they spent the money on drugs and name brands instead despite CA being relatively wealthy state compared to some of the others.

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by citizensadvocate

It appears the ten percent were the ones bussed in from other parts of the country. I be curious how to put up a no vacancy sign.

Really the other issue is the individualistic and broken family issue all around the US which means kids end up on the streets or jail as they become older teens or young adults kids unwilling or unable to stay with either parent. There is one thread about this on current events.

Also forcing cities to allow developers to build luxury expensive homes/apts to meet a housing quota in infrastructure that cannot take it only backfires and causes worse homelessness problems down the road as people take out loans or leases far exceeding what they could ever afford and if the investment market crash or somehow they arn't able to make the payments anymore they lose their homes and may well end up on the streets. There many people who move to CA a while ago who end up in this situation. We would want to ask what draws people to CA. It appears mostly its perceived opportunities or a job.

Who is forcing developers to build luxury homes? In the SF Bay Area, there is a concerted effort to get developers to build low-income housing. And this is not about 'broken families' It's about people not being able to afford housing, I'm not sure why that is so difficult to understand, but if you need to see it yourself I can show you the streets lined with cars outside of apartment complexes. People park there because they are former tenants who had to move out because they couldn't afford the rent. Now they sleep in their cars but maintain contact with their ex-neighbors in the complex and are able to shower and in some cases prepare their food. These are not some swanky apartment complexes, but the exact opposite - janky complexes where you could rent an apartment in 2015 for $700-$800, and now the same apartment rents for twice that. Did your wages double in 7 years? Mine sure didn't and apparently neither did the salary of those people who used to live in those apartments.

[davidt1]

The homeless would camp in an area for a while. The city/county would decamp them. Then they move to another area to camp. Lately they seem to scatter everywhere: next to people's houses, next to businesses.

They camp two streets away from my house. Those home owners whose house they camp next to, I can't imagine what goes through their mind every single day. While the homeless are not right next to me, they have a habit of roaming through the neighborhood early in the morning when it is still dark. Something tells me they are not patrolling to keep the neighborhood safe.