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There are three major degrees of freedom to play with here (maybe more, but I didn't get much sleep).
* Number of housing units
* Capital cost per unit, or alternatively, capital cost of the total project
* Operating costs per unit, or alternatively operating costs of the total project.
Number of Housing Units
Either you (mutt) or others have pointed out that 50K units is not the long-term, steady-state level of housing that is actually needed. Fair enough. A reasonable decomposition includes
* People who will require long-term, permanent housing
* People who should not be in public housing because they should be committed long-term to a mental hospital
* People who are mentally ill but don't need to be committed to a mental hospital as long as they receive appropriate medical care & supportive services
* People in transition who can be expected to leave public housing after some transition period where they get their poop tegether and save up 1st & last month's rent & security deposit and the like
* People who should be in battered women's shelters instead of public housing
* Others
One of the unknowns concerns people who can be expected to transition after a relatively short time frame (say, 6 months). Will they actually transition? Or will they discover they cannot put together an income stream sufficient to support themselves in private housing? That is, if they leave, within a relatively short period of time, they are evicted for failure to pay their rent and end up back in the transition housing?
Let's say they transition, with the public's help, and successfully move out. Are there people waiting to move in because they, too, were evicted from their last apartment/home?
There is some chance that transitioners will always be leaving only to be replaced by new transitioners. By analogy, the permanent residents are like a "lake" while the transitioners are like a "river" where the river never runs dry. In that case, we do indeed need a high steady-state level of public housing available. Is the total 50,000 units? That's clearly debatable, as all the estimates of the number of souls in the homeless camps are, well, at best imprecise.
So pick your number. Perhaps 40,000 steady-state units. Perhaps 25,000 units. Perhaps the problem is greater than our worst fears and the real number needs to be 75,000 units.
Capital Cost per Unit, or Alternatively, Total Capital Cost of the Project
Regarding cost per unit, most of us are outraged (including, it seems, both you and sleepy) at the costs-per-unit being bandied about. They are pretty shocking.
The reason they are shocking is we all think in terms of manufacturing cost of a single unit -- that's the marginal cost of building the last unit -- concrete, wood, drywall, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, flooring -- and of course the direct labor to do all the above. That shouldn't be anywhere close to $333,000 per unit.
But marginal costs are not the only costs that go into a project. There are also all of the fixed and semi-variable costs - project management, PR, land development attorneys, land acquisition, architectural and engineering costs, streets, street lights, traffic lights, bus stations, sidewalks, parks, dog relief areas, public spaces, electric car charging stations, light rail and/or subway stations, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etcetc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etcetc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etcetc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etcetc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc
When you add in those fixed & semi-variable costs, and then average them over a large number of units -- well, that's how a reasonable low-cost unit has an average price tag of $333,000 per unit even if the actual manufacturing costs of building one extra unit is a small number (say, 1/10th of that).
Perhaps the easiest way to drop the price point is to abandon the requirement for "prevailing highest possible wage", but that's a political hornet's nest. I doubt you'll get many politicians and union bosses who say that "in support of the public good, we'll let this project be built with non-union labor by the lowest cost bidder."
Some people post the idea of "tent cities." That is one step above shanty towns and doesn't solve the problem. As soon as we implement tent cities, the cry will be for permanent shelters, of course.
Operating Costs per Unit (or of the Total Project)
Rarely do we see any discussion of the Operating Costs involved in such a project. They are decidedly non-zero. In fact, they are large and have a huge impact on the success of the venture.
More importantly, from a municipal finance perspective, operating costs cannot be funded by issuing bonds. Only capital costs (direct costs of designing/building) of construction can be funded by issuing bonds (and repaying them via periodic payments).
How important are operating costs? Well - this is regarding the Cabrini-Green housing project in Chicago:
That's why part of a successful project includes proper upkeep and proper services.
Because operating costs cannot be funded by issuing bonds, they must be funded out of current tax revenue. Absent a tax increase, that means EVERY DOLLAR spent on operating public homeless housing & assistance means ONE LESS DOLLAR for something else - libraries, schools, fixing potholes, parks & recreation, etc.
Ok, quick coupla points here ... more later ...
First, I think it really is correct to dispense with your “operating costs” portion of the debate. Because that is the most clear case of existing budget savings paying for the concepts Sleepy (and I) often discuss. Given the Housing First programs are well documented everywhere they exist, to save 20%-60%, over prior costs to manage those chronic homeless served, then those budgets are applied to the new management under the new facilities and services.
Sure, there are always lots of ‘devil in the details’ to analyze and restructure for ... but the monies to manage these populations’ disasters already exist.
The next most important adjustment to the debate is Sleepy’s point (and mine) about you using rather extreme case hypotheticals. As I pointed out previously, chronic street trouble case homeless are about 20% of the total homeless population of 50-60,000 in LA county ... and these 20% eat up by far the lion’s share of emegency and municipal clean-up and jail and court budgets applied to those populations.
Also understand, from down here in the trenches, the division of homeless living in existing shelters, couch surfing, in vehicles, veterans with services available - is very significant in this picture, including the chronics. In those not-in-street-tent temporary sheltering venues, lie more solutions at much lower costs than these inane hundreds of thousands of $ per unit proposals.
The costs of managing chronic homeless in vehicles in parking lots is no where near hundreds of thousands $ each. Lots of opportunities. Lots of low cost management efficiencies.
The event tents Sleepy mentions are an excellent solution to dealing with your “river” of new arrivals while they get parsed out.
But there is good cause to develop some thousands of minimalist housing units as well.
All in all, I don’t guess that at present we are even talking about 10,000 individual, independent shelters.
Problem is, as I said before, until we wise up as a society to the need for Basic Income Guarantee, the problem keeps growing with AI / automation.
“The court finds plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the ordinance is vague because it fails to alert the public what behavior is lawful and what behavior is prohibited,” Battaglia wrote. He said the vehicle habitation law doesn’t indicate specifically what turns a vehicle into a person’s home or “living quarters,” noting that people have gotten tickets under the law for reading a book inside their vehicle.
San Diego got some good news from Battaglia, who said a separate city ordinance prohibiting overnight parking of recreational and other oversized vehicles appears to be legally sound. The overnight parking ordinance, enacted by the city in 2014, prohibits such vehicles from parking on any San Diego city street or in any public parking lot between 2 and 6 a.m.
Prosecuting homeless people for sleeping on public property when they have no access to shelter violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, a federal appeals court decided Tuesday.
Prosecuting homeless people for sleeping on public property when they have no access to shelter violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, a federal appeals court decided Tuesday.
Plenty of affordable shelter .. outside of sky high metros like SD and L.A
Everyone has a right to live somewhere if they can’t afford it ?
The court was not requiring that the homeless be provided with a place to live, but rather a place indoors to sleep at night. The court said that cities can't claim there is shelter space if the shelters refuse to allow the people in, or if they are full and it has to be reasonable; the court is not going to allow cops to refer the homeless to a shelter 500 miles away. But here's an idea...read the decision, a link to it has been posted.
The court was not requiring that the homeless be provided with a place to live, but rather a place indoors to sleep at night. The court said that cities can't claim there is shelter space if the shelters refuse to allow the people in, or if they are full and it has to be reasonable; the court is not going to allow cops to refer the homeless to a shelter 500 miles away. But here's an idea...read the decision, a link to it has been posted.
I’m not even sure that “shelter” is specifically defined as ‘indoors’. Is it? I suspect cities with weather permitting could authorize canopy cover and cots in parking lots, under freeways, in parks ... as long as it is sanctioned ‘safe space’ to sleep without being arrested for unauthorized / unpermitted camping.
I’m not even sure that “shelter” is specifically defined as ‘indoors’. Is it? I suspect cities with weather permitting could authorize canopy cover and cots in parking lots, under freeways, in parks ... as long as it is sanctioned ‘safe space’ to sleep without being arrested for unauthorized / unpermitted camping.
It mentions 'indoors'
Quote:
Rather, the court said, “as long as there is no option of sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter.
I got Obama phone from the video of the ghetto queen on post 3848. She was talking about milking the systems and she's the one that called them Obama phones. You think me a middle class girl in OC who pays for her cell would otherwise have any idea what a Obama phone is?? Please
OK, I'll give you a pass and I apologize for being so harsh. It's just not the first time someone has said that about "Obama phones". But can you see why it's so irritating to people like me who are on some form of government aid and get blasted for it, when some of the things we're getting blasted for aren't even accurate?
I also used to work for Sprint and one of the things they do is donate phones to Lifeline from their buy back programs, along with the minutes. Taxpayers don't pay anything.
By the way, I don't have a Lifeline phone. I have a Pay As You Go phone and I buy the minutes for that myself, but my main way of calling is through Skype, since I have a computer connection (which I also pay for).
And that woman on the video needs to be hit upside the head. It's people like her who make things hard for the ones who have real need to get help.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SportyandMisty
Whoops. I let my fingers get carried away. You are right, of course.
Been there, done that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Genghis
Fine, I dredged up the relevant quote from the Guardian article:
"During that period, a small number of people in other cities have been given free tickets to relocate to San Francisco. A far larger number – more than 10,500 homeless people – have been moved out of San Francisco on buses."
I'm sure you'll find some way to deny reality again.
Anyhow, I'm supposed to have quit these threads, so I'm out of here...
Um, I'm trying to understand why it's such a good thing for the homeless to be bused out of San Francisco, but such a terrible thing when other cities do the same thing and bus their homeless into San Francisco.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jm1982
Plenty of affordable shelter .. outside of sky high metros like SD and L.A
Everyone has a right to live somewhere if they can’t afford it ?
Affordable shelter? Maybe. Access to services? Probably not.
One of the reasons I keep telling everyone the homeless need to have access to services was brought home to me yesterday.
My yearly review (and yes, there are reviews) for subsidized housing was due. I had to fill out a multi-page questionnaire and in addition, I had to list all my assets and verifications of those assets. So my daily schedule included:
A trip 8 miles north to the only Social Security center in the county in order to get a printout of what SSDI pays me and how much I pay to Medicare every month.
A trip several miles away to my grocery store pharmacy to get a printout verifying how much I've paid for my prescriptions.
A trip across town to Social Services to get verification of the food stamps I receive.
A trip to my bank (close by) to get a printout verifying my checking and savings accounts and all the money in them.
If I had not just received (like a week earlier) a card from Mason County stating what my land was appraised at, I undoubtedly would have had to make a trip 8 miles south to get a printout of that info. And I would have been lucky, because there is now an office there, otherwise I would have had to go 20 miles south to get that info.
Then it was down to the housing authority to drop all this stuff off.
I have a car and I was able to do all this in 3 1/2 hours. Can you imagine how long this would take for someone who had to use public transportation? Especially if they lived out of the area?
And this doesn't take into account the yearly trips I make into Social Services to get my food stamps renewed (all $15 of them), or when I have to go there to straighten out a problem involving eligibility for a medical bill because calling them to ask a question is like jumping off a bridge for fun. I'm able to get problems taken care of quickly because I have a car and services are close by.
What about someone who doesn't have those luxuries? What's worse, what happens when that person doesn't live close by, has no car, and has to take time off from work to do all this?
The $2.4-million shelter is set to open Monday (9/10) for 45 homeless people in the El Pueblo historic district, part of the city’s A Bridge Home crisis housing project.
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