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The problem then becomes, where do "those people" live? The traditional answer is "anywhere but here" which ends up being nowhere. The end result is not enough supply of affordable housing to meet the demand--homelessness. We can see the result in Sacramento--many of the street problems that drove our Curmudgeon away are the result of a large, permanent population living on the streets.
So the question becomes, which is worse? Neighborhoods where poor people can afford to live, that tend to discourage high-end retail and sushi joints, or cities where they can't afford to live, with people sleeping on the streets and in third-world tent cities?
The answer one usually gets is 'somewhere else' but that always ends up being someone else's right there.
The other answer, that homeless folks are all drug addicts, criminals and mentally ill, implies that they should be in jail, hospitals or rehab--which costs far more than housing. Hell, it costs more than Club Med. Maybe we send them to Acapulco?
I graduated Sac State in 1978 and lived in Sacto on and off through 1994 when we saw the winds of change in California and Sacramento of a state in a steady decline. We moved to small town Idaho where our conservative values are shared by the bulk of the population and never gave California another thought. The events of the last 15 years have proved our foresight correct.
You folks can change things but not until you rise up and put new people in office and get rid of the professional political class who have ruined your once great state.
I graduated Sac State in 1978 and lived in Sacto on and off through 1994 when we saw the winds of change in California and Sacramento of a state in a steady decline. We moved to small town Idaho where our conservative values are shared by the bulk of the population and never gave California another thought. The events of the last 15 years have proved our foresight correct.
You folks can change things but not until you rise up and put new people in office and get rid of the professional political class who have ruined your once great state.
How much low income housing the region zones or fails to zone is largely irrelevant. What is driving low income housing is demand for low income housing. If the area doesn't zone enough new low income housing, the housing market will create more of it.
The City of Maywood California is more dense (more than 25k per sq mile) than the City of San Francisco, California (a little more than 17k per sq mile).
San Francisco was built densely. Maywood wasn't built densely its just overcrowded, but Maywood is has more people per sq mile than SF. SF has lots of fairly tall buildings built close together. Maywood looks like it should be in the San Fernando Valley. It has lots of single family homes with front and back yards. The reason Maywood is so dense is that lots of people are living in overcrowded housing condition that were never intended for that level of density.
Maywood is overwhelming Latino. You have multiple families living in the same house. In Maywood, often the garages are converted into illegal housing units, you may have two or three extended families living in the same home. Some family might have a bedroom at night and others who work the night shift might occupy that bedroom during the day.
Zoning for low income housing has very little to do with creating demand for low income housing. In many respects zoned low income housing does a poor job of actually supply the demand. A big chunk of the poor people don't qualify for low income housing because they aren't here legally. There source of employment is the underground economy and they don't have paperwork to demonstrate that that would qualify for low income housing.
Yet if you look at the data , the homeless population isn't overwhelmingly hispanic nor overwhelmingly undocumented.
The homeless population is a function of other factors that are not entirely economic. A certain percentage of the population is mentally ill and extremely resistant to treatment. Some have had bad experiences with psych meds and refuse further treatment others suffer from Paranoia. If you have very low levels of functionality and are not an immediate threat to yourself or others, its very easy to get lost in the bureaucracy (failing to show up for expected appointments or knowing where you are on the waitlists). There are also people who have problems with addiction who are unwilling/unable to give up the drugs that many safe and sober housing programs require.
If you look at the data, the success or failure of an area to provide enough low income housing really isn't that correlated to the amount of homeless people in the area (other factors dominate). The areas of the country with the most affordable housing and with the most low income housing still have major problems with homelessness (Detroit, Pittsburg, Houston, Buffalo)
Where zoning matters is in overcrowding. If a region zones too little housing, it will have overcrowding. If it zones too much it will empty areas like Detroit. If you morally think its wrong for poor people to live in overcrowded conditions, you should favor more housing.
But there are strong incentives to underzone. If you restrict supply, you keep up housing prices and the poor will move elsewhere. Up until the early 90's, California was getting about 1/3 of the hispanic immigration into the US and the majority of that was going to LA County. As housing prices got more expensive in Southern California, immigration patterns changed and the hispanic population started spreading to other cities nationwide. Cities today in Iowa and North Carolina, are now home to growing there own hispanic barrios with there own Spanish tv, radio and newspapers. Why should hispanic immigrants move to LA where the only place they might afford housing is someplace like Maywood, when they can find equivalent work in Des Moines with nicer housing options? It can take a while for immigration patterns to shift, but they are shifting right now.
If you look at the Cal trans socio economic projections, the counties that are projected to have the largest income gains (Marin, SF, San Mateo) all tightly restrict growth. Moreover the areas that are projected to grow the most have the least real income growth (see San Bernadino, Riverside).
California Department of Transportation - Division of Transportation Planning (http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tpp/offices/ote/socio-economic.html - broken link)
If you look at the data, growth control has been much more successful than restrictive racial covenants for keeping out the poor.
The more tightly a region restricts growth, the more the locals can demand from developers as a condition of growth. One of the big reasons Davis has such a great bikepath network and Elk Grove doesn't is that developers had to agree to offer such inducements to get people in Davis to agree to new development. In Elk Grove, both the city and county were much more willing to greenlight housing projects, so the developers had no need to make such inducements. As communities figure out that saying no to new development is the way to extract more out of developers it creates momentum to shoot down new development projects.
This is why I think bay area style growth control in this state is inevitable. The state legislature is getting more involved in development issues and the net effect of most of there legislation is too make development procedurally more complicated and that creates opportunities for policy entrepreuners to demand more goodies as a condition of greenlighting projects.
The other answer, that homeless folks are all drug addicts, criminals and mentally ill, implies that they should be in jail, hospitals or rehab--which costs far more than housing. Hell, it costs more than Club Med. Maybe we send them to Acapulco?
From what I've heard (from all sources, particulary nurses) Sac County Mental Health facilities are not a humane place to be. The homeless people, if the city truly doesn't have the money to house them, would be better staying homeless with outpatient services.
By the same token, if the city can't house them (which it probably can't in this economy) I don't see why police are fiddling with the idea of driving them out of their semi-permanent camp near Richards and Hwy 160. It's open space for them, accessible to McD's and Loaves N Fishes, and at least consolidates many in one area so those aren't randomly roaming places like the downtown plaza mall or retail parking lots instead.
To OP, it does seem like Sac's taking a decline in a couple of different ways. I live in an expensive neighborhood and hear the ghetto bird all the time (just 5 minutes ago actually)--I cherish my house alarm system. Parking is for s*** in this city, truly. And it could be my imagination, but I think the air quality got markedly worse in the last decade.
How much low income housing the region zones or fails to zone is largely irrelevant. What is driving low income housing is demand for low income housing. If the area doesn't zone enough new low income housing, the housing market will create more of it.
The City of Maywood California is more dense (more than 25k per sq mile) than the City of San Francisco, California (a little more than 17k per sq mile).
San Francisco was built densely. Maywood wasn't built densely its just overcrowded, but Maywood is has more people per sq mile than SF. SF has lots of fairly tall buildings built close together. Maywood looks like it should be in the San Fernando Valley. It has lots of single family homes with front and back yards. The reason Maywood is so dense is that lots of people are living in overcrowded housing condition that were never intended for that level of density.
Maywood is overwhelming Latino. You have multiple families living in the same house. In Maywood, often the garages are converted into illegal housing units, you may have two or three extended families living in the same home. Some family might have a bedroom at night and others who work the night shift might occupy that bedroom during the day.
Zoning for low income housing has very little to do with creating demand for low income housing. In many respects zoned low income housing does a poor job of actually supply the demand. A big chunk of the poor people don't qualify for low income housing because they aren't here legally. There source of employment is the underground economy and they don't have paperwork to demonstrate that that would qualify for low income housing.
Yet if you look at the data , the homeless population isn't overwhelmingly hispanic nor overwhelmingly undocumented.
The homeless population is a function of other factors that are not entirely economic. A certain percentage of the population is mentally ill and extremely resistant to treatment. Some have had bad experiences with psych meds and refuse further treatment others suffer from Paranoia. If you have very low levels of functionality and are not an immediate threat to yourself or others, its very easy to get lost in the bureaucracy (failing to show up for expected appointments or knowing where you are on the waitlists). There are also people who have problems with addiction who are unwilling/unable to give up the drugs that many safe and sober housing programs require.
If you look at the data, the success or failure of an area to provide enough low income housing really isn't that correlated to the amount of homeless people in the area (other factors dominate). The areas of the country with the most affordable housing and with the most low income housing still have major problems with homelessness (Detroit, Pittsburg, Houston, Buffalo)
Where zoning matters is in overcrowding. If a region zones too little housing, it will have overcrowding. If it zones too much it will empty areas like Detroit. If you morally think its wrong for poor people to live in overcrowded conditions, you should favor more housing.
But there are strong incentives to underzone. If you restrict supply, you keep up housing prices and the poor will move elsewhere. Up until the early 90's, California was getting about 1/3 of the hispanic immigration into the US and the majority of that was going to LA County. As housing prices got more expensive in Southern California, immigration patterns changed and the hispanic population started spreading to other cities nationwide. Cities today in Iowa and North Carolina, are now home to growing there own hispanic barrios with there own Spanish tv, radio and newspapers. Why should hispanic immigrants move to LA where the only place they might afford housing is someplace like Maywood, when they can find equivalent work in Des Moines with nicer housing options? It can take a while for immigration patterns to shift, but they are shifting right now.
If you look at the Cal trans socio economic projections, the counties that are projected to have the largest income gains (Marin, SF, San Mateo) all tightly restrict growth. Moreover the areas that are projected to grow the most have the least real income growth (see San Bernadino, Riverside).
California Department of Transportation - Division of Transportation Planning (http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tpp/offices/ote/socio-economic.html - broken link)
If you look at the data, growth control has been much more successful than restrictive racial covenants for keeping out the poor.
The more tightly a region restricts growth, the more the locals can demand from developers as a condition of growth. One of the big reasons Davis has such a great bikepath network and Elk Grove doesn't is that developers had to agree to offer such inducements to get people in Davis to agree to new development. In Elk Grove, both the city and county were much more willing to greenlight housing projects, so the developers had no need to make such inducements. As communities figure out that saying no to new development is the way to extract more out of developers it creates momentum to shoot down new development projects.
This is why I think bay area style growth control in this state is inevitable. The state legislature is getting more involved in development issues and the net effect of most of there legislation is too make development procedurally more complicated and that creates opportunities for policy entrepreuners to demand more goodies as a condition of greenlighting projects.
Great post! What's your take on Sacramento with how it's done with that? And the future of Sacramento because of it?
From what I've heard (from all sources, particulary nurses) Sac County Mental Health facilities are not a humane place to be. The homeless people, if the city truly doesn't have the money to house them, would be better staying homeless with outpatient services.
By the same token, if the city can't house them (which it probably can't in this economy) I don't see why police are fiddling with the idea of driving them out of their semi-permanent camp near Richards and Hwy 160. It's open space for them, accessible to McD's and Loaves N Fishes, and at least consolidates many in one area so those aren't randomly roaming places like the downtown plaza mall or retail parking lots instead.
To OP, it does seem like Sac's taking a decline in a couple of different ways. I live in an expensive neighborhood and hear the ghetto bird all the time (just 5 minutes ago actually)--I cherish my house alarm system. Parking is for s*** in this city, truly. And it could be my imagination, but I think the air quality got markedly worse in the last decade.
This is all based on the incorrect assumption that 100% of the homeless population are mentally ill, drug addicts, and/or criminals. That is not true, so obviously I'm not talking about actually housing 100% of them in the treatment center or jail. It is both economically impossible and legally inappropriate. The point is that providing housing (and outpatient services) is FAR FAR CHEAPER than institutionalization, and much more effective than only providing outpatient services while not treating the condition that makes other conditions worse--BEING ON THE STREET.
About the "semi-permanent camp": The idea that if we establish a permanent camp, homeless people won't be "wandering around" is incorrect. The only way to restrict them to a particular area would be to put up a fence with guards around the perimeter. Street folks move around town because they have things to do: medical appointments, visiting friends, communicating via mail or email, looking for ways off the street. They also engage in economic activity: collecting cans, asking for change, receiving varying sorts of welfare, or even finding jobs. That all requires leaving the "camp" to interact with the rest of the world. The only way to prevent that interaction would be to concentrate the entire homeless population into the camp and prevent their unauthorized exit--creating a "reservation" of sorts.
I'm sorry that you can't find parking and you occasionally hear a helicopter. We live in a city, as much as many people around here try to deny it, and we have city problems. Pretending we aren't a city won't make those problems go away.
Phil Minor points out a lesson from Jane Jacobs: overcrowding and density are not the same thing. You can have density without overcrowding, but only if you plan for it. Many cities try to prevent poor people from living there by not zoning for density, but the end result is overcrowding instead. Because living in overcrowded conditions is no fun, those cities don't just fail to solve their problems (it would be hard to claim that Los Angeles doesn't have poor people just because it's expensive to live there) they also push the consequences of their problems onto other cities.
His assertion that if we simply encourage every city to zone for the wealthy only, the poor will have nowhere else to go, suggests that they will simply vanish without a place to migrate. Maybe there's more room for them in that "reservation" we talked about?
I wasn't trying to say that it would definately confine them to a certain area, so don't read that much into it. I was trying to say that if we took tent city away it would effectively pull the rug out from under their makeshift "home" and give them nowhere else to go (unless they formed another one or various smaller ones). Obviously, they're still out and about town but they need a place to return to and spend the night.
I wasn't trying to say that it would definately confine them to a certain area, so don't read that much into it. I was trying to say that if we took tent city away it would effectively pull the rug out from under their makeshift "home" and give them nowhere else to go (unless they formed another one or various smaller ones). Obviously, they're still out and about town but they need a place to return to and spend the night.
There isn't a permanent tent city anywhere, so there isn't one to take away. The one that was on "Oprah" was cleared earlier this year; since then, there have been various ones sprouting up here and there, only to be cleared when various property owners and neighbors complained. The one on C Street on land belonging to a local lawyer was cleared earlier in the fall.
The problem with "safe ground" and establishing permanent campgrounds is that it assumes everyone on the street is sleeping on the street by choice--that they want to be on the street. Some might, but most do not. The other problem is that while it is generally characterized as a temporary solution, temporary solutions have a way of becoming permanent. The way to address homelessness is through housing--in the long run, it costs less money.
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