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It was a farm until the 1930's and then part of a horse racing track and became a restaurant in 1946 because it was a natural intersection of two State Highways. The restaurant and bakery lasted for 56 years and then vacant and left to rot and then razed and now several years with cyclone temporary fencing with trash being dumped all the time...
But no evidence of anyone's having had an intention to put affordable housing on the site.
Otherwise, this all sounds much like the history in my area. Forests and "Fields of Weeds" until the coming of the streetcar line, then orchards and dairy farms through the end of WWII. At that point area maps began showing the names of emerging proto-towns, rather than the names of individual property owners. Today, the county has a population larger than that of eight states.
And poor people want affordable housing. People can't have everything they want, although investors are more likely than poor people in achieving their objectives.
Truth is that poor people could build their own affordable housing. All it would take would be effort, organization, and a lot of submission seeking grants. It's not like rich people ever build housing with their own money. Poor people could also build housing with other people's money, if they wanted to put the effort in. In fact, there are plenty of people out there that started real estate investing without a dime in their pocket and ended up with a lot of real estate.
Of course, the reason poor people are poor is that they aren't organized and won't make any effort. Besides, who wants to form a co-op with a bunch of other people who have bad credit from a long history of not paying their bills?
But, it could be done if someone wanted to put the effort to put it together.
Lucky thing though... they really don't need to build more low cost housing
to support people with less than adequate income capacity in those high COL areas.
What's needed is to relocate these folks to where the housing already exists.
Most of these points were covered in the first pages of this overlong thread.
The wisest will move themselves.
Lets look at some facts that concern housing for lower income in high COL areas of the country.
The people that need the low cost housing, are the ones that keep society going for the higher income people. Lets look at who is going to live in the low income housing.
1: Waitresses, and cooks, entire crews at fast food restaurants.
2: Clerks and stock people in department stores, and yes even the big box stores grocery stores, etc., etc., etc.
3: Beauticians, barbers, etc. that do personal service.
4: Janitors and maintenance people.
5: Yard service people, and other household help.
6: Day care for children, so the higher income people can go to their jobs.
And this list can go on and on. You would end up with only higher income people, and no one to do the other jobs and services needed by the higher income people.
At that point employers for the higher income people, would just move their facilities to where there was a mix of high income and low income and in between, so they could hire employees, before all their employees quit and moved to where they could get the services they need and want for themselves and their families.
I've rented to some very hard working families here in the SF Bay Area...
One example would be a family from the Philippines... they all work with all but Mom having a second job... parents and three adult children and one grandchild.
After working 7 years in fast food, gas station cashier and convalescent home housekeeping the family bought a modest home here in Oakland...
I have other examples... one from Mexico and another from Vietnam...
They are all immigrant families that pool their resources for a common goal and it pays off...
Not only is it inspiring but the it is their American dream coming together...
So many believe you can't buy a home in the Bay Area working Fast Food or service... those that believe this much not know the families that I do...
Truth is that poor people could build their own affordable housing. All it would take would be effort, organization, and a lot of submission seeking grants. It's not like rich people ever build housing with their own money. Poor people could also build housing with other people's money, if they wanted to put the effort in. In fact, there are plenty of people out there that started real estate investing without a dime in their pocket and ended up with a lot of real estate.
Of course, the reason poor people are poor is that they aren't organized and won't make any effort. Besides, who wants to form a co-op with a bunch of other people who have bad credit from a long history of not paying their bills?
But, it could be done if someone wanted to put the effort to put it together.
In capitalism, the inherent rub is that once "investors" get involved, affordability goes out the window. Nobody - unless subsidized by government - ends up with a lot of real estate by producing affordable housing.
Years ago I had the idea of pooling money from thousands of renters in small amounts to acquire housing and keep it affordable. Right off the bat I discovered the SEC doesn't allow large investor pools short of a formal IPO and all the grief and graft that entails. Even today's RE crowdfunding platforms require $5,000. How many poor people are going to come up with that?
Another longstanding idea of mine is that renters need a financial institution (e.g. their own credit union) which works for them and not for the wealthy, but nobody seems to agree.
One reason many immigrants leave the native poor in the dust is that they often arrive with kin or clan based networks which facilitate capital pooling. Nothing like that among the native poor.
I've rented to some very hard working families here in the SF Bay Area...
One example would be a family from the Philippines... they all work with all but Mom having a second job... parents and three adult children and one grandchild.
After working 7 years in fast food, gas station cashier and convalescent home housekeeping the family bought a modest home here in Oakland...
I have other examples... one from Mexico and another from Vietnam...
They are all immigrant families that pool their resources for a common goal and it pays off...
Not only is it inspiring but the it is their American dream coming together...
So many believe you can't buy a home in the Bay Area working Fast Food or service... those that believe this much not know the families that I do...
How are a bunch of unrelated fast food workers going to pull that off?
Just because you are content to live in a house with a million adults, doesn't mean everyone wants to. Childless couple here, with a 3 bedroom house. If it's "under-occupied", it's just according to YOUR opinion. Since I can afford it and bought it, I can live there.
Are you suggesting that the government FORCE me to live in a smaller home, or cram more people in, just because you can't afford to live like I do? Me, a woman who entered the workforce the same time as you, without a degree, and yet still managed to afford 4 homes. If that's what you're suggesting, your envy has reached pathological proportions.
Which is precisely why your zoning is immoral. You have every moral right to "under-occupy" YOUR property, but no moral right to dictate to others what they can do with theirs.
No, I am suggesting that government allow the free market to provide the housing the market wants. There is a connection between "underoccupied" houses and overcrowded houses - the overcrowded houses got that way because government didn't allow the private sector to build more houses to cover the demand unmet because of the underoccupied houses.
Economic liberty enables anyone to underoccupy THEIR home. A free market will compensate by building more units and/or at higher density. What is morally wrong is for the underoccupiers to deny overcrowded people a free market that would provide more housing for them.
Since zoning effectively makes housing a regulated commodity with a regulated supply, there is a case to be made for government forcing occupancy levels on people, but my preference is to simply deregulate.
p.s. i'm not content but poor people have to pick their battles carefully.
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