Home Depot looking to leave Emeryville/Oakland due to proliferation of homeless encampments (San Francisco: crimes, school)

[davdaven]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

You do realize, don't you, that the homelessness is created in large part by the free-market system for real estate, coupled with the job boom in certain sectors? Supply and demand.

I would like to note that most of the Bay Area's housing problem is caused by regulation, not the free market. Cities have enacted strict zoning ordinances that prohibit most residential development, coupled with enormous fees that greatly limit what little housing is allowed to be built: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/...big-and-small/


These restrictive local practices add insult to the injury that is the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which makes it incredibly easy to sue developers and local jurisdictions to block unwanted development. As a city planner by education, one of the demoralizing aspects of the field is knowing that CEQA today is the redlining of years past.

[BOORGONG]

One would think the homeless should target a Target instead of homing in on a Home Depot.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by SocSciProf

When it comes to roads, we have learned that one cannot build one's way out of congestion. You have to do something else. You can raise the price of driving (e.g., raise fuel costs, raise parking costs, reduce parking ability, charge to enter certain zones) or you can raise the viability of alternatives (e.g., public buses, private buses, robustify (a word?) taxis (like New York), dedicate bike lanes (with barriers, not just lines on the street)). But you can't build roads to build your way out of congestion. Any new road capacity you add immediately lowers the cost of driving, and thus attracts more drivers until you get right back to where you were.

Same with housing. You cannot build yourself out of insufficient housing. You have to do something else. You can raise the cost of housing so people move elsewhere. If people won't move, you can't solve their problem by building more housing because that will just attract more people, so you'd end up just with more people in houses and more people on the street.

People who cannot afford to live somewhere need to be helped in moving someplace they can afford to live. What, you say, about teachers and firefighters. If expenses are so high that teachers and firefighters cannot afford to live in a region, the region will just have to raise teacher pay. The only way that will happen is if current teachers move away, and no others take their place. That's the signal the system needs to get to realize pay needs to go up. Moving further and further out is an individual response and the system will not get a message on that basis. Protesting also fails because, in the eyes of the system, it can't be so bad, teachers are still here.

Now, you can turn the bay area into Hong Kong, like some seem to want. But you're deluding yourself if you think that will solve the problem. Here's an article on homelessness surging in Hong Kong

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...sky-high-rents

and here's a photo of homelessness in Hong Kong:

Hong Kong is not a good model for the Bay Area or anywhere else. Real estate speculation is a partcipant sport there.

Hong Kong is also infamous for the "cage men" or partitioning up flats into sections to let out.

[davdaven]

Originally Posted by BOORGONG

One would think the homeless should target a Target instead of homing in on a Home Depot.

Resale/return value of the goods stolen from Home Depot can be much higher. I've seen brazen shoplifting at Harbor Freight and many questionable returns at Home Depot. Lots of $$ to be had for the next fix.

[veritased]

ah yes... livin the California dream... AOC would be happy to get another evil large corporation out of yet another city.
Jobs be damned, they weren't paying a California living wage of $50/hr anyway.

[CA4Now]

"California is spending millions of dollars to stem the tide of homelessness without much to show for it. The latest evidence of that arrived Thursday, when several Bay Area cities and counties reported that their latest tallies of homeless people revealed big increases."

Homeless population jumps by thousands across the San Francisco Bay Area:
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/...517-story.html

[Matadora]

Originally Posted by jade408

Another issue, since Caltrans has jurisdiction of the nearby freeway adjacent area, there is not much either city can do.

https://evilleeye.com/news-commentar...s-over-blight/

I would move too! I would run from places where there are no laws to protect my business from suffering losses due to homeless behaviors.

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

I think this is Home Depot covering their rear in the event something happens, so they can blame - or share the cost - with the city, county, etc. Nobody is forcing Home Depot to stay. If they weren't making enough money to make it worth it to stay, they'd close the store.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by NoMoreSnowForMe

I think this is Home Depot covering their rear in the event something happens, so they can blame - or share the cost - with the city, county, etc. Nobody is forcing Home Depot to stay. If they weren't making enough money to make it worth it to stay, they'd close the store.

Absolutely.

[SocSciProf]

Originally Posted by NoMoreSnowForMe

I think this is Home Depot covering their rear in the event something happens, so they can blame - or share the cost - with the city, county, etc. Nobody is forcing Home Depot to stay. If they weren't making enough money to make it worth it to stay, they'd close the store.

I find this to be an odd response. I mean, no one expects HD to "do" anything about homeless people and the mess that follows when people have nowhere to "go." If people who are in a homeless encampment run it well, no problem out by the warehouse stores and loading docks. If it becomes a site of any of the following: used needles, rats running through garbage, feces, trash--then its a problem and authorities are supposed to do something about the health hazards and crime attraction of such conditions. That's not the store's responsibility, and no one thinks it is the store's responsibility. So I don't see how they need to cover anything, no one expects them to do anything.

It'd be like if I dumped a bunch of trash and used dirty needles at each end of your block, so cars and pedestrians cannot pass without risk of infection, and you complained to the city to do something about it. No one would say you are "covering your rear" if you complained.