I wish more states were like Oregon, where there is not only rent stabilization but the requirement that developers balance luxury housing with affordable housing. Building a bunch of mcmansions? Great, you also have to build some affordable apartments before your permit is issued.
Now that I’ve seen the John Oliver segment, I’m jealous of New York’s mandate that renters have counsel during eviction proceedings. We need that, too, or the rent stabilization becomes virtually meaningless.
Yep.
I love the public art requirement in some places, where a percentage of any new development costs have to go toward public art.
I think we could achieve great things with similar programs aimed at affordable housing and pollinator habitat, to name just 2.
Some of my favorite gear came from REI dumpsters.
But I didn’t have to sleep in it first.
I’m sorry you all are having to deal with this frustrating and inhumane use of public resources out there.
SMH.
I’m reminded of a high school geography teacher I once had. He was preaching about the inefficiencies of communism and told us some story about Russia trying to keep people employed and make their economy look great. They’d set up one factory to make wagon wheels, another factory to paint the wheels, and then a third factory would melt the wheels down and ship the raw materials back to the first factory.
If true, I think it would still be a better system than what we have going on here today.
Lots of uproar with tinges of NIMBY about an AirBnB in my small neighborhood. I was a little about it at first, but then I was curious enough to start looking at the short term rental listings in the area, and wow! In my ZIP code one person (or rather, his various LLCs) owns over 10 single family homes and at least 30 more in the city. This one guy, who lives in a very swank part of So Cal, has removed over 40 houses from availability for long term occupancy or family ownership. (Thanks, online property tax databases!) This area has a significant housing shortage too. So I’m not eyerolling anymore.
In the last six months, I’ve been through 43 states and a bunch of major and minor cities- Boston, DC, Philly, Atlanta, Tampa, New Orleans, Austin, Phoenix, SF, Portland, Seattle, SLC, DeMoines, Chicago…
Every single one has huge homeless encampments or tent cities. All of them. I’ve traveled to a lot of these places before, but I’ve never seen this many homeless. The only places I didn’t see homeless camps were the places in the South and Southwest where the buildings are already such tar paper shacks you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
It’s bad, and it’s bad everywhere. Like, worse than you thought.