Another effort to automate the targeting of homeless people:
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This is giving me flashbacks to those companies/contractors that profited from cleaning out houses in foreclosure and how little concern they had about following the law or showing respect for people’s rights or property:
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“Make it illegal for the unhoused to exist” pretty much sums up the NIMBY attitude. I know this is The Onion, but as per the norm, IRL outpaces satire regularly.
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Listen to the public comment sections of city council meetings in affluent liberal enclaves like Santa Monica or Berkeley and the statements aren’t far off those in the Onion article.
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The latest… (gift link)
Minneapolis will resume permitting multifamily housing developments under its 2040 Comprehensive Plan, the Minnesota Court of Appeals having again reversed a District Court order that ground the plan to a halt.
The ruling, issued Monday, found that the decision to suspend the plan last fall had been “based on legal error,” was unsupported by evidence and imposes “unnecessary hardship” on the city of Minneapolis.
[…]
But Bergstrom [city spokeswoman Greta Bergstrom] noted the Court of Appeals ruling is not the end of the 2040 lawsuit, and that it’s possible that permitting may stop and restart again.
“It is critical that the state continue the path toward legislative clarification to ensure local jurisdictions across Minnesota, including Minneapolis, are able to move forward with much-needed affordable housing projects, focus on undoing racial barriers and the crucial work to address the climate crisis without the threat of costly litigation,” she said.
[…]
Legal wrangling over Minneapolis’ historic liberalization of zoning laws to end single-family exclusive neighborhoods and permit denser housing has dragged on for the past five years. […]
[…]
A bill to end the 2040 lawsuit passed the Minnesota House of Representatives last week. Two amendments added to the Omnibus State and Local Government Bill would shield other cities from facing similar environmental challenges initiated by citizens.
[…]
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Robert Reich covers how corporations affected rents and housing prices, and what we can do about it:
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Everything private equity touches - healthcare, housing, college education - drives immediately above affordability for 70-90% of consumers. That’s how such a business works. They want what they offer to be unaffordable, and depend on some entity like the government or lenders to swoop in and make up the gap. They don’t care about whether the market is sustainable, because it’s their strategy to make it unsustainable and ride it to the edge of collapse and exit with as much profit as possible. At which point the system collapses, but they don’t care because they’re out.
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Exactly. What’s worse is when pols (mostly GOP members) take it one ugly step further, by saying they don’t want government to make up the gap. They’re fine with letting people go without education, good jobs, decent housing, or adequate healthcare. They don’t want to see the impoverished or unhoused masses anywhere, and figure if people can’t survive without any public services or support they should just die.
As a result, we now see too many reports like this:
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“ State Sen. Julia Salazar of Brooklyn and Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas of Queens say the basement apartment pilot program “inexplicably” excluded parts of the city with the most basement apartments — including Queens districts where flooding killed residents inside their homes during Hurricane Ida in 2021”
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Any time people talk about affordable housing, they’re like Boris:
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It’s an inspiring article, holding out promise for housing that’s affordable, safe according to strict code, and environmentally friendly. Unfortunately, those features are all anathema to Republican politicians.
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Been wanting to post this somewhere.
A bit of background not covered here. This intersection is near several shelters and other aid. It’s exactly like you’d expect with the description. A lot of people hanging out, looking not rich. I go through here, alone, frequently. The only thing to be scared of is that it’s also one of the busiest traffic intersections in town. Cars mostly just got off the freeway and are heading up a 4 lane road. And again, it’s exactly as you’d expect.
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