Posted on 05/07/2024 7:08:51 AM PDT by Red Badger
San Francisco's well-publicized homelessness crisis is emblematic of the problems facing many of America's big cities as they struggle to provide affordable housing against the backdrop of high interest rates and low inventory.
This has led the city to employ a variety of methods to tackle the problem, but a recent plan to provide tiny houses for San Francisco's homeless population has residents furious over the cost.
The units would cost a reported $113,000 each to construct. Considering that the average home in San Francisco costs nearly $1 million the $113,000-per-unit cost for the tiny houses seems in line with San Francisco's notoriously expensive real estate market. Why is there so much outrage? First, it's much higher than nearby cities like Oakland and San Jose are paying to build comparable units. Second, the program is taxpayer-funded.
It also costs an estimated $2.9 million per year to operate the city program that will manage the units, and the tiny homes will be demolished in a few years to make way for a permanent affordable housing complex in San Francisco's Mission District. Many San Francisco residents question the wisdom of spending millions of dollars to build affordable housing, and then tear it down to replace it with another affordable housing development.
Making matters worse, most of San Francisco's housed residents are struggling to deal with the city's notoriously high cost of living. According to Apartments.com, the average residential rental in San Francisco costs $2,800 per month. That is nearly double the national average of $1,514 per month. Adding insult to injury is that $2,800 per month gets you a basic apartment in a basic neighborhood. Luxury dwellings cost upward of $5,000 per month.
Tenants are considered rent-burdened when their monthly rent exceeds 30% of their income. That means San Francisco residents must make about $100,000 per year just to keep their heads above water. Not long ago, a $100,000 per year income was considered a landmark on the way to economic freedom. Now, it's the minimum entry requirement for many of America's big cities.
Even though San Francisco's tech boom has created many millionaires, not all the city's residents work in that sector. Most schoolteachers, social workers, restaurant employees and regular workers in San Francisco make far less than $100,000 per year. No city can function without people staffing these positions, and most San Franciscans are an unexpected car repair or layoff away from being homeless.
One of the reasons people cannot afford homes, is that if you did build affordable homes, it’s guaranteed it would be a high-crime area. So there’s no point in building smaller, affordable homes.
I gotta quit posting with this smart phone.
(No doubt)
If a wrong letter is touched the auto correct inserts what it pleases. And my fingers are fat from being broken so many times
Is what's shown in that picture one unit or 15 units? If that's one unit, then $115,000 is not too bad, but I suspect that's 15 units.
San Fran “Tiny Houses” = “Crack Dens”
Or they could just buy RVs. A new 80K RV are a hell of a lot bigger and nicer than a small storage shed with a window. There also mobile can easily be relocated.
Oh that place will be a rat 🐀 infested toilet in 6 months. Ugh
Whorehouses.....................
Their is a market based antidote for “affordable” housing, and that’s a robust free housing market shorn of zoning, bureaucratic planning and extreme permitting and extreme regulations. Get “the government” out of the way and where there is “a market” private capital will find a solution.
As I have seen in New York City over five decades, once the local government goes down the rode of the government being the insurer of providing “affordable housing” the impact it has on the residential marketplace is such that it becomes a proposition the local government can never get out of. That portion of the market that remains market driven continues to get out of range of “affordable” due to the supply and demand balance being unbalanced by all the units that are not available, and never will be available, at market rates. Additional measures will be taken to try to “stimulate” or “preserve” more “affordable” units, such as “rent controls” and attempts to get private investors to get into joint ventures with a certain number of units subsidized by the government. The result is the same - the market rate available number of units is always constrained by that portion of the supply protected by the “affordable housing” measures, which INSURES the market rate available units will never be “affordable”. The market rate avialble number of units will always be less than optimum, to help make housing affordable, because of all the units removed from market rate forces.
Wokies will do anything to avoid addressing the basic cause of the problem.
They’ve been choosing and voting for socialism (communism w/a smiley face) for decades... and now... they’re finally getting outraged? How really stupid are they?
“San Francisco Residents Outraged”
screw ‘em ... they voted for this shite ... and they’ll just keep on voting for MORE shite ...
Are they allowed to bring in their drugs? Many won’t go in homeless shelters, etc., b/c it means they have to follow rules such as no drugs, cigarettes, etc. - and no animals allowed.
Will the mentally ill be mandated to take their meds?
Those places will be trashed beyond repair shortly, just as they were in Los Angeles.
Too bad this isn’t being installed somewhere like PacHeights, or better The Castro, Scott Weiner’s district - or another nicer area - the Mission and Tenderloin have already been trashed beyond repair. These people need to get a good, hard dose of what they’ve been voting for.
I remember after Hurricane Katrina the refugees from New Orleans were given decent camper trailers to live in. The occupants destroyed them so bad they were not resellable.
I expect the same for these small houses.
Or a bucket, a basin, and an extension cord.
we dont always agree. but when you’re right, you’re right..
I bought a 20 x 20 ft. two story 800 square foot garage from Pennsylvania [Amish built] had it shipped and installed in place [ I put it on compacted gravel] for a little over $9,000. The crew of Amish kids took less than a day to install doors ,windows and stairs and trim. Beautiful job and done right, my only complaint is I didn’t order a bigger garage as I am running out of room already!
George Carlin used to have a bit in his act about Americans getting ‘stuff’ then running out of room in their home so they build sheds to buy more stuff then they rent storage facilities to put more stuff in!..............
What good does it do to add a toilet?
We all know how much fun it is to drop your drawers and crap on the sidewalk in front of a Coachella shop.
It is a waste of money because they will never be used.
If you’re going to San Francisco,
BE SURE TO WEAR A FLOWER IN YOUR HAIR.................
i’m guessing that’s a before picture...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.