Free Republic

Los Angeles homeless people are being put up in brand new apartments in ritzy neighborhoods that cost taxpayers up to $1.5 million per room, the California Post can reveal. At least $2.6 billion of taxpayers cash has been spent buying and renovating hotels, motels and dorms for the huge unhoused population in the city and county since 2020. The properties were all purchased with $1.3 billion from Governor Gavin Newsom’s Homekey initiative, which then renovated with another $1.3 billion in funding from the city and county of Los Angeles. Some of the suites, which are staggered across neighborhoods such as...

Texas challenged the rule, arguing it threatened the availability of affordable housing. A federal court has struck down a Biden-era rule that imposed “green energy” requirements for new housing constructions, threatening the availability of affordable housing. The case, co-led with Utah, was argued by Attorney General Ken Paxton in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Tyler. “The Corrupt Biden Administration’s radical policies were reducing the availability of affordable homes and making it harder for Americans to achieve the dream of homeownership,” stated Paxton. “This ruling is a major victory for homebuyers, builders, and families and...

Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin confirmed Monday the Trump administration wants to intensify efforts to get state and local regulators to drop burdensome, costly zoning laws — including on homes built on assembly lines — to help the next generation afford the American dream of home ownership. The Palisades Fire in Southern California last year destroyed roughly 13,000 homes in the Palisades and Eaton neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Over a year later, a little more than 3,000 rebuilding permits have been issued and only a few dozen homes have been built, according to The New York Post. Zeldin detailed...

In the shaded courtyard of a San Francisco affordable housing complex in early March, California’s most prolific Yes In My Backyard legislator rolled out his congressional campaign’s new housing platform.

CHICAGO - Tenants at Chaney Braggs Apartments, at 65th Street and Stony Island Avenue, held a rally Thursday morning, protesting possible rent increases and the threat of losing their homes as construction continues at the Obama Presidential Center a few blocks away. Residents say a California investor wants to buy the building and either gut and rehab it or demolish it. According to tenants, the buyer is offering a $2,000 cash payment for each family to move out. Most tenants currently pay $700 to $800 a month in rent, and many have lived in the building for 30 or even...

New York City has more than tripled spending on unsheltered homelessness since 2019, shelling out nearly $368 million even as the number of people living on the streets continued to rise, according to a state comptroller’s report. The city’s own numbers show the unsheltered population grew from 3,588 in fiscal year 2019 to 4,504 in fiscal year 2025, a 26% increase from pre-pandemic levels. Over that same period, spending on services for the unsheltered jumped 262%, from $102 million to nearly $368 million. That works out to roughly $81,700 per unsheltered person in FY 2025 — slightly more than the...

Nearly four in 10 new homes built by 2030 will be needed to accommodate migrants arriving in Britain, according to fresh analysis. The research, conducted by the Conservative Party, draws on projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) latest Economic and Fiscal Outlook. According to the OBR, net migration between 2026 and 2030 is expected to reach almost 1.2 million people. Using ONS data on average household size, the Conservatives estimate this would require around just under 500,000 additional homes for new arrivals alone. Britain is projected to deliver about 1.34 million new homes over the same period. The...

As a cofounder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook, Peter Thiel is widely recognized for his expertise in tech. But for a while now, the billionaire venture capitalist is sounding the alarm on an entirely different sector: real estate.During an interview with Common Wealth Canada in late 2024, Thiel drew upon the insights of 19th-century economist Henry George to underscore the gravity of America’s real estate crisis (1).snip“The dynamic ends up being that you add 10% to the population in a city, and maybe the house prices go up 50%, and maybe people’s salaries go up, but...

In New York’s large suite of self-destructive public policies, it’s hard to choose which one is the very worst. But an excellent candidate is the regime for regulation of residential rents, mostly going by the name of Rent Stabilization. Because of rent regulation, New York’s rental housing stock is older, more outdated, and less well-maintained than the housing of any other American city. If you got yourself into one of the regulated apartments a few decades ago, you likely enjoy a significant bargain on your monthly rent versus comparable space, to go along with your 30- or 40-year old kitchen...

Almost 40 per cent of new homes built by 2030 will be needed for migrant housing, Conservative Party analysis shows. The research is based on the Office for Budget Responsibility's latest Economic and Fiscal Outlook which expects a net migration of 1,172,792 people between 2026 and 2030. The means there would need to be around 499,000 extra homes to house new arrivals, according to the ONS average household size. During the next four years, the UK is forecasted to build 1.34million new homes, meaning 37.1 per cent could be used to home migrants. The figure was used to hit out...

Senate blasts through housing reform 89-10 bipartisan.Cuts HUD red tape stops investor home hoarding.Boosts builds fulfills Trump affordability push.The Senate passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act with huge bipartisan support. It fights the housing crunch squeezing working families.Lawmakers like Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren teamed up on grants and pilots to spark new homes.The bill tweaks rules for more housing types and blocks big investors from snapping up single-family houses.It streamlines federal inspections to speed projects without new spending.“When President Trump and Elizabeth Warren and the Senate majority of Republicans can all come to the same place on...

The Senate on Thursday passed the largest housing affordability bill in 30 years, including a ban on investors from buying single-family homes, with a 89-10 vote. But the bill faces an upward battle in the House, which passed its own bipartisan legislation in February. House GOP leaders have already said the measure will need to be negotiated, suggesting they will not take up the Senate-passed bill. House Minority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., earlier this week told fellow House Republicans in a closed-door meeting that the measure is likely to bog down over differences between the two chambers’ versions. One of...

Katelin Holloway and Ben Ramirez thought they had found their forever home when they purchased a spacious North Beach property for $4.75 million in 2021 — a four-story residence with five bedrooms, sweeping skyline views and room for their growing family. Instead, the couple is now facing the possibility that the house must be carved back into four separate apartments after city officials determined the building was improperly converted from a multi-unit property years before they bought it, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. SNIP According to city officials and tenant advocates, the building had previously been altered from a...

The Senate will today debate the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. Buried in the sprawling legislation is a section reportedly written by Sen. Elizabeth Warren titled “Homes Are for People, Not Corporations.” It has the backing of the White House and broad support in the Senate. The idea sounds politically appealing. In practice, it could sow the seeds of the next housing crash. The provision targets large institutional investors that own single-family rental homes. It effectively blocks investors that own more than 350 homes from buying additional single-family houses except under narrow circumstances. Even those purchases must generally be...

A first-of-its-kind neighborhood is taking shape in Yuba County. California's first 3D-printed community is being built in Linda.The first home is already for sale and the second and third homes are being printed right now. "Five 3D-printed homes are going to be here," said Nan Lin, founder of 4Dify. The new neighborhood in Linda is being built one layer at a time with the latest in 3D printing technology from the company 4Dify. The 1000-square-foot home for sale was printed from the dirt up within 24 days. It's made up of mostly concrete. "We've done ballistic testing on these, shot...

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Portland homeowners can now earn extra cash by renting a room out through the city’s new home share pilot program.The Portland Housing Bureau announced last week that it is offering one-time grants to homeowners who rent out their spare rooms using a qualified home share provider.In a press release, Mayor Keith Wilson said the city is exploring ways to utilize existing housing as part of its ongoing effort to address the housing crisis.“For many Portlanders, home sharing is a win-win solution, helping homeowners to supplement their incomes while providing low-income tenants with affordable housing options,” he...

In California’s notoriously expensive Bay Area, living out of one’s vehicle has increasing appeal. Recreational vehicle (RV) parks, once the domain of seasonal workers and adventurous retirees, now host local residents with full-time jobs aiming to cut costs — by avoiding high housing costs altogether. These days, RV parks are filling up even more with state residents aiming to save cash. Among them are brothers Stefan and Sebastian Goins, who recently made the leap to RV living after six years of rent hikes in their Pleasantville apartment. They drained their savings to buy a $24,000 32-foot long traveling trailer. But...

A proposed Department of Housing and Urban Development rule would crack down on illegal immigrants or unqualified people living in public housing, closing a loophole established amid major departmental reforms under President Bill Clinton in 1996. Current HUD rules allow "mixed-status" households to use public housing under what is called the "do not contend" provision, in which a person living among a public housing family can declare they "do not contend" their HUD eligibility under their immigration status, and the family instead receives prorated housing assistance. The HUD-ineligible family member or members may remain in public housing so long as...

This is a truly Bizarro World story out of deep blue Prince George’s County, Md. Back in December, some 100 families living in the Marylander Condominiums complex were told they would have to leave their homes because the building was deemed “unfit for human habitation.” Last week, a Maryland judge signed a final eviction notice, which could leave many of these families homeless. Why? Turns out that the complex has been besieged for years by a nearby homeless encampment that is “a haven for gangs, drugs, and prostitutes” and has “vaporized property values and caused millions in damage, scaring away...

There's one utterly reliable thing about socialism: It fails, every time it's tried. It may fail on the national scale, like the Soviet Union, or it may fail on the municipal scale, like New York City is in the throes of doing right now. The "democratic socialist" mayor of the Big Apple, Zohran Mamdani, has never seen a commie policy he didn't like.One of those policies is freezing rents in the city. That's already producing predictable results: Landlords are selling out and leaving.When Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor of New York City, he made one promise unmistakably clear: he would...