Housing (Supply Crisis & Public Policy)

A huge problem is that the gov no longer builds public housing after the failures they had before, instead of fixing the problems, they just gave up. Theres no reason they had to be built as projects, but they just gave up and didnt evolve. Lots of US cities havent picked up the slack although new ideas like public banking and the affordable housing commission in Denver are going to be trying new things.

Cities like Vienna have tons of good quality public housing that many people live in and because its cheap it keeps private housing prices down too because people can get cheap good quality housing from the city. Cities own huge amounts of property so they only have to pay for construction costs, then they have hundreds of years to make back money so they dont need to charge ridiculous amounts.

Id love to see Boston take a similar approach and build tons of quality public housing on city land, I think this along with private subsidied affordable housing is the only shot we have to make a dent because what were doing now is not. Theres lots of options out there, but cities just arent trying... yet. I think its time now to try many different ideas. You wont solve a problem with only 1 solution which right now is private subsidies. It will take a multi faceted approach.
 
^ This. There are plenty of public policy options for combating housing prices. It's not so simple as a) rent control, b) rent subsidies, or c) liberalize zoning.

I know this board has a lot of members who are all-aboard for making development more "as of right" by getting rid of, or liberalizing zoning laws, and I'm for that as well! But it goes off the rails for me when that's the only step in the process. The free market is not going to solve our woes. Extreme libertarianism looks fabulous on paper (like its antithesis, communism), but we don't live in a tabula rasa world. We start with what we have and all the societal complications that come with it.
 
tysmith95 said:
Um,128 widening, route 3 widening about 10 years ago.
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There may be a few interchange improvements on I-95/128 coming up 10-15 years from now, but that's it for the future. Too little funds, and metro Boston's legendary provincialism make highway expansion impossible. And to me that's okay. You get far more bang for the buck in transit expansion compared to highway expansion, and far fewer impacts. Unfortunately, even future transit expansion faces a lot of NIMBY blowback, concerns about "crime trains", fear of minorities, etc.
 
stick n move said:
Id love to see Boston take a similar approach and build tons of quality public housing on city land, I think this along with private subsidied affordable housing is the only shot we have to make a dent because what were doing now is not. Theres lots of options out there, but cities just arent trying... yet. I think its time now to try many different ideas. You wont solve a problem with only 1 solution which right now is private subsidies. It will take a multi faceted approach.
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With land at such a premium the last thing that Boston needs to be doing is encouraging people who can barely support themselves to stay in or worse, move to Boston. If anything, there should be a frank discussion on ways to substantially reduce the number of public housing units and the footprint of developments with the goal of replacing them with dense mostly market rate residential developments, especially near transit. Residents who are legitimately unable to provide for themselves due to physical or mental impairment can be re-accommodated either within the new development or elsewhere in the city. I do think there needs to be a safety net for those described above and people experiencing profound setbacks in life but the availability of more cradle to grave public housing isn't the answer.
 
Were not talking about the same thing... at all. Notice I said the us style was a failure and mentioned Vienna. Im not talking about handouts Im talking about reasonably priced housing that normal working people can afford at 30% of the avg salary for the city. Thats whats recommended for avg people to spend on housing so start there. This is part of the problem is people automatically assume section 8 and lottery housing is all that public housing is, thats such an american view. I thought I made it pretty clear, by clearly explaining what I meant, but hey.
 
TallIsGood said:
the landlord owns the property. The tenants lease it they don’t have a right to stay at below market rents.
How about not cutting back every proposed development. Supply will moderate prices but we limit supply and this is the result.
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Whether legal or not, it’s a situation that is extreme enough that it calls for some sort of legal protection. The people in question are elderly citizens living there under Section 8 housing vouchers. There certainly could be legislation put forth to prevent such egregious price increases on Section 8 tenants, while avoiding the larger issue of general rent control for everyone. What the article describes should not be allowed to happen and don’t think simply saying “well it’s legal” or “that’s our system” is useful or justified.

Since my post got moved to the housing thread I will add that I know for a fact that Boston rental agencies screen out using every means necessary anyone holding Section 8, because landlords don’t want them. Don’t ask me how I know but the degree to which this occurs is pretty shocking and disgusting. Essentially, if you’re looking for new section 8 housing and call a rental agency you’re gonna be given the runaround. Completely ILLEGAL, in fact, but happens all the time.
 
With section 8 landlords are guaranteed so much of their rent for each section 8 unit. Definitely helps if the tenants are fiscally responsive. The only problem with section 8 for landlords is what the conditions of said unit is in. Maybe skip sec 8 because of how much money they have to put into their units to update them. It's a safety net for poor/low income people to not be screwed with an unkept/unsafe apartment.
 
My point is that government solutions are fine but putting the entire cost on the landlords is not fair. If money is an issue reduce the costs (monetary, regulatory and otherwise) to build more housing.
 
TallIsGood said:
My point is that government solutions are fine but putting the entire cost on the landlords is not fair. If money is an issue reduce the costs (monetary, regulatory and otherwise) to build more housing.
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Of course. My point is that building more housing will not solve the problem in the short to medium term.
 
stick n move said:
Were not talking about the same thing... at all. Notice I said the us style was a failure and mentioned Vienna. Im not talking about handouts Im talking about reasonably priced housing that normal working people can afford at 30% of the avg salary for the city. Thats whats recommended for avg people to spend on housing so start there. This is part of the problem is people automatically assume section 8 and lottery housing is all that public housing is, thats such an american view. I thought I made it pretty clear, by clearly explaining what I meant, but hey.
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Um, no. We're both talking about public housing projects. You want more of them. In a perfect world I'd like to see fewer of them(at the very least no more) with the goal of rebuilding the ones we have into dense mostly market rate developments with areas set aside for those absolutely requiring public housing and short term vouchers and aggressive job training and personal finanical management programs aimed at allowing the working poor to extricate themselves.
 
George_Apley said:
A stockholder doesn’t get to increase their profits by renting their stock out at increasingly high margins. Obviously people invest in housing as an asset that they expect will earn them money, but landlords are earning money beyond that asset increase by raising rents without necessarily doing anything to justify it.

We all know what capitalism is. But we don’t have to go all in on Gordon Gekko, bullshit. I’m saying that it’s not unreasonable to mitigate that greed with public policy.
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FYI - stockholders of stocks with short interest can rent their stock out at high margins. For example the faux-meat company Beyond Meat is generating 161% in short seller rental revenue to institutions holding the stock: http://www.securitieslendingtimes.com/securitieslendingnews/article.php?article_id=223421
 
Shareholders of BeyondMeat get paid not BeyondMeat. It’s a market. Someone wants to borrow shares and there is a cost for that.
 
George_Apley said:
Of course. My point is that building more housing will not solve the problem in the short to medium term.
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Short term I think they are going to have to encourage people to consolidate. The days of the two or even one person household are coming to an end, here at least.
 
Johnnyrocket891 said:
What does this have to do with housing thread?
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I made an (apparently mistaken) analogy between the stock market and the rental market. TallisGood is playing it out. Guess I'm just not very adept at the "turn money into money" game that I didn't even fathom leasing shares of a company to someone else.
 
jklo said:
Short term I think they are going to have to encourage people to consolidate. The days of the two or even one person household are coming to an end, here at least.
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This has been happening for some time already. Even so, old-stock 3+ bedrooms are designed for family living not "rando- roommate" living.
 
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