Affordable housing

[Lauxa]

Throughout human history, many people have lived in very small dwellings. But it seems like these days most urban dwellings are pretty big but there are a lot of homeless people who can't afford shelter at all. What is keeping developers from building small affordable housing units? What are some of the best examples of low-income housing?

I recently saw this article in the Houston Chronicle about some nice low-income housing developments in that city:
Houston charity: Nice low-income housing stabilizes lives | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

What a great thing.

Maybe we just need more developers and funding that aren't in it for profits? It seems like a lot of wasted dollars from less helpful social services could be diverted to projects like this with a great return. Something like this is good because you can help the people who need it in a safe and uplifting way.

This would be something I would be interested in getting involved with. Thanks for sharing!

[lifetimelearner]

here in Ga there are apartments where the rent is based on your income
but the waiting list is outrageous so there really needs to be more of these


on a side note I saw a couple interviewed on tv last night and they were living in a 48,000 square foot house all by themselves
and I asked myself why ?

cause they can I guess

sad

[funchy]

Did you see the low-income housing made of shipping containers?
Shipping containers could be 'dream' homes for thousands
There was an even better story with photos, but I can't seem to locate it.



The problem though is who should fund this? Developers don't build what is not profitable.



In the big city near where I grew up the government built low-income people a huge community of affordable housing. Sadly within a few years it was covered in graffiti, had boarded up windows, and wasn't safe to walk. The government kept throwing money at it, fixing up the trashed units and trying to keep police on the streets. Finally it got so bad, the buildings were condemned and the whole project abandoned. Oddly the same propertly was gutted and resold as "luxury condominiums". Today the same buildings in the same neighborhood is exclusive and thriving!?

Poverty isn't just about income but about culture, education, values, family structure, and other factors.

[handle]

Where I am from in Canada we have an increasing amount of homeless people. They keep tearing down the so called affordable housing to build new projects. They call some of these new projects affordable housing...I don`t know about you but there is no way I could afford to pay the average rent of $1000 a month (for lets, lets face it, not much room & not a great neighbourhood) on my own, especially being a single parent. & the rents just keep going up.

[Lauxa]

I also remembered something else I read a while ago about "tent cities" for the homeless, so at least they can have a place to set up a home base and keep their stuff. Here's one link:

Tent cities rise across the country - Life- msnbc.com

The homelessness problem is one that really interests me because it's hard for me to see why any person should have any more right to a piece of land than any other person.

[ar81]

Originally Posted by Lauxa

Throughout human history, many people have lived in very small dwellings. But it seems like these days most urban dwellings are pretty big but there are a lot of homeless people who can't afford shelter at all. What is keeping developers from building small affordable housing units? What are some of the best examples of low-income housing?

I recently saw this article in the Houston Chronicle about some nice low-income housing developments in that city:
Houston charity: Nice low-income housing stabilizes lives | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

It is time to go back to the caves. They are still free of mortgages...

[Lauxa]

Originally Posted by ar81

It is time to go back to the caves. They are still free of mortgages...

I doubt it, they're all private property just like everything else.

[cookie5]

Lauxa, I notice big houses on smaller blocks. So you go to work in a box and come home to your box to sleep? crazy! We build roads buildings underground tunnels etc and still do little for or nothing for the homeless? I'm confused too.

[lifetimelearner]

Originally Posted by cookie5

Lauxa, I notice big houses on smaller blocks. So you go to work in a box and come home to your box to sleep? crazy! We build roads buildings underground tunnels etc and still do little for or nothing for the homeless? I'm confused too.

I am confused too

[Lauxa]

Well, for instance, I thought maybe part of the problem is building codes. Perhaps because we have such high requirements for the structures that can be developed it is actually keeping people out of homes. These homes might not be great, but it has to be better than sleeping under a bridge??

But I don't really know much about such things or how cheaply a single-person or single-family residence can be constructed...

[ns123]

I often hear of some cause, and some one asks why don't [insert anyone besides myself] do something about it?

If this is such an important issue to you, why don't you do it? Why don't you go work for Habitat of Humanity every single day and build affordable housing for the poor? Why do you still go to your job every day and come home to your comfortable house?

Your reasons for not doing something about this is probably the same reasons the owners of development companies have for not doing something about it. Companies are made of people too.

If this issue is so close to your heart, why don't you do something about it? Why do you have to wait for X,Y,Z to do something?

Me, this issue is not close to my heart, so I choose to do nothing about it.

[Lauxa]

I did some work with Habitat for Humanity in college. A little. On weekends. Right now I have 2 young children and they are my top priority. Although this is an issue close to my heart, but I am somewhat in the mode of trying to understand the causes and the best course of action. For instance, someone mentioned to me that our city has several warehouses owned by the city that go unused that could be set up to shelter the homeless. What is stopping this from happening? They would need a little funding for security and the will to make this available.

Also, I am not sure that donating my time to Habitat is the best way for me to make an impact. It seems that getting rich might make much more impact than the value of my menial labor? I also think that the causes may be more political and not able to be attacked by direct labor, maybe by hiring lobbyists and donating to political campaigns?

[ns123]

Originally Posted by Lauxa

Also, I am not sure that donating my time to Habitat is the best way for me to make an impact. It seems that getting rich might make much more impact than the value of my menial labor?

Well, one view of this statement could be, wow, you are just some greedy person who does not care about the poor. Another view of this statement would be, you're right, helping out the poor in this way may not be an effective way for you to make an impact.

If you can view the reasons for your decision to not help the homeless in this way as non-greedy, you can take the same view for the housing developers who you say are greedy, but are also making the same decision as you.

In other words, if your reasons for not helping in this way is not greedy, others who don't also help the homeless in this way should not be seen as greedy either.

[sk8joyful]

sigh, why does it dbl. post

[sk8joyful]

Originally Posted by Lauxa

there are a lot of homeless people who can't afford shelter at all. What is keeping developers from building small affordable housing units? What are some of the best examples of low-income housing?

Houston charity: Nice low-income housing stabilizes lives | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

that link said: 404 Error , no such article

[Lauxa]

Um... except that I never said housing developers were greedy??

Let's take a look at the OP:

What is keeping developers from building small affordable housing units? What are some of the best examples of low-income housing?

If you can shed any light on these questions, I'd be glad to hear it.

I have taken up a little research project to look into some of these issues myself. Here's a page of links I am going through:

The Campaign for Affordable Housing

(Guess what? Most of these organizations want monetary donations.)

Here's a line from America's Affordable Communities Initiative - HUD that I think may be an accurate description of some of the problems:

Over the years, HUD has found that regulations such as out-of-date building codes, duplicative or time-consuming design review or approval processes, burdensome rehabilitation codes, restrictive or exclusionary zoning ordinances, unnecessary or excessive fees or taxes, extreme environmental restrictions, and excessive or "gold-plated" land development standards, all contribute to higher housing costs and production delays.

For middle-income individuals such as teachers, firefighters, police officers, nurses, service sector employees and others, barrier removal is an integral component of meeting their housing needs. By reducing development costs by as much as 35 percent through the removal of affordable housing barriers, millions of American families will be able to buy or rent suitable housing that they otherwise could not afford.

I also like this page, which includes a gallery of some of the best-designed affordable housing in the country:

Affordable Housing Design Advisor

And I have been doing some research on what my city (Austin) is doing to incentivize affordable housing development.

Also to clarify, I would like to see more affordable housing available to EVERYONE, not just the poor, because I feel that tying up so much of our wealth in large homes (that then also need to be maintained) is counter-productive. I did not realize when I first posted that "affordable housing" refers specifically to units rented at below market value through subsidies.

Here's another interesting link I found:

Federation of American Scientists :: Overview

It's the FAS Building Technologies Project to research inexpensive, safe, and environmentally friendly building strategies. Pretty cool stuff.

[Lauxa]

sorry, I kept getting server too busy errors... maybe I can delete the other ones...

[Lauxa]

Originally Posted by sk8joyful

that link said: 404 Error , no such article

Looks like it's moved into the archives, here's the new link, hopefully it will stay valid for a while:
Chron.com | News, search and shopping from the Houston Chronicle

[ns123]

Lauxa,

I apologize, you are right, you never said they were greedy. I just got that tone from reading the thread in its entirety - not necessarily your specific post.

And it was aspiring who brought up the developers, not you. I was just introducing the point that the developers (who are also people) are probably not doing anything about homelessness for the same types of reasons each and every one of us are not doing anything about it either.

There is a solution for homelessness - and I don't believe it's providing affordable or free shelter. If you've ever worked with people in poverty (or the "poor") you will see that many times, their situations were chosen through action or inaction. (and I'm not talking about children and the disabled here)

[Lauxa]

OMG, I just watched this video from TED talks and was so inspired and blown away. If you're interested in this issue, you should definitely watch this!

YouTube - Cameron Sinclair: TED Prize wish: Open-source architecture to house the world

[Lauxa]

Here are a couple more videos I found with two very different approaches to this problem (urban vs. rural/suburban setting).

YouTube - Cohabitation: Low income housing for Dubai
YouTube - Recycled Houses

@Funchy: here's a cool video on apartments in London made from shipping containers. According to the video the rent is $80-$100 a month.

YouTube - Shipping Container Homes by Container City

Here's the Container City web site:
Container City™ | Home

[Lauxa]

I had the pleasure to meet a local real estate developer the other day so I asked him what he knew about affordable housing or alternate building materials. He told me that in here in our city (Austin) there was an organization called Mobile Loaves and Fishes started by Alan Graham who has dedicated his life to helping the homeless. This man was planning to build a whole subdivision of affordable housing in south Austin, he had gotten the land and designs and much of the materials donated. But the nearby neighborhood associations objected and the whole thing got held up in red tape in city hall such that it never materialized.

So even though our city council has been putting out calls for affordable housing developments and is even apparently willing to help subsidize some of the development, the regulations and red tape and opposition from other neighborhoods are so oppressive that very little of substance has been done about the problem.

The developer also told me that he had considered helping Graham with this project, but it would have been a 50 hours a week unpaid position. Not an easy thing to take on....

I watched a video about homelessness the other day, which had a quote something like this:

"To be homeless is to wander in a hostile world full of fences and rules, never stopping because stopping is against the rules. The whole of society is structured in such a way to make poverty as unpleasant as possible such that people become willing to do passionless soul-destroying work so as to escape into their boxes surrounded by other people who are hiding in their own boxes."

[ar81]

The mechanism of wealth distribution of capitalism is employment.
Employment goes down because of financial crisis, unemployment pushes people to accept lower wages, then people do not have money to face debts and they lose their homes.
It is a failure in the distribution of wealth, triggered by banks.
If banks were nationalized, the cause of production of toxic assets is gone, and it will never fail because of a financial crisis.

As long as banks are not nationalized US is vulnerable to another crisis.

Costa Rica had nationalized banks since 1948, and a primitive and small stock market. Also, US exported inflation to Costa Rica for years and they suffered buying power loss, and made workers cheaper. Nowadays unemployment in Costa Rica is 4.5% and in US it is 9.4% because of that. Raise of unemployment was very small.

[Lauxa]

So I had the idea today that one solution might be to set up a business where people sleep in very small pods, but not as a home, more as a discount motel. If the price were cheap enough, it might enable some homeless to at least get out of extreme weather and occasionally have a safe bed and shower.

I mentioned this to a friend and found out it is already being done... in Japan! Not marketed to the poor, more to the business class who doesn't want to bother commuting or is too drunk or whatever. But check this out:

Capsule hotel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From what I read, these capsule hotels charge $25-$50 per night.

[Lauxa]

Ooh, check it out, China managed to build one that is even more affordable, importing the capsules from Japan.

Shanghai Capsule Hotel Opens, But Would You Stay There? (PHOTOS)

[NDN Scholar]

What about the possibility of cheap-housing neighbourhoods turning into urban ghettoes? It happens quite a bit. There's a lot of cheap houses around here, but they're all in the "hood." Making that sort of area your home is an awful, awful life.

PS: I'm not pretending I know anything about the economics of housing, but I just thought I'd throw my thoughts out there. Peace.

[StacyT]

Originally Posted by Lauxa

The homelessness problem is one that really interests me because it's hard for me to see why any person should have any more right to a piece of land than any other person.

I'm going to have to come back when I have more time and read this thread, but I agree so deeply with this. Why does all land have to be owned? If it;s not owned by an individual, then the country just claims it. Why can't someone put up a small house with their own two hands on a piece of land and grow veggies and whatnot? Ethically it just seems wrong.

[russianrocket]

Originally Posted by NDN Scholar

What about the possibility of cheap-housing neighbourhoods turning into urban ghettoes? It happens quite a bit. There's a lot of cheap houses around here, but they're all in the "hood." Making that sort of area your home is an awful, awful life.

PS: I'm not pretending I know anything about the economics of housing, but I just thought I'd throw my thoughts out there. Peace.

You hit it right on the nose. It will happen. You create a place like that, and it will turn into a cesspool in no time. If you want cheap housing, go to Detroit. Go live in a trailer park. There is an abundance of cheap housing in this country, and if you look at Detroit, people don't even wanna live there! You can buy a house there for a couple grand. Hell, look at this!
Mayor Pushing Police To Live In Detroit « CBS Detroit

[Lauxa]

Maybe you are right and making cheap housing available just attracts lazy potentially violent people. Industrious people can afford to live in nicer neighborhoods, and so they do. It makes me feel sad though.