#34 Musings from the Bunker (Friday May 21)
Greetings,
Good morning!
Homelessness continues to be the greatest problem facing our state at the moment. Certainly there are longer-term issues that pose a greater risk to our collective future, like climate change, the scarcity of water, the persistent and ever-increasing number of wildfires, and the increased burdens on our electrical grid, with insufficient increase in clean-energy sources. Add to that the absurdly large prison population and the ticking time-bombs of underfunded pension funds at the state and local level. And all of this must be paid for. But the issue that shows the moral decay and lack of our collective responsibility for the health and safety of our fellow man has to be the homelessness crisis.
I am not going to suggest for a minute that providing housing will solve the endemic problems of a community, a high proportion of which suffers from mental illness and/or substance abuse. But a roof over one’s head is a start. There still need to be jobs, mental health services, and other social services.
Beyond the argument that homes aren’t enough, there are several major arguments against providing housing. Many of those who claim to support more housing for the homeless will also respond in the next breath with the problems:
There isn’t any place to put it
It’s too expensive and time consuming to build it
People don’t want it. This is the one that will require political will and risk-taking (something our leaders are not prone to do). But we need to all accept that more affordable housing must be built, some of it near to where we live. That so much money is earmarked for use in producing housing and that we have voted via initiative to tax ourselves to provide more housing (through the issuance of bonds) and yet much is unspent is a crime.
The environmental impact is too great
What we really need is more mental health support (that’s of course true…)
Yet it still must be built—project by project. Here are a few observations against some of the chief arguments against specific projects:
THERE’S PLENTY OF SPACE
A few weeks ago, I noted the availability of housing units and places to construct housing units. I cited the American Jewish University student housing but, as we enter a period of declining demographics of college-age kids, more such units will become available. I also cited the criminally under-utilized Veterans Administration property in West L.A. But there are others.
Remember the vacant land in Boyle Heights that was designated for affordable housing? Well, the neighbors have successfully blocked it and the land still stands unutilized, surrounded by chain link fence.
There’s space in Beverly Hills. But rather than build higher-end multi-family housing (remember that any housing that is added frees up housing elsewhere), we are building more office.
San Francisco is buying-up not only run-down motels, but also boutique hotels. Adaptive re-use is increasingly a tool to address under-utilized real estate. The New York Times’s Sunday Business Section of April 18 ran a great article on this, “One Way to Get People off the Streets: Buy Hotels.”
Baltimore also has gotten into the act of buying up hotels, as noted by Renee Marlin Bennett:
https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-baltimore-homeless-hotels-purchase-20210421-o6azm5bexbhi3lbih2xvqgs6ay-story.html
Jon Brandler highlights another place that could be used:
“On Wednesdays I ride with a group of guys on the coastal bike path from Santa Monica to Hermosa Beach (for lunch) and back. Last week while riding past the west end of LAX I saw the vacant properties (appx. 800 homes were razed in the late ‘60’s) that I have passed so many times before. This time I thought – “That’s the perfect spot for a proper ‘city’ for the homeless.” I’m curious why this have never been discussed. There are no immediate “NIMBYs) nearby to complain and there must even be some infrastructure that could be renovated.”
For more on this interesting story of a city that “disappeared”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palisades_del_Rey,_California and https://www.lakata.org/arch/surfridge/
THE RULES ARE UNDULY COMPLEX (PERHAPS BY DESIGN?)
The pathway to building affordable housing is fraught and complex, as Samantha Millman notes:
“When it comes to the long timeline and high cost of homeless housing, many signs point to the mess of financing and tax credits developers must cobble together to build their projects (the same is true for affordable housing). There is an entire industry of consultants who make their living navigating the world of low income housing finance, and it contributes significant soft costs to projects.
Homelessness and affordable housing go hand-in-hand. LAHSA’s homeless count in 2020 revealed that while 207 people exited homelessness every day, another 227 people per day fell into homelessness. 2/3 of people who became homeless that year were experiencing homelessness for the first time. These numbers are pre-pandemic. If we cannot turn off the spigot of people falling into homelessness, we will never solve our crisis.
We need a “kitchen sink” approach to housing affordability. More funding, entitlement streamlining on all kinds of projects, elimination of parking requirements on certain market-rate projects, tenant protections, developer incentives (base and bonus programs for inclusion of on-site affordable set asides), more supply of market rate housing, and increased zoning capacity, living wage issues, etc. I could talk about this all day.”
THEN THERE ARE MAGIC BULLETS THAT CAN STOP ANY PROJECT IN ITS TRACKS—CEQA AND LITIGATION
Before Jerry Brown began his second stint as Governor of California, he famously spoke about how, when he was Mayor of Oakland, he saw first-hand how the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which he advocated for and signed into law when he first was governor, can be misused to prevent development of projects—many of which serve a public good. Affordable housing is regularly prevented by the invocation of a law that is far too overbroad and overreaching than its original intent.
As Ken Kahan notes:
“Regarding housing in general……Yes, at the core it’s nimbyism combined with lack of political will…. to change zoning and laws that create impediments to housing such as CEQA... and the manipulation of CEQA to delay change as long as possible.
Well intentioned politicos in Sacramento have tried numerous times to implement the necessary CEQA changes only to be stymied by other state legislators afraid of:
a) their shadows (and more specifically their local constituencies who are nimbys to the core)
b) the environmental groups who initially pushed for CEQA and
c) the construction trade unions who will do anything to keep “good paying jobs” even if there are insufficient contractors to do the non-union work (numerous articles written about these folks including: https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-needs-more-affordable-homes-this-union-stands-in-the-way-11618660801.”
Steve Fink provides an example of this at work: “With respect to affordable housing, the regulatory schemes and ability for environmental groups, including groups formed solely to stop a project, make it nearly impossible to build affordable housing. The Newhall Land company had a 50,000 affordable home project in the Saugus/Newhall area. They battle environmentalists for 21 years before they received a permit, and then another environmental group sued. This time the judge was not kind, noting that every imaginable issue and then some was already addressed and thus after 22 years the entitlements were awarded. But, after 22 years of legal fees, consulting fees, cost of carry etc, little of the project will turn out to be affordable housing.”
CEQA is a great example of the law of unintended consequences. What began as a good faith attempt to minimize the impact on the environment by development, it now is used as a weapon to kill any deal where those against possess money, time and lawyers.
JUST PLAIN SELFISHNESS
Let’s be clear that a big reason there isn’t more affordable housing is that few people seem to want the housing anywhere near them. Ken Kahan quite correctly notes that it is “blue states” and “blue voters” (sometimes referred to as “limousine liberals”) who often are the biggest problem, utilizing CEQA and any other political influence available to them:
“The result of these laws (and manipulations) has created an outrageous result for a blue state… discrimination against minorities and the poor who cannot afford a nice place to rent or own, send their kids to a good school, etc. The truth is that bleeding heart liberal thinkers turn conservative not-in-my-back-yarders when pressed to increase density and housing. Simply take a look at Marin County which is often exempted from many proposed CEQA changes to “protect the environment”. The truth is that red states with a lack of such zoning restrictions creates more housing equality and subsequent benefits to the poor and minorities who happen to be poor.”
BUT IT’S NOT JUST HOMELESSNESS
Glenn Raines notes the importance of an integrated plan:
“Parallel to the LA homelessness effort needs to be integrative mental health services. A good portion of the mentally ill homeless won’t want to live in a modified Red Roof Inn, or go into a facility where they face “rules.” Their personal issues go far beyond a land use fix.”
And Steve Fink points out the greater problems that society must address:
“The problems are deeper than land use. With respect to the homeless, politicians like causes and issues, not solutions for the most part. The PRI, did a detailed analysis of the homeless in the Bay Area and much to the chagrin of the politicians found that around 70% of the homeless were mentally ill or mentally damaged by drugs…Building homeless shelters has not proved successful with the mentally ill, and often they have refused to remained “sheltered.” Malibu did a similar study conducted by the sheriffs, since they pretty much know all the homeless and at that time there was one economic based homeless person and the others mentally ill or drugged out. Solving the issue required different solutions for different problems, including mental health facilities, most of which were progressively shut down 20-30 years ago.”
THE LAST WORD ON THE POLITICIANS
From Steve Fink, “In a world of polarized politics, rational compromise is in short supply. I am reminded of the comedian Lewis Black’s comment about politics, ‘The Democratic party is the part of bad ideas; the Republican party is the party of no ideas.”
Our work is cut out for us. More on homelessness in the next several days.
Have a great weekend,
Glenn