2016September
"Innovate to find solutions for homelessness"
Creating supportive housing with a stackable, prefabricated building system is the most expedient and economical remedy to San Francisco’s homeless crisis. Yet the likelihood of getting these type of buildings built is in doubt. The reason: The city’s desire to house the homeless is often weaker than its willingness to deviate from standard building practices.
...More"White House Bucks Gentry Liberals on Zoning"
The Obama administration is leaning on local governments to resist NIMBY rent-seeking and make it easier for the market to developers to come closer to meeting market demand for new housing. Politico reports:
...More"Reform land use, promote shared growth of new housing"
It is no secret that cities like San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C., face challenges in the availability and cost of housing. But policymakers and economists have increasingly recognized both the role that certain inappropriate land use restrictions play in raising housing costs — not just in major cities but across the country — and the opportunity for modernizing these regulations to promote shared growth.
...More"San Francisco’s Bureaucracy, Unions Stifle Modular Housing For Homeless"
Kositsky’s line may be the quintessential one in defining San Francisco’s radical and counter-productive politics. It isn’t enough that a project will provide hundreds of units for the homeless at half the cost; it also must solve various other societal issues unrelated to homelessness.
Anyone who has visited San Francisco, and stepped even a block off the beaten path, knows of its homeless problem. The city has an estimated 6,700 street people—the 2nd-highest per capita in the nation—and 1,500 of these are chronically homeless, often dwelling amid the drugs and violence of the Tenderloin district.
...More"A bold homelessness solution worth exploring"
What do you think about hundreds of new units of housing for the homeless built in just six months at no upfront cost to the city?
I think it is an idea worth exploring – but I need your help to break through the politics at City Hall.
Perhaps you saw the story in the Chronicle on Sunday. It outlined several plans to take a city property and use it to create modular micro homes dedicated to getting homeless people off the street. These units can be built in less time and at a lower cost than traditional housing.
"The Impact of Supportive Housing on Surrounding Neighborhoods: Evidence from New York City"
From November 2008
Supportive housing is a type of affordable housing that provides on-site services to people who may need support to live independently. Residents may include formerly homeless individuals and families, people with HIV/AIDS or physical disabilities, young people aging out of foster care, ex-offenders, people with mental illness or individuals with a history of substance abuse.
...More"Even homeless housing is hard to build in SF"
It’s not just difficult to get housing built in San Francisco. It’s even difficult to get homeless housing built in the city.
...More"Tiny apartments for homeless hit snags over labor, land"
San Francisco’s homelessness director wants them. A local developer is hot to build them, academics love them, and unions are open to the idea.
...More"What San Francisco Says About America"
“…Yet somehow I was unprepared for the scale and severity of homelessness in San Francisco.”
…Well-dressed tourists sharing the pavement with vaguely human forms inside cardboard boxes.
I’m confounded how to explain to my two children why wealthy society allows its most vulnerable citizens to languish on the streets.”
San Francisco — AFTER more than 27 years abroad, mostly as a foreign correspondent in Asia covering civil unrest and poverty, I wander the streets of this city, my new home, like an enchanted tourist.
...More"Can U.S. Cities Compensate for Curbing Sprawl by Growing Denser?"
The U.S. population is projected to continue growing for decades to come, reaching 400 million circa 2050. Accommodating more people at current living standards will require many new homes, but how will cities deliver such housing? Must they continue expanding outward to provide enough housing, as they have done historically, or will densification within the existing footprint do the trick?
...More
