2017
"Reinventing the Residential Hotel: One Way to Help Solve the Housing Crisis Affecting San Francisco and other American Cities"
FROM Feb 3, 2017
The housing crisis facing San Francisco and many other American cities — driven by changing demographics, a booming economy, and high development costs — may be addressed by creating an alternative to the disappearing residential hotels.
For much of American history, the residential hotel served a vital need, providing basic, market-rate, affordable urban housing. Located in central locations, residential hotels served tens of thousands of people of varied means and backgrounds.
...More"A little hope for a homeless solution: Tiny housing units sprout in the Bay Area"
Nearly two years after a smattering of tiny homes popped up in the Bay Area as a peculiar new way of housing homeless people, the technique is exploding from one end of the region to the other.
...More"SF’s tech-space market is ‘on fire’ — and so are the rents"
In a normal year, the 207,000-square-foot lease that software company Okta recently signed at 100 First St. would be a cause for celebration, an excuse for the city’s economic development staff to issue a press release highlighting all the jobs coming to San Francisco.
...More"Are the young leaving cities?"
The so-called “peak millennial” conjecture. Is it right? What does it mean? Should I care?
Time has published an article, based largely on the research of UCLA demographer Dowell Myers, proclaiming that US cities are hitting “peak millennial.” We’ve beencritical of the peak millennial claims in the past.
...More"As housing costs rise, so does California homelessness, report shows"
Homelessness has shot up in California and elsewhere on the West Coast over the past two years, a federal report said Wednesday, as rising rents and other housing pressures forced more people from the margins onto the street.
...More"For the first time in 7 years, there are more homeless in US"
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The nation’s homeless population increased this year for the first time since 2010, driven by a surge in the number of people living on the streets in Los Angeles and other West Coast cities.
...More"Getting the Most Out of California’s New Affordable Housing Funds [OpEd]"
California’s recently passed Senate Bills 2 and 3 will raise several billion dollars in funding for affordable housing over the next ten years. But the Department of Housing and Community Development estimates we face a current shortfall of over two million units affordable to households traditionally served by these programs.
...More"Go West: Projects are finally rising in long-neglected West Oakland"
(Click here for printable pdf version: https://www.panoramic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Business-Times-Go-West.pdf
Every weekday, hundreds of thousands of riders pass through West Oakland’s BART station on their way to San Francisco. Only a handful get off.
...More
"SF Chinatown tenants protest landlord they accuse of trying to push them out"
More than 100 Chinatown tenants took to the streets Wednesday to protest what they characterize as the latest attempt by real estate speculators to drive out low-income Chinese immigrants and replace them with more affluent renters willing to pay over $1,100 for an 80-square-foot room with no bathroom or kitchen, roughly double what existing residents pay.
...More"What the Housing Market in America Needs Is More Options"
From granny pods to morphing apartments, the future of shelter is evolving
Think about the shape of home. Is it a three-bedroom, single-family dwelling with a scrap of yard? Maybe it’s you and your spouse and your kids—or maybe you share it with a handful of roommates. Or you cram yourself, your bicycle and your cat into a city studio where the rent is, naturally, too damn high.
