2017May
"MicroPAD: Stackable pods could help house homeless in SoCal"
TUSTIN, Calif. (FOX 11) – There’s enough space for a bed, desk and chair, a kitchen with a microwave and refrigerator, as well as a shower, sink and some closets — all in 160 square feet.
These MicroPad units could be the solution to the city’s homeless problem, providing stackable, interlockable, apartment spaces for people otherwise on the streets.
...More"A New Philanthropy Paradigm: Joining Forces to Solve Homelessness in the Bay Area"
Miranda is one of an estimated 7,500 people who call San Francisco streets her home.
...More"Homeless Crisis Intensifies"
Alameda County’s grim homeless count numbers underline the sense residents have had for the past several years: the homeless problem is indeed getting worse.
...More"Reforming land use regulations"
From April 2017
Aguably, land use controls have a more widespread impact on the lives of ordinary Americans than any other regulation. These controls, typically imposed by localities, make housing more expensive and restrict the growth of America’s most succesSFul metropolitan areas. These regulations have accreted over time with virtually no cost-benefit analysis.
...More"Many ideas, little consensus on housing crisis"
Housing panels reveal complex issues at heart of Bay Area’s housing shortage
Everyone seems to agree that the housing situation in the Bay Area has reached a crisis — but what to do about it remains as polarizing as ever.
...More"Doing Something Real About Gentrification and Displacement"
The only thing worse than listening to suburbanites bitch about being stuck in traffic? Listening to local politicians pretend they can actually do something to Make Commutes Great Fast Again.
...More"The NIMBY challenge"
The other day I wrote a Bloomberg View post about how California is waking up to the problem of NIMBYism – development restrictions that limit economic activity and make cities less affordable. Ground Zero for this struggle is the Bay Area, San Francisco in particular.
...More"Return of the S.R.O., With a Twist"
When Benny Ventura, a 25-year-old visual designer from Austin, Tex., moved to New York last September, he knew he would not be making enough to live alone, but he did not know anyone he could split an apartment with. Like countless other freshly minted New Yorkers, he set about looking for a room.
...More"Millennials tell boomers ‘Yes In My Backyard’"
Sacramento, especially the Downtown and Midtown areas, has the fastest rising rents in the country. As the Bay Area’s middle class gets “squeezed out in droves,” as a Newsweek article put it last year, those rents will continue rise.
“I see that increasing supply of housing is one way to combat the really crazy changes that we see in rent,” says Louis Mirante, co-chair of House Sacramento, a new “pro-housing, pro-infil, anti-rising rents organization,” is one of Sacramento’s most active YIMBYs. The movement counters NYMBY-ism, (Not In My Backyard) to support new development of housing through local political involvement.
...More"Here’s how construction worker pay is dominating California’s housing debate"
The union representing construction workers, State Building & Construction Trades Council of California, also known as the Building Trades, is the most powerful group influencing the Legislature’s response to the housing crisis. It has worked to make sure union-level pay, known as “prevailing wage,” is a consideration in any major housing bills.
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