Coronavirus News (101)

America’s Cities Could House Everyone, if They Chose To

Our housing crisis is a symptom of America’s wealth, and its indifference.

......... Tonight, more than half a million Americans will sleep in public places because they lack private spaces. They will huddle in crowded New York City shelters, or pitch tents under highways in Washington, D.C., or curl up in the doorways of San Francisco office towers, or dig holes in the high desert of northern Los Angeles County. ....... The federal government could render homelessness rare, brief and nonrecurring. The cure for homelessness is housing, and, as it happens, the money is available:

Congress could shift billions in annual federal subsidies from rich homeowners to people who don’t have homes

. ......... Government programs focus on palliative care: Annual spending on shelters has reached $12 billion a year ......... Rather than provide housing for the homeless, cities offer showers, day care centers and bag checks. ........ More than 36 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in the last two months; almost

40 percent of workers in households making less than $40,000 a year have lost work

...... in recent decades, wealth and homelessness have both increased ........ The rise of homelessness is often portrayed as a collection of personal tragedies, the result of bad choices or bad luck. But the first law of real estate applies to homelessness, too: Location, location, location. The nation’s homeless population is concentrated in New York, the cities of coastal California and a few other islands of prosperity. ........... While there are roughly 80,000 homeless people in New York on any given night, more than 800,000 New Yorkers — more than 10 times as many people — are scraping by, spending more than half their income on rent. ............. Those who do end up homeless are often those with additional burdens. They are disproportionately graduates of foster care or the prison system; victims of domestic abuse or discrimination; veterans; and people with mental and physical disabilities. Some end up on the street because of addictions; some develop addictions because they are on the street. .............

a $100 increase in the average monthly rent in a large metro area is associated with a 15 percent increase in homelessness

............ Countries confronting homelessness with greater success than the United States, including Finland and Japan,

begin by treating housing as a human right

. ........ Mayor Bill de Blasio’s promise to New York last December “to end long-term street homelessness as we know it” is a classic of the genre; most homeless people in the city live in shelters, not on the street. ...................

Reframing the debate

— asking what is necessary to end homelessness — is an important first step ......... the government annually provides more than $70 billion in tax breaks to homeowners, including a deduction for mortgage interest payments and a free pass on some capital gains from home sales.

Let’s end homelessness instead of subsidizing mansions

............ Without a significant expansion in the supply of housing, adding vouchers would be like adding players to a game of musical chairs without increasing the number of chairs. ....... Market-rate construction can help: More housing would slow the upward march of housing prices. New York and San Francisco are the nation’s most tightly regulated markets for housing construction, and it is not a coincidence that they also are the most expensive. Tokyo, often cited as an international model for its permissive development policies, has expanded its supply of homes by roughly 2 percent a year in recent years, while New York’s housing supply has expanded by roughly 0.5 percent a year. Over the last two decades, housing prices in Tokyo held steady as New York prices soared. ......... the troubled public housing projects of the mid-20th century. They offer one clear lesson: Avoid housing that concentrates poverty. ........

Even if the cost per person were twice as high, the nation’s homeless population could be housed for $10 billion a year — less than the price of one aircraft carrier.

........ there is worse to come. Homelessness rises during recessions, the federal funding is temporary and state and local governments face huge drops in tax revenue. ........ Having failed to address homelessness during the longest economic expansion in American history, the nation now faces a greater challenge under more difficult circumstances. Yet the imperative remains: Everyone needs a home. No one should be left to die on the street......

Addressing homelessness is within our power. The question is whether we are ready to act.