Why Is There An Affordable Housing Crisis?

From budget constraints to the time it takes to find partners and make plans, affordable housing can take 3+ years to move from dream to reality. Most people can't wait that long for a place to live.

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#affordablehousing #minnesota #homeownership

[aiahzohar]

Why? Because builders and other interest groups *can't make as much money* on affordable housing as they can on other types. We're *trying* to complicate this to justify fewer regulations on groups that profit from housing.

[jimba]

In San Diego (BLUE CITY: high income professionals) we don’t have a affordable housing problem, we have a nimbyism attitude problem. Every 1M+ single family home neighborhood fights viciously against anything that threatens their comfortable lifestyle. It’s like living in a gated community, without gates. I disregard affordable housing as an “issue” where I live because no one is serious about it. It also feeds into a segment of the homelessness problem. People get real, you’re never going to make housing affordable by making giant sky scrapper pent houses, luxury apartments, and large condominiums the ONLY housing. The answer involves a lot of common sense solutions:

Always focus the question around this question: What exactly does ‘affordable’ housing mean?
1) deregulating (in general) because the incentive system is broken and misaligned
2) be flexible in building materials, size of lots, parking rules
3) yimby attitude (you want your Starbucks barista to do better than just surviving and be financially independent, then be more open minded in what you consider to be housing)
4)build outward
5)eliminate taxes on developing: yes! The people taking a risk to finance and develop the needed houses don’t just have a right to make a profit but are needed to create the wide range of housing that we need.
6) allow the market to determine rent because The government has ZERO money and resources to build and run these communities. When you dig into the details on how cities finance public housing, it is through DEBT. (Housing bonds) The city distorts the market by giving those units below market value to appear like they solved the problem, when all they did was mask it. This is unsustainable and makes the problem worse because with no MARGIN, you don’t have the money to build more! Public housing is obviously a great deal to the lucky person who gets it but it is fools gold. The only way it perpetuates itself is by forcing the tax payer to takes losses. Someone is always paying the cost! All you did was shuffle the liability from the individual to the entire tax base, and all that does it prevent tax dollars to going to higher leverage opportunities like infrastructure
7)if shitty looking condos, apartments, and houses is all a person can afford to pay to build and live in, who are you to tell them they can’t build it?

[housing]

500 square feet studio in Cleveland oh $1300.

[dtm]

Housing problem in Canada is an artificially, man made problem, by the vested interest groups. Canada is the second largest country and only 37.59 million, where as just one state in the US, California, has 39.51 million. People who control Canada do not want to make new housing plots, no new towns, no expansion of cities. Even when there are some scopes to make new hosing plots in the existing cities, they make those places into parks. So that the apartment builders are doing booming business, a non-productive sector. In California. I have seen they are making new housing plots, towns and cities and everybody, starting from the low income group, (except for the lazy trouble making people) have houses to live in. Because of these "controlling people", life in Canada is not comfortable. If one says that then gets: "why do you live here, go back", in the worst situation: "take EI, or welfare". Canada is not a Peoples Republic yet.

I see, many people with creative ideas, small entrepreneurship, business ideas, home business ideas, small/cottage industry ideas, small farm ideas. But they can't do anything because they don't have a place to start. Let me finish by telling you, when I was waiting at a bus stop, in Seattle, WA, a guy was talking to me and when he found that I was from Canada, excitingly said: "Oh, you are from Canada, that country belongs to Queen Elizabeth".

[nthperson]

There is no shortage of affordable housing. What there is a shortage of is affordable land. Our society is plagued by centuries of land speculation and land hoarding. How is this possible. Simple. Land is severely under-taxed everywhere. People can hold onto vacant land for decades because land rarely gets reassessed as land prices are increasing. We need to exempt housing units from taxation. The annual tax on housing equates to a sales tax on housing imposed year after year after year. We need to move to a land-only property tax, the optimum annual tax charged equal to the potential annual rental value of whatever land is held. Doing so will force land onto the market. Owners will have a real financial incentive to bring the land they hold to its highest, best use, or sell to someone who will.

For more information, search on "land value taxation."

[stinka]

The 1BR apartment I pay $935 for in crappy Eastside Payne Phalen area in St.Paul, would only cost $650-$700 in Texas or Georgia. I have a civil service job that pays modestly, but its livable. Rent in the Twin Cities is getting as bad as San Francisco.

[harlow]

Supply and Demand Problem The Rich Demand A Constant Supply Of Middle Class they RIP THEM OFF WITH

[niccolea]

How was the economy not allowing for production?
If that’s where this problem started, than in what ways was the productions limited?

[-Peter-]

If real estate developers and the government really wanted to help the people and the economy, the government would tell the real estate developers that they can no longer sell their homes, their rentals, their apartments or their condos unless they're no longer in business to support the residents but they can continue to build more if they're able to manage the upkeep of their current properties. This would keep the banks and people who are only interested in an investment for a return to stay away and allow the true developers to expand and house the people in need. It would also help to keep prices low and manageable for the developers tenants without the fear of banks or greedy investors raising the price for personal gain. Is this socialism or common sense that should be practiced in any form of governing for the people and by the people? If the government or developers had any morals than this would be standard practice.

[wickedleeloopy]

There asking the wrong questions. Its not a question of why the rent is too expensive. Its a question of why income is too low. This is a workforce & job rate pay issue. Unskilled jobs are undervalued because they are out sourced to 3rd world countries.

[sidserrano]

If people who dont want affordable housing around them I’m pretty sure they prefer the home less being near them

[michaelflinn]

Affordable housing means you settle down in an area long enough to pay off your house. Stop bouncing around in life..