Resources on housing policy and homelessness
October 24, 2022 6:23 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for recommendations about resources on housing policy and homelessness. I am especially interested in what can be done at the city level in the USA to make housing more affordable. Also what should be done at various levels to address and prevent homelessness.
As for novel solutions, Boston has come up with these little cabin thingies for the unhoused (the more PC term these days around here), and it's interesting. Boston Globe article here, it's thoughtful. Of course it's all still a clusterfuck, but this is the first action I've seen that isn't all "oh noes you're a bad person for being an addict."
posted by Melismata at 7:11 AM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Melismata at 7:11 AM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
You might be interested in following Planetizen: news roundup more focused around transportation infrastructure but also about housing. There were many emergency housing initiatives in the US during COVID, primary funding came from the federal government, research is now being published about those initiatives.
I work as a nurse case manager for patients who are about 75% homeless. IMHO there are city (and county, where the funds often live) policies that are good - Housing First is a big one - and centralizing intake processes is another good one, IMHO (more controversial) zoning reform to allow much more housing density and reward mixed income housing is a third - but one issue in the US is that when we had robust public housing in the US, the money came from the Federal Government. In the 80s that was vastly reduced, and shifted to a model of basically paying small private landlords (section 8 vouchers) rather than building and mainting the housing ourselves. The real money is at the federal level and without that we will never have enough housing for poor people.
This is a somewhat controversial policy area but if you look at European welfare state models they both build much more housing and maintain their own government-owned stock of subsidized housing. I see that as the solution.
For long time chronically houseless people in my experience we do need to have a good supply of 'supportive' housing environments with onsite nursing, mental health, and personal caregivers.
posted by latkes at 7:12 AM on October 24, 2022 [10 favorites]
I work as a nurse case manager for patients who are about 75% homeless. IMHO there are city (and county, where the funds often live) policies that are good - Housing First is a big one - and centralizing intake processes is another good one, IMHO (more controversial) zoning reform to allow much more housing density and reward mixed income housing is a third - but one issue in the US is that when we had robust public housing in the US, the money came from the Federal Government. In the 80s that was vastly reduced, and shifted to a model of basically paying small private landlords (section 8 vouchers) rather than building and mainting the housing ourselves. The real money is at the federal level and without that we will never have enough housing for poor people.
This is a somewhat controversial policy area but if you look at European welfare state models they both build much more housing and maintain their own government-owned stock of subsidized housing. I see that as the solution.
For long time chronically houseless people in my experience we do need to have a good supply of 'supportive' housing environments with onsite nursing, mental health, and personal caregivers.
posted by latkes at 7:12 AM on October 24, 2022 [10 favorites]
All of this is Toronto-based but here's the United Way's list of reports, which contains some case reports and things like that.
Here's the Homeless Hub.
I would look for similar resources in your area. I've worked in a settlement house-based organization, and recommend looking into those. They may provide access to research but they also often provide on-the-ground volunteer opportunities. The international org is the IFS - here's the website - but in general they are very locally based.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:26 AM on October 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
Here's the Homeless Hub.
I would look for similar resources in your area. I've worked in a settlement house-based organization, and recommend looking into those. They may provide access to research but they also often provide on-the-ground volunteer opportunities. The international org is the IFS - here's the website - but in general they are very locally based.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:26 AM on October 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
I should add - Settlement Houses in general have policy as part of their mandates as well as service delivery - cradle to grave advocacy and support.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:48 AM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by warriorqueen at 7:48 AM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks for all the info so far.
I'd like to clarify that my question isn't meant to be about just homelessness, but housing policy more broadly. In my city, rental rates have increased about 40 percent in two years. So I am also interested in learning about approaches such as loosening planning and zoning and permitting, rent control, training more construction workers, dorms and SROs, limiting short-term rentals such as Airbnb, etc.
(Of course, policies for affordable housing need to be balanced with other progressive priorities, such as the environment.)
posted by NotLost at 8:02 AM on October 24, 2022
I'd like to clarify that my question isn't meant to be about just homelessness, but housing policy more broadly. In my city, rental rates have increased about 40 percent in two years. So I am also interested in learning about approaches such as loosening planning and zoning and permitting, rent control, training more construction workers, dorms and SROs, limiting short-term rentals such as Airbnb, etc.
(Of course, policies for affordable housing need to be balanced with other progressive priorities, such as the environment.)
posted by NotLost at 8:02 AM on October 24, 2022
That's a great clarification - just noting that the United Way reports are not limited to homelessness. Your local Board of Trade may have some resources for you too - here's the TBOT list of resources.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:11 AM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by warriorqueen at 8:11 AM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Check the following twitter accounts:
M Nolan Gray, author and practicing city planner in Los Angeles - talks regularly about the effects of zoning. And the advantages of getting rid of it.
Kevin Erdman Even if you disagree with his housing and rent pricing analysis, he regularly posts charts created by the Feds about the complete dropping off a cliff of construction in the US from the 1970s onwards.
Darrell Owens did a recent substack about renting in Santa Cruz CA as a college student.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:43 AM on October 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
M Nolan Gray, author and practicing city planner in Los Angeles - talks regularly about the effects of zoning. And the advantages of getting rid of it.
Kevin Erdman Even if you disagree with his housing and rent pricing analysis, he regularly posts charts created by the Feds about the complete dropping off a cliff of construction in the US from the 1970s onwards.
Darrell Owens did a recent substack about renting in Santa Cruz CA as a college student.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:43 AM on October 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
Darrel's substacks about Rent Control are also pretty good.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:48 AM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:48 AM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
One term to look up might be zoning reform. So-called "missing middle" housing is illegal to build in vast swaths of many cities. Everything from ADUs (coach houses, granny flats, etc) to 2-6-plexes and mid rises are illegal even if existing housing of that form was once legal and already exists in a given area. Or even when not outright illegal, parking minimums and other zoning and land use restrictions make it all but infeasible to build.
There are cities that are getting rid of single-family zoning or removing parking minimums entirely.
In many cities, just the permitting/approval process and delays alone can be a barrier to new development.
Removing barriers to building both market-rate and affordable housing is only one tiny slice of the solution, but housing production is insufficient in nearly every state and needs to be addressed.
posted by misskaz at 9:04 AM on October 24, 2022 [4 favorites]
There are cities that are getting rid of single-family zoning or removing parking minimums entirely.
In many cities, just the permitting/approval process and delays alone can be a barrier to new development.
Removing barriers to building both market-rate and affordable housing is only one tiny slice of the solution, but housing production is insufficient in nearly every state and needs to be addressed.
posted by misskaz at 9:04 AM on October 24, 2022 [4 favorites]
Allison Arieff has some tweets linking to news articles about zoning - look down the list for the one about SF having needing 7 years to hold a public meetings for 1,200 bus stop curb painting sites, because they are going to remove a parking spot or two at each bus stop, so each site gets a public meeting.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:08 AM on October 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:08 AM on October 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
This series of YouTube videos is really interesting and well presented. The presenter/writer/director is Uytae Lee. The videos are about housing and zoning and the ramifications of policy decisions and so on, and are based out of Vancouver but refer to other cities as well.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 10:33 AM on October 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 10:33 AM on October 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
National Low Income Housing Coalition is consistently good on policy recommendations and I use their work regularly when I teach neighborhood development and housing policy.
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:56 AM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:56 AM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
City level policies, in my opinion, should lean more much more heavily on preservation of existing affordable housing (whether subsidized, public, or 'naturally occurring') than is the current focus on production of new housing. We lose so so so many units of affordable housing due to tear downs, condo conversions, evictions (legal and otherwise), etc etc. HUD has some data on this, here's an oldie but goodie. I'm not teaching a housing class this semester, but I'll look through what I used last year and post some more suggestions here later.
posted by spamandkimchi at 12:02 PM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by spamandkimchi at 12:02 PM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Parking Reform definitely ties into housing policy. The basic premise is that we waste too much public & private land on storing cars. We should instead use it for parks and housing and other things that are more beneficial.
Street papers can be a good source of reporting on homelessness & housing issues. They tend to focus on city/county level policy, since their readership is mostly local. Street Roots in Portland is pretty good, and I think you can find more via the International Network of Street Papers.
posted by sibilatorix at 12:18 PM on October 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
Street papers can be a good source of reporting on homelessness & housing issues. They tend to focus on city/county level policy, since their readership is mostly local. Street Roots in Portland is pretty good, and I think you can find more via the International Network of Street Papers.
posted by sibilatorix at 12:18 PM on October 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
There was an interesting op-ed in the NY Times today about LA's efforts to try to build affordable housing units that seems relevant to your question.
posted by knownfossils at 12:54 PM on October 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by knownfossils at 12:54 PM on October 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
Regarding one potential source of funding: An Analysis of Measure ULA: A Ballot Measure to Reform Real Estate Transfer Taxes in the City of Los Angeles (pdf)
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:13 PM on October 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:13 PM on October 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think Golden Gates: The Housing Crisis and a Reckoning for the American Dream is a great introduction. It has a focus on California, but that's mostly because that's where the problems are starkest. It's by Conor Dougherty who writes on economics (and housing in particular) for the NYT.
One of the reasons I'm recommending this book is that it's relatively even-handed. Reading between the lines (or scanning the headlines of his articles for the NYT), you can tell where his sympathies (rightly!) lie, but he does a good and fair job explaining and contextualizing the opposition to new housing and tenant's rights.
posted by caek at 3:25 PM on October 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
One of the reasons I'm recommending this book is that it's relatively even-handed. Reading between the lines (or scanning the headlines of his articles for the NYT), you can tell where his sympathies (rightly!) lie, but he does a good and fair job explaining and contextualizing the opposition to new housing and tenant's rights.
posted by caek at 3:25 PM on October 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
SPUR has done a lot of research on this specific to the Bay Area, but the ideas are applicable elsewhere. Here's a report on what needs to happen over the next 50 years on housing, according to them.
posted by pinochiette at 4:50 PM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by pinochiette at 4:50 PM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
City level policies, in my opinion, should lean more much more heavily on preservation of existing affordable housing (whether subsidized, public, or 'naturally occurring') than is the current focus on production of new housing.
You can't just put this out there - and say you teach a class on this - yikes -- without the extremely necessary context that affordable housing, by which I assume you generally mean apartments, duplexes, etc are zoned for a very small amount of land (zoning again - if you don't understand a city's zoning you can't make prescriptive recommendations about changing it's social policies) so unless you are also increasing the amount of land zoned for those uses (or loosening zoning so they can mix in other zones) then preserving affordable housing isn't going to happen because the value of the land existing affordable housing is sitting on is increasing in value at a faster rate than peoples' salaries and 401ks.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:45 AM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
You can't just put this out there - and say you teach a class on this - yikes -- without the extremely necessary context that affordable housing, by which I assume you generally mean apartments, duplexes, etc are zoned for a very small amount of land (zoning again - if you don't understand a city's zoning you can't make prescriptive recommendations about changing it's social policies) so unless you are also increasing the amount of land zoned for those uses (or loosening zoning so they can mix in other zones) then preserving affordable housing isn't going to happen because the value of the land existing affordable housing is sitting on is increasing in value at a faster rate than peoples' salaries and 401ks.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:45 AM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks, you've given me a lot to review. I have put a couple of books on my wish list.
posted by NotLost at 9:29 PM on October 25, 2022
posted by NotLost at 9:29 PM on October 25, 2022
Re: evictions crisis, there's a lot of work on this topic on how to prevent evictions through legal measures including the right to counsel.
Re: existing affordable housing, privately owned apartment complexes often were built with some public subsidies. Avoiding the exodus of Low Income Housing Tax Credit units is essential.
Yes, as The Vegetables notes, zoning is a crucial component in this, but upzoning (going from R1 single family residential to multi family or mixed use zoning) is NOT a sure bet to get affordable housing.
posted by spamandkimchi at 3:29 PM on October 26, 2022
Re: existing affordable housing, privately owned apartment complexes often were built with some public subsidies. Avoiding the exodus of Low Income Housing Tax Credit units is essential.
Yes, as The Vegetables notes, zoning is a crucial component in this, but upzoning (going from R1 single family residential to multi family or mixed use zoning) is NOT a sure bet to get affordable housing.
posted by spamandkimchi at 3:29 PM on October 26, 2022
IMHO upzoning is a necessary but not sufficient ingredient in housing policy reform.
In general, housing is an exemplar of the limitations and problems with "local control" when it comes to policies with wide impact. In it's most extreme here in California, voters actually get a say in whether public housing can be built in their communities. Homeowners, whose children's economic stability rests on their ability to re-sell their houses for as much money as possible, have a vested interest in opposing public housing.
Not all urban planning decisions IMHO benefit by being put to a direct vote, at least in the absence of policy changes that socialize harms and benefits of these planning decisions. On the other hand, we don't get a direct vote in whether a freeway is widened or a bus line is discontinued, although life on earth depends on how those decisions go.
posted by latkes at 11:04 AM on October 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
In general, housing is an exemplar of the limitations and problems with "local control" when it comes to policies with wide impact. In it's most extreme here in California, voters actually get a say in whether public housing can be built in their communities. Homeowners, whose children's economic stability rests on their ability to re-sell their houses for as much money as possible, have a vested interest in opposing public housing.
Not all urban planning decisions IMHO benefit by being put to a direct vote, at least in the absence of policy changes that socialize harms and benefits of these planning decisions. On the other hand, we don't get a direct vote in whether a freeway is widened or a bus line is discontinued, although life on earth depends on how those decisions go.
posted by latkes at 11:04 AM on October 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by NotLost at 6:24 AM on October 24, 2022