Re Tim Redmond: I am pretty sure he’s the guy who wrote an article in the SF Bay Guardian during the dot-com boom, saying something to the effect of “please do not build more housing, as it will encourage more people to move here, and we can never ever build enough housing to satisfy demand. Therefore we must try to keep people from moving here.” (It’s been decades and my memory is probably faulty, but that is what I remember.)
It’s a truly galaxy brained take, yes, but I’ve seen it from liberal NIMBYs everywhere. Basically, “Where’s my Hukou Policy? People need to learn to bloom where they are planted, and stop moving to [city name]!” Ironically, many of them were newcomers once, but I guess…one of the good ones?
Having briefly lived in Berkeley lo these many decades ago, and in San Francisco for far longer than that, I can absolutely attest that there has been a homeless problem and discussions about it beginning in the 80’s. NIMBYs almost always have to say something along the lines of “It’s Reagan’s fault for closing mental institutions, which is why we have a homeless issue.” Never mind that deinstitutionalization started as a humanitarian movement to free people from “snake pits” on the Left, and that the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act was the work of Democrats.
I also heard that the homeless are but free spirits who *want* to sleep under the open sky. Yes, I know there are a few to whom this applies, but the vast majority of homeless people do want some sort of shelter. That, or “blah blah other states bus their homeless here,” but that’s not really true. Yes, it’s easier to be homeless in the Bay Area compared to, say, Arizona or Minnesota, but the vast majority of unhoused people lived in the state before they lost their housing.
Liberal NIMBYs are just going to have to deal with more housing being built, and their dear little quirky quaint enclaves changing. Which to me sounds a lot more like conservatism. Places change; that’s the nature of cities and towns. It’s not the 70’s anymore, your precious quirky college town IS going to change, just like you’re not driving around in your Chrysler Cordoba with its fine Corinthian leather in the 2020’s.
I’m glad the YIMBYs are winning. “What if that older homeless person is me one day” is not really a groundless fear.
>"but don’t want to admit it because a developer might make money or capitalism won’t be abolished."
Great line, really gets at the heart of much of the issue, in addition to the mentioned not wanting the local area to change.
1. Zero-sum thinking has taken off amoung progressives, leading many to assume that hurting capitalists means helping the poor and that capitalist profits must come at the expense of the poor.
2. The more radical progressives engage in a "shoot the moon" strategy of revolution or bust, so they fight incremental improvements that make capitalism more palatable
I didn't notice you mostly took down moderate takes on homelessness. Mostly just dumb takes on homelessness.
More seriously, I think it depends on the circles people run in. I mainly see moderates/center-left in the YIMBY camp (within the circles I see) and straight-up economics/housing supply/etc denialism within more progressive groups that also throw in stuff about gentrification as minority communities get priced out and pushed out of areas. All while (as you say in your piece) supporting impractical, impossible, or irrelevant (or all of the above) solutions instead. Within the more local community, I don't see center-right or right at all, given their effective non-existence in Bay Area politics. This is obviously anec-data and also just correlation (I certainly know people whose housing/politics alignments are reversed).
However, as for the true population distribution of political alignment to YIMBY/NIMBY, who knows—I certainly don't—given I can only speak from people I encounter in real life and whatever gets served up to me online from social platforms.
San Francisco is its own bizarre political bubble so a lot of whats on the political spectrum depends on the cities in question. Sometimes whoever is better on housing flips mod or prog depending on how deep each side plays to its most radical and absurd corners.
Something else I thought of: we need to bring back the SRO (single room occupancy building, aka “flophouse,” aka “cheap hotel”). No, they are not first-rate housing. And they are not especially nice to be near. *But* they are a LOT, a *hell of a lot*, nicer to be near than a homeless encampment. If we’re talking sheer sanitation - at least SRO’s have a bathroom down the hall for people to flush their waste and wash their hands.
I know there was a lot of cheering as SRO’s were torn down in the name of “improving neighborhoods,” but what people didn’t realize, at least then, was that SRO tenants were not going to go out and find nice apartments, or go live with their families, or just disappear. They are going to camp out on streets and bridges and underpasses and be a lot more of a humanitarian (and public health and safety) issue, not to mention tourists are a lot more wary of homeless camps than SRO’s.
No, SRO’s are not “nice housing” but they are *housing* and they keep people warm, dry, safe(ish) and sanitary. For some people that is about all that can be asked for.
I think SROs are better than nothing and they should not have been torn down. Cities in the 1970s and 1980s should've bought SROs and fixed them up rather than penalizing them out of business or letting motels die. They were certainly cheered on and are the number 1 cause of the proliferation of unsheltered homelessness today.
Agree in general; and, the SROs of old were typically not built with that in mind, but as mid-to-high-class hotels that had filtered down to dirt-cheap by the 70's over decades of high production (of both hotels and permanent housing). Of course we're not going to get that ourselves anytime soon, but we can build public equivalents now and let private housing balloon and start filtering down instead of up.
@darrell - what's your take on the recent pipeline of permitting and building activity in Berkeley? My feeling is that things have changed significantly. We're not all the way there in terms of our ability to move housing through the pipeline fast enough (and town/gown continues to be an issue), but there are more projects in the pipeline in Berkeley than in any other place I can think of in Coastal California.
The Berkeley pipeline is good but its so many decades late and whether it lasts is another issue. Also Berkeley needs to diversify housing stock. The student oriented apts are good but the neighborhoods need to be opened up to new housing as well.
The anti-business radicals running Bay Area Cities also operate under the illusion that Public Housing (rebranded ‘Community Housing’) will be much cheaper for tenants and for the taxpayers because they will eliminate ‘profit’. They imagine ‘profit’ is THE reason housing is so expensive because their ignorance is enormous of how our market system sets prices and allocates scarce resources, such as prime locations. They ignore real operating costs of buildings (note the conditions and budgets of Section 8 properties) and ignore the critical role of hands-on ownership in holding down costs and operating efficiently. For more historical context, see ‘Pruitt-Igoe.'
Re Tim Redmond: I am pretty sure he’s the guy who wrote an article in the SF Bay Guardian during the dot-com boom, saying something to the effect of “please do not build more housing, as it will encourage more people to move here, and we can never ever build enough housing to satisfy demand. Therefore we must try to keep people from moving here.” (It’s been decades and my memory is probably faulty, but that is what I remember.)
It’s a truly galaxy brained take, yes, but I’ve seen it from liberal NIMBYs everywhere. Basically, “Where’s my Hukou Policy? People need to learn to bloom where they are planted, and stop moving to [city name]!” Ironically, many of them were newcomers once, but I guess…one of the good ones?
Having briefly lived in Berkeley lo these many decades ago, and in San Francisco for far longer than that, I can absolutely attest that there has been a homeless problem and discussions about it beginning in the 80’s. NIMBYs almost always have to say something along the lines of “It’s Reagan’s fault for closing mental institutions, which is why we have a homeless issue.” Never mind that deinstitutionalization started as a humanitarian movement to free people from “snake pits” on the Left, and that the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act was the work of Democrats.
I also heard that the homeless are but free spirits who *want* to sleep under the open sky. Yes, I know there are a few to whom this applies, but the vast majority of homeless people do want some sort of shelter. That, or “blah blah other states bus their homeless here,” but that’s not really true. Yes, it’s easier to be homeless in the Bay Area compared to, say, Arizona or Minnesota, but the vast majority of unhoused people lived in the state before they lost their housing.
Liberal NIMBYs are just going to have to deal with more housing being built, and their dear little quirky quaint enclaves changing. Which to me sounds a lot more like conservatism. Places change; that’s the nature of cities and towns. It’s not the 70’s anymore, your precious quirky college town IS going to change, just like you’re not driving around in your Chrysler Cordoba with its fine Corinthian leather in the 2020’s.
I’m glad the YIMBYs are winning. “What if that older homeless person is me one day” is not really a groundless fear.
>"but don’t want to admit it because a developer might make money or capitalism won’t be abolished."
Great line, really gets at the heart of much of the issue, in addition to the mentioned not wanting the local area to change.
1. Zero-sum thinking has taken off amoung progressives, leading many to assume that hurting capitalists means helping the poor and that capitalist profits must come at the expense of the poor.
2. The more radical progressives engage in a "shoot the moon" strategy of revolution or bust, so they fight incremental improvements that make capitalism more palatable
Fantastic editorial, sums up a lot of what needs to be said
I didn't notice you mostly took down moderate takes on homelessness. Mostly just dumb takes on homelessness.
More seriously, I think it depends on the circles people run in. I mainly see moderates/center-left in the YIMBY camp (within the circles I see) and straight-up economics/housing supply/etc denialism within more progressive groups that also throw in stuff about gentrification as minority communities get priced out and pushed out of areas. All while (as you say in your piece) supporting impractical, impossible, or irrelevant (or all of the above) solutions instead. Within the more local community, I don't see center-right or right at all, given their effective non-existence in Bay Area politics. This is obviously anec-data and also just correlation (I certainly know people whose housing/politics alignments are reversed).
However, as for the true population distribution of political alignment to YIMBY/NIMBY, who knows—I certainly don't—given I can only speak from people I encounter in real life and whatever gets served up to me online from social platforms.
San Francisco is its own bizarre political bubble so a lot of whats on the political spectrum depends on the cities in question. Sometimes whoever is better on housing flips mod or prog depending on how deep each side plays to its most radical and absurd corners.
Something else I thought of: we need to bring back the SRO (single room occupancy building, aka “flophouse,” aka “cheap hotel”). No, they are not first-rate housing. And they are not especially nice to be near. *But* they are a LOT, a *hell of a lot*, nicer to be near than a homeless encampment. If we’re talking sheer sanitation - at least SRO’s have a bathroom down the hall for people to flush their waste and wash their hands.
I know there was a lot of cheering as SRO’s were torn down in the name of “improving neighborhoods,” but what people didn’t realize, at least then, was that SRO tenants were not going to go out and find nice apartments, or go live with their families, or just disappear. They are going to camp out on streets and bridges and underpasses and be a lot more of a humanitarian (and public health and safety) issue, not to mention tourists are a lot more wary of homeless camps than SRO’s.
No, SRO’s are not “nice housing” but they are *housing* and they keep people warm, dry, safe(ish) and sanitary. For some people that is about all that can be asked for.
I think SROs are better than nothing and they should not have been torn down. Cities in the 1970s and 1980s should've bought SROs and fixed them up rather than penalizing them out of business or letting motels die. They were certainly cheered on and are the number 1 cause of the proliferation of unsheltered homelessness today.
Agree in general; and, the SROs of old were typically not built with that in mind, but as mid-to-high-class hotels that had filtered down to dirt-cheap by the 70's over decades of high production (of both hotels and permanent housing). Of course we're not going to get that ourselves anytime soon, but we can build public equivalents now and let private housing balloon and start filtering down instead of up.
Great piece, as usual.
@darrell - what's your take on the recent pipeline of permitting and building activity in Berkeley? My feeling is that things have changed significantly. We're not all the way there in terms of our ability to move housing through the pipeline fast enough (and town/gown continues to be an issue), but there are more projects in the pipeline in Berkeley than in any other place I can think of in Coastal California.
The Berkeley pipeline is good but its so many decades late and whether it lasts is another issue. Also Berkeley needs to diversify housing stock. The student oriented apts are good but the neighborhoods need to be opened up to new housing as well.
The anti-business radicals running Bay Area Cities also operate under the illusion that Public Housing (rebranded ‘Community Housing’) will be much cheaper for tenants and for the taxpayers because they will eliminate ‘profit’. They imagine ‘profit’ is THE reason housing is so expensive because their ignorance is enormous of how our market system sets prices and allocates scarce resources, such as prime locations. They ignore real operating costs of buildings (note the conditions and budgets of Section 8 properties) and ignore the critical role of hands-on ownership in holding down costs and operating efficiently. For more historical context, see ‘Pruitt-Igoe.'