This is the actual problem that the disingenuous "affordable for whomst?" folks are approaching: we have such a screwed up housing market that we wind up spending subsidy dollars on people who make enough that they should be served by the market, then run out of money for the really expensive cases -- people making under 50% AMI or people who need both housing and social services in the same place.
It doesn't help that the means testing process is so onerous that we wind up excluding people in need because we fear someone who doesn't "deserve" it getting a discount. So people like the guy in the article get screwed two ways: he's ineligible for lightly-subsidized housing because he needs more help than that, and even the housing he IS eligible for is scarce and hard to access.
I think the issue is a lot of metro areas tend to take a symptomatic approach to affordable housing. They institute programs and subsidies on the buyer side that enable people to buy or rent homes that they otherwise would be unable to.
At face value it seems good, but underneath they’re just adding more demand to the buy side which boosts housing prices across the board. So housing gets more expensive for everyone at the cost of the people who qualify getting a subsidy.
I’d rather see programs focus on the supply side and making the market more affordable. Reform zoning standards, invest in better public transportation to make living further out more economically viable, fund infrastructure for new developments.
I am a real estate investor. My biggest concern with this one is that no developer is going to put money into creating "affordable" units when for a few grand more at construction time (mostly modest upgrades) they can sell the unit as a luxury unit and demand one or more thousand dollars a month premium over an "affordable" one. Over the lifespan of the unit that's a different of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for a relatively modest investment.
What normally happens is new "luxury" units get built, and people seeking luxury move into them, which leaves previous but now "dated" luxury apartments as the new "affordable." But that cycle takes time, and is also counterbalanced by new populations moving into an area.
Most places that build "affordable" units will only do the absolute minimum to get whatever financial incentive.
Personally from your ideas, I think the investment in public transit is a real essential one.
All evidence shows that building any kind of housing reduces the prices at all levels. The solution is just to build more. Then you can adsorb wealthy renters/buyers as well as people moving.
You don't need subsidies. The problem of housing affordability is almost 100% a government driven problem.
Minneapolis just removed bad regulations. And they saw:
>Researchers examined how the Minneapolis 2040 Plan and the elimination of parking minimums helped usher in a boom in multifamily construction, with the city increasing its housing stock by 12% between 2017 and 2022.
>Average rents increased by only 1% over those five years, per the report. Meanwhile, the rest of the state increased its housing stock by just 4% and average rents went up 14%.
It's not onlt government subsidies for housing that drives up prices (tho the rent charged by section 8 voucher landlords can be raised every year if market rate goes up. This is absorbed by the hud housing authority until they raise it too much and the tenant pays the difference )
AI enabled price managing software drives up prices through sharing prices and suggesting higher vacancies
Exactly! Nobody goes out of their way to build shitty housing. They build housing that targets what the market can pay. Then it ages and eventually becomes shitty housing.
They are building plenty of houses in the PNW, and the building is just as poor as it was 20 years ago.
The plumbing sucks here, and the builds are the bare minimum for most buyers. New builds are not solving anything where I am at. If anything, the homes and units are just sitting here with high prices, but with no buyers.
This points to a problem with YIMBY just build higher policies. Most affordable housing is old stock housing that used to be upscale but now has shifted down in value. Tearing this down to build up generally means these units aren't replaced and what goes in is a 'luxury' shoebox. It probably also replaces a missing middle 3 bedroom with a studio.
Meanwhile prices don't necessarily go down. Manchester for example embarked on the largest housing build out in Europe and rents went up 20%. To get rents to go down you need to build above the 7% natural vacancy rate but in many markets rents are so unaffordable that you'd need close to 14% vacancy and a 40-50% reduction in asking rents. This is obviously not a condition which you're going to be able to finance a new development so any building would dry up before it even neared affordability.
Without rent stabilization how is that going to happen? Landlord's will raise rent regardless because it's incredibly costly of a tenant to move, especially tenants with children in school or jobs nearby.
Having effective supply doesn't automatically stabilize rents. It just gives tenants slightly more bargaining power in an already completely assymetric power relationship. Remember a basic assumption of supply and demand is equal power and both parties being price takers. Conditions which are almost never met in rental markets.
More units relative demand? What are you talking about? If there more units than demand, this problem wouldn't exist, and we wouldn't be talking about this!
You kind of do when you look at the details of how multiunit rental property financing works. Most loans like this have debt service coverage ratios and loan to value limits among other covenants that set a certain rental price based on the cost structure of the loan. The only way you're going to get affordability out of those contracts is:
Radically increase wages
Rent stabilization, vacancy decontrol and tenancy guarantees
Massive defaults in the housing sector
Massive increases in non-market or public housing
Definancialization of housing development (eg public banking )
So if those options you're going to need government for most of them except for the massive default option
Affordable housing is a move to have, but honestly a lot of this of just triage—we’re talking places people will want to move because those places are creating lots of jobs, so if you don’t add net housing, the affordability situation will just get worse
There are many parts in rural America that still see houses built in the $50,000 range per unit. The problem is you would never ever get any of these kinds of units past city council or whatever because they will drive down property prices. Yet in the laissez-faire parts of America you don't deal with neighborhoods where a run-of-the-mill home runs half a million dollars. They will absolutely refuse a bunch of $50,000 homes being built on lots next door to them.
Furthermore, there are incredibly well built very nice homes being sold that are factory built here right in the United States in the $80,000 range. Yet those also are going to be practically impossible to place in any large metro area due to zoning.
The land in a metro area is the valuable part of a home. It doesn’t matter how much the home costs to construct. This is why we need middle and high-rises to increase affordability.
I agree with you except for the "because they will drive down property prices" part. People oppose these things because of their preferences, not because they are laser-focused on property values. The most valuable properties are actually those located in dense urban areas. If you wanted to maximize your property values, you WOULDN'T complain about high-rise apartment buildings going up next door.
This right here bingo. We need to build more housing point blank period. It’s a pure supply vs demand equation issue. Texas is a polarizing state but one thing they know how to do is build housing stock. We keep throwing money at all the wrong programs IMO. We need to spur home building ASAP.
It isn’t really a free market though. It’s heavily regulated by government so the market can’t naturally balance supply and demand, plus the market isn’t suited to providing the infrastructure needed by new housing.
Government has to make sure the infrastructure is there and the regulations support the market supplying enough housing to meet demand.
Building codes, for example, set a pretty hard floor on how much even the most basic house must cost, because every house has an extremely long list of requirements. It's easy to say that this means we provide decent housing for all, and there are some good regulations, but building codes are highly influenced by the largest corporations that manufactuer the goods that go into houses, and by the biggest builders themselves.
This isn’t true for infill housing in cities. Which infrastructure do you meant? If you’re thinking of suburban sprawl and the infrastructure needed for that, the government should not be subsidizing that. That’s unsustainable and not a good use of resources
I mean yes it is. More people means you need more schools, more water, more doctors, more gyms/places to work out, more food, more transportation, etc. It might be more efficient that suburbs but it is still needed and still costs money, and it likely costs more money up front than suburbs too because the land for those things is at a premium and you might have to redevelop things entirely. It pays off long term but it does need that initial investment.
And we start by pulling all of our hundreds of military bases from all over the world, out.
We need to spend our money on our power grid, our water and sewage systems and our roadways. On true, efficient green energy, on efficient mass transit,
For fuck sake people, this is 2026, not 1955. Wake the hell up.
We are the government. If we want to correct the problems, we can. Simply saying "Oh the government says ..." is bullshit. We need to house these people affordably, there is no acceptable debate about if or why we should, only how.
Christ on a cracker people, why is this even a debate?
Of course not, but if we're using the market to allocate housing, desirable areas are always going to expensive. And while we can sort of chip away at that at the edges, there's only so much we can do because the demand will be there such that prices will always be higher than in less desirable places. So if we're about the market, we also have to reconcile the fact that less wealthy people are going to have to live in less desirable locations.
I think that is reconciled, isn't it? I think that's been reconciled since at least Roman times. When I was buying a house my wife and I considered NYC but made a conscious choice against it because of how expensive it is. Also, other people in this comment chain are saying yes, government should assign housing.
Oh, that I don't know. I've never considered that overlap. I've always thought people upset about affordability in certain area are not free market advocates. I haven't looked into data or anything on that, though.
I agree that people upset they are priced out of certain neighborhoods or cities are not free market purists. Because they recognize the free market doesn't solve their particular issue or problem.
Even if "allowed to build as sense as Manhattan" doesn't mean most places would. But clearly any additional development would help, sure.
The larger point is that like it or not, people want to have the right to shape development in their communities and view that as more important than less restrictive private property rights or zoning that would allow more density. I get that a loud contingent online don't agree but that's democracy.
> I get that a loud contingent online don't agree but that's democracy.
In a sense, yes. But the reality looks a lot more like corruption than democracy. A tiny contingency of boomer homeowners understand how to influence local city councils and push through NIMBY policies.
It’s not like these are large ballot initiatives that communities vote on.
Additional, most NIMBY policies that exist today are inherited. They weren’t actually voted on by any living person. We’re starting to see the effects of bad historical policies and have to navigate that reality.
It's not corruption at all. They show up, they vote, they get the ear of their elected representatives. The people disproportionately affected by NIMBYism by and large don't participate, don't vote, don't build coalitions to make change happen.
The rules of the game have long been written and aren't secret to anyone paying attention. If you don't like the rules and don't participate, that's your own problem.
Why? Builders are going to want to build where they can fetch the highest prices, so you will expect more housing in desirable places and less in undesirable places. Usually “desirable” places have lots of jobs so people will be able to justify the higher prices. And then when enough gets built, you can more or less solve the housing crisis.
It’s a supply problem and you can either have the government build it or have private companies compete to build it either way the outcome is the same, more housing
A common theory that doesn't play out that way in the real world, for myriad reasons. Especially in contemporary society. And it's also why there's a housing affordability crisis in virtually every country and most cities. There's very few, if any, places in this world where lower incomes and the poor live affordably.
I don't think that's what matters if you're truly poor though. I think telling them that they have it better than poor people in other countries or from decades previous is particularly tone deaf.
It doesn’t play out because the laws are set up to restrict the free market. The US has way too many zoning regulations that restrict housing such that rent continues to rise. NIMBYs are also quite strong. The solution is to take away local control, like California has done with SB 79, so that new and denser housing can’t be blocked.
It may not make it so that every person has an affordable home at any income, but once you build a shit ton you can then start to figure out how to house the lowest earning and poorest people. Right now not even median earners can afford rent.
But tell me, what other method other than massively densifying works here?
It's not shocking the market is "restricted" by regulations - it's always been that way and always will. There is no purely free market absent regulations. And it's also not shocking incumbents or influential/powerful groups leverage regulations to their advantage. Happens in every single market too.
Okay, but since that won’t happen anytime soon, we have to look at how to make market rate housing buildable today. It can be done, simply make it so local control doesn’t apply and let er rip. Since supply and demand exist it will make housing more affordable than not building any. And the more you build the better it is - the market wants to provide housing, that’s what high prices means, but it is systematically blocked at every level by NIMBYs
The thing is, it doesn’t. When you have a massive apartment complex near you the land value goes up. There’s more value to the land since there’s more demand. They simply don’t want change. It’s really nefarious because they’ll never say that, they’ll just block all attempts at any compromise
Yeah, I think people completely do not understand the motivations of people who object to development projects.
They buy a house they love, in a neighborhood they like, because they like it how it is. Building a giant apartment complex completely destroys their peace and quiet.
Now there's a very good argument that the need to have housing at all for all those people who live in the new complex far outweighs someone getting to keep their neighborhood exactly as it was. But people just ignore the fact that the existing residents' quality of life gets completely destroyed in the process and now they have to live next to a big noisy apartment complex.
You can't logically expect people to not be mad about that, or not try to prevent it.
This is a myth. NIMBYs aren’t trying to protect the value of their property. In fact, building higher density often increases the value of property. Compare a building in Dayton, Ohio with one in Manhattan.
NIMBYs mostly exist because people are afraid of change. That’s really what it comes down to.
a lot of metro areas are cash strapped for one reason or another and don't want to pay for housing and other subsidies for people who may never afford market rents. They're hoping that population will relocate or move in with family so they don't have to deal with it.
You "THINK" this is the issue? Why are you posting your guess? This is a serious problem and random guesses aren't remotely helpful. I have dozens of real solutions, but because I'm nobody, well nobody listens to me. But at least I'm not spouting unsubstantiated guesses.
Meanwhile I work with people who are single mothers, have multiple children (same father), are in Section 8, get Medicaid, food stamps, and are physically and otherwise fully able to work part time but don’t because they don’t want to lose their “benefits.”
I work in a zip code with an average annual household income of less than USD 25,000. I frequently hear similar stories from others.
The system was designed to keep poor people (Black people specifically) on the dole and have the rest of us angry at the “welfare queens”
At the end of the day it’s a supply and demand problem. And really only a supply one because demand for housing, you can’t not have a place to stay. So we just need to build more and figure out why the market isn’t addressing this crisis (hint it’s zoning and NIMBYs)
I've been saying this for years. Minimum square footage requirements and not being able to do some of the home construction yourself is making it expensive.
Austin hasn't completely solved all its problems, it's just moving in the right direction.
People will throw one bucket of water on a house fire, see that it hasn't put the whole fire out, and claim that water obviously doesn't extinguish fire.
When we were looking for a rental a few years ago, you found one that was a bit cheaper than others in the same category but we didn’t qualify for applying because we made too much money (it was part of a low income program).
The thing is, if your income was low enough to qualify, there is no way in hell you should be renting that expensive of a home. It made zero sense. Renting that unit with the required income would 100
Bankrupt you.
That was my experience too. I'm like how are you charging this much rent to people making that little money? The math doesn't math. They make the people applying go through hoops and intense financial scrutiny to get the place but then force people to lie on all of that because there's no way you're affording groceries without another income in the house.
The reason they are doing it is because they don't want those government programs to be taken advantage of. I remember back in ~2015 when I was looking at apartments, there were income restricted units that were going for $800 a month where I was at, but you could only make $40,000 per year, before taxes. For a family of four. There is no way in hell a family of four, grossing $40,000 per year before taxes, is making ends meet. $800 per month would, at the time, be almost half their net take home pay. It's insane. These programs, by design, do not get adjusted for inflation and don't offer a cushion at all for making slightly too much. Same goes for unemployment insurance. It pays such a pittance (barely $1,000 per month in most states) that it is hardly anything to live off of.
I live near a low-income housing apartment complex and I’ve come to realize that the secret a lot of people are dancing around is cash.
On paper (W-2), someone can show $32,000 or less, sometimes with several dependents. That number is often what housing programs, lenders, and neighbors see. Their actual cash coming in can be a lot higher than that W-2, especially if the job is tip-heavy or paid mostly in cash.
That’s the part that makes people say, “How do they have a decent car, new phones, and still qualify for income-restricted housing?”
Low-income housing (fancy tax-credit apartments) uses reported household income against an area limit. Limits vary by city and household size. In my area, “extremely low” for a small household sits under the mid $30ks, and “low” is higher. The application form looks at W-2 wages. What it does not automatically see is cash that never hit a paycheck.
The jobs I hear from the mothers who live there with dependents that can look modest on a W-2 and still print money in a good week:
• steakhouse waitress
• Bartender (sports bars)
• Cocktail waitress
• Hair stylist with rented booth, nail tech, lash tech (cash + Venmo tips)
And 1 Tattoo artist that does cash-based discounts as a side hustle
They are able to get subsidized housing by bypassing W-2, it’s a huge advantage so you can quality with a state’s subsidized Medicaid plan. Free prescriptions etc
When I moved back from a major Midwestern metro in 2016 (after also having spent probably six months in metro Boston on business travel during the years I lived in the Midwest), the typical house might have cost $150k and the typical person might make $15/hr. Rent for a 2BR was in the $700-$800 range most places.
The typical wage might have been $20/hr, but the housing has effectively doubled. Wages are low here. Housing is comparatively high due to retirees seeking tax arbitrage from wealthier areas.
The working class got shafted while carpetbaggers make out well.
Maintenance costs have exploded on homes too. It isn't just that people don't qualify, it's that even if they did qualify, they wouldn't be able to afford to maintain the home.
Mine is on the market hopefully this week or >!next.!<
It's a DR Horton shitbox that is showing issues in year two.
HOA dues are doubling when the association has about six months of dues in reserve. No explanation.
The mortgage servicer screwed up the property tax withholding that led to a payment hike of around $300/month.
Taxes are rising. It's a high tax area locally. It's the Temu version of a nice suburb. Schools aren't great. Incomes are relatively low for what town leadership is trying to do.
A note that was affordable for me in 1/2025 isn't now.
As long as landlords get TAX BREAKS for empty buildings, there is no encouragement to rent them out at affordable prices. Empty buildings should be taxed triple -- then you will see the prices come down. Until then, as more and more people get desperate, more and more will squat -- what other choice will we have under these anti-human political systems?!
"I watch them fight and die, in the name of freedom. They speak of liberty and justice. But for who?"
The answer? For whomst can pay to be free and liberated. If not, be a good slave and join the forever wars to get a chance at Americana, pleb. Or make just enough to be comfortable if possible and die to exposure if not.
We can't just get rid of slavery! It's in the soul of the nation. So, the definition of slave must change. How else to benefit those who control 'freedom'.
It's why Lincoln was so afraid of doing what actually needed to be done to cut out the cancer. Wasn't strong enough, with the death of his child and the nation in tatters. And we continue to pay for it, with this insidious ideology festering and now boiling over to the point the entire world views us as lepers.
As always, economics of America and underclass of slavelike conditions go hand in hand. To benefit the production of the nation. Who turns a blind eye and can then claim they are 'strong and just'.
Sorry America, but playing nice with the slavers. Still got Lincoln shot in the head.
Tell me, when these homeless are scooped up due to a failing system and imprisoned against their will and inevitably forced to do hard labor at <$2 an hour. Like is current and common with prisoners today. Beyond the whip, what is the difference? That is has been replaced with a baton, taser, and pistol?
Even slaves were paid pennies. Fake pennies, but they had the hope of buying their freedom with them. To help with keeping them compliant. Today is just a new kind of freedom. 'Financial', freedom.
It's not lost on me that America proceeded to mint Lincoln's face on, what is effectively a worthless topper currency. Similar to those self-purchase coins.
America continuing to be the world's scariest joke, since 1776.
We had the ownership society under Bush Jr, which tried to lower the ladder and get people into housing who could not have otherwise afforded it. With 20/20 hindsight, we know now that it was a failure. We need to learn lessons from policies like these, or we are doomed to repeat them.
The idea was that housing passively generates wealth, so people just need help getting on board and the market will take it from there.
Except, anyone who has actually owned a house can tell you it doesn’t actually with that way. Your hvac goes down, your roof is damaged by hail, you discover a plumbing leak in your wall, a strong wind storm blows down your fence. You are constantly shelling out unplanned money, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars at a time. Or you get laid off, and suddenly you’re trying to firesell into a downturn before you get foreclosed on.
People who can’t afford housing shouldn’t be wedged into it. It puts them in a precarious position that they are not prepared to handle. The long-term positive benefits of homeownership can be replicated in more liquid assets, which don’t require upkeep, like stocks and bonds. There’s no reason that people _have_ to get on the investment ladder specifically in real estate, even if your goal is to raise up the poor or disadvantaged groups.
As for housing policy itself, I see a lot of people saying the solution is to build more housing. But the system is built to resist that at several levels. This solution is easier said than done.
First, even if you pull out all the regulatory stops, builders still will not build into a glut. They will build when the roi is worth it; and from their perspective, building until prices go down sharply is just self-sabotage.
Second, existing residents are required to sign off on housing development policy, indirectly, through their votes, volunteering, and money. In areas that are mainly renter, like major metropolitan areas, there may be more of an appetite for policies that make housing cheaper and more numerous, catering to lower socioeconomic classes. But in areas that are largely homeowner, there will typically be resistance to it. Homeowners tend to hate this kind of growth. They don’t want to see their real estate values go down, nor do they want to see the traffic build up in their communities. They don’t want people from lower socioeconomic classes in their neighborhoods. They don’t want urban sprawl, construction everywhere, zones where teenagers start to loiter. They don’t want lines to build up at their Starbucks, and wait times to increase at their restaurants. They don’t want a halfway house to be built across the street, or section 8 housing. They don’t want crime or poverty to increase. They want professionals, two-income nuclear families with prestigious careers, and similar people who can afford expensive housing to move in. They don’t want their views and natural areas to become obscured or cluttered with housing. They don’t want their historic architectural feel to be disrupted by modern housing and commercial buildings. They don’t want different politics to enter their voting district. Some of these problems are just imagined, some really happen. But both influence voters at the polls.
Third, when you subsidize housing, you might offset the cost but you simultaneously increase demand. As a result, the subsidy just becomes absorbed in the price increases. In net, subsidies mostly enrich the sellers, not the buyers.
Fourth, when you get overbuilding that threatens vast oversupply, rather than selling these houses piecemeal in a bidding process that could drive down prices by making these properties compete against each other, these properties tend to be sold in bulk to investors. That bypasses the mechanism that would bid prices down. Major developments in general do not tend to let their own properties compete against themselves. Even if there are hundreds if houses available, only a few will be listed at a time. It creates an artificial sense of scarcity, even if there is an oversupply.
These are the kinds of challenges that we face, if we’re trying to increase supply as a mechanism of reducing housing prices. It likely won’t work. It’s a lot more common to resist change and tell people to go elsewhere. Especially if they are Californians or New Yorkers (depending on the coast), who are also seen as bringing in their big city remote wages and driving up the local costs of everything to unaffordable levels.
Jarod, as in kushner Companies, owns 20,000 apartments. Fine and dandy I guess, except that they were just fined over $4 million for unlawfully charging excessive late fees and court costs from 2014-2021.
A pox on him. Just saying.
My low income apartment is 2k+ utilities which I thankfully split with another person.
I have a pretty good professional job making ~1.5 minimum wage but am still considered low income.
We now make over the income limit but we're thankfully grandfathered in. I have no idea how people under the official limit make it work, especially because it seems like most people here have kids.
Low income housing generally doesn't work for "actually" low income people. There's a very narrow band in between being able to afford more income housing and being eligible for it.
As another example, from what I found online studios in my complex are ~1500 (although very nice and much larger than a micro studio).
Someone working full time minimum wage (and most people working minimum wage don't get 40 hrs/week or health insurance) makes ~2500/mo after taxes. Landlords generally want you to make 2.5-3x rent.
I guess I have mostly seen this in NYC and SF, maybe that has an extra letter (VHCOL?). But it’s been a thing in SF at least going back to the early 2000s.
When my ex and I rented an apartment together in 2007, the rent was $1800 a month so the qualifying income was really not that high: $93,000. But a friend just told me he’s paying $5000 a month in upper Manhattan, that’s a minimum income of $260,000. The rent is just too high!
There are buildings in Manhattan where the apartments cost millions to tens of millions and the first ground rule is “no financing,” too.
Of course, all of that is vey much off the topic of affordable housing.
"Mathew Davis, who lives in a homeless shelter in Austin, Texas, would love an apartment of his own. But with the little money he makes donating blood plasma"
How about getting an actual job? Not a fancy job.. but like any job?
Once you reach this point its almost impossible to get hired. No one is interviewing people without a fixed address, access to clean clothes or a shower.
It’s very difficult to get hired for any kind of job if you’re at the point of living in a homeless shelter. The most basic requirements to get hired pretty much anywhere are clean clothes that fit, having reliable access to a smartphone or computer, transportation options, and basic hygiene. None of that is usually possible if you live at a shelter, at least not consistently. You may have offered jobs to homeless people in the past, but you’re one person in the entire world. It’s not realistic to think there are just countless opportunities for work everywhere, because there aren’t.
Okay, and? Like I said, it’s very difficult to find employment without housing. Sure, he probably made bad decisions. Why does that matter at the moment so much to you? How do you know he isn’t trying to find a job? You have no idea. People don’t deserve to be homeless forever just because they made bad decisions in the past.
This applies to loads of people and many of them ARE actively trying to better their current situations, but it’s simply hard to do that if you have nowhere to sleep safely or keep your belongings or shower every day. That’s just reality is all I’m saying. It’s possible, but it takes time and Herculean effort when you’re starting from ground zero.
But see that would require actual effort. If someone can sell plasma for $100/week with zero effort, and have the government give free housing then why bother getting a job? This is how welfare programs perpetuate poverty.
There is a high risk now that a renter will destroy your property, that the renter won't leave the property and you'll have to hire a lawyer or go through an eviction process. If that were streamlined and made easier, the cost to rent would go down.
I mean, this person is 100% correct. This is also why landlords totally discriminate against people they think are low income. When you can’t evict people easily, getting a good tenant is really high stakes.
My buddy rents out his downstairs unit in CA and was telling me all the tricks he uses. It sucks for poor people, but I get why he worries when it might take 1-2 years and cost $100k to get somebody out.
>Portland resident Jaiden Barbee earns around 55% of the area median income and is on waitlists for affordable housing. But, he says, he’d pay more for a market-rate apartment to avoid the lengthy application process.
“I’d rather spend the $200 extra just to get into a place easier that’s wherever I want” and doesn’t have “all these hoops,” he said
>But with the little money he makes donating blood plasma, even a $450-a-month tiny home with no running water and a communal bathroom would be a stretch.
I just stopped there, so the persons only source of income is donating blood plasma...
As much as I get that finding a job is hard sometimes, this is just a bullshit title to actual story.
They can definitely find housing, they just don’t want to live in the areas that are filled with affordable housing and poor people. Guess what, many people living in the “nice” parts of town also wish they didn’t have to spend so much, they’re only spending so much to avoid being around poor people.
Solution to this is make a super affordable low price but very highly plans strictly policed town, not just crime but etiquette. I would 100% choose to live there.
It seems to me like since housing is a right and the right to the best housing goes to the people who can pay more. So the places left vacant are usually the worst to be in causing people to move or delay their access to subpar housing. So even the poorest can’t get into better housing because they are locked out of certain housing by income level and locked in to subpar housing by income level. So the right became a conditional right.
Housing is not considered a right in the U.S. and never really has been.
Practically all U.S. rights are negative rights (outside of the 7th amendment). At their core, they’re not things that citizens are guaranteed, they’re limitations on what exactly the government can do.
That’s not to say the government shouldn’t be making housing available. But guaranteeing that as a fundamental right would be a massive change in the U.S.
I think OP meant that every person has a moral right to housing. Or, in the language of the Declaration of Independence, a natural right to housing. These are supposed to be different from legal rights. e.g. Even if it became illegal to criticize the government, we'd still have a moral or natural right to free speech. The violation of the moral or natural right helps explain why the lack of a corresponding legal right is wrong.
The DOI says we are endowed with natural right to Life, Liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness. Meaning the individual can pursue happiness but it's not a guarantee or a right to achieve happiness. There's nothing in there about housing.
I agree that the moral or natural right to housing isn't in the Declaration of Independence. I just meant the very concept of a moral or natural right is in that document. Sorry for the confusion! I realize now that my original post wasn't worded optimally.
A federal judge just ruled that US citizens do not have a constitutional right to clean water, and we do not have the right to know the truth from the government during a crisis, so yeah, they're happy to let us die in the streets.
Anyway I'm not sure what you're trying to say, sounds like how the market is supposed to work. More income means better housing in more convenient locations.
I wouldn't say people with low income are "locked in" to subpar housing because that implies they can't do anything about it. They can't afford decent housing, but that will change once they manage to increase their income.
But why, what would it do? Countries that consider housing to be a human right still have homelessness.
I assume the idea of declaring it a right is to solve a problem, but what problem does it actually solve?
The solutions are (imo) pretty straightforward, but politically unpopular, you have to build more and more densely which will lower the value of already owned homes and piss off some of your most reliable voters.
Yes but not a right to have exactly equal property with everyone else
That’s impossible, the same house in North Dakota is objectively worse to live in and less valuable than the same house in Beverly Hills
Climate matters and how close you are to cities and infrastructure matters, and obviously the quality of house matters too
Making housing equal is not feasible, we’d have to tear down all the nice houses and build some sort of gradient where homes get nicer the further from better locations you go
Except I have a right to not be forced to labor for you. That is a more fundamental right.
As a result, I have a right to not be forced to build you a house. I have a right to not be forced to labor at something else and then have the proceeds from that taken to pay to build you a house.
Assuming you are an adult, then you are responsible for paying your own way through life.
But clearly people in this thread are saying housing in say, major cities, should be guaranteed because they are more desirable. Why? Can the government choose to put you up anywhere? What if it’s a better deal to put people up in North Dakota?
What if you don’t live in North Dakota? Are you saying the government should also pay to move you, your stuff, and help you find a new job (assuming you have a job that just doesn’t pay enough for housing), etc?
Most "Cheap" housing, at least here in Atlanta, were starter homes that were built 20+ years ago and have had 0 maintenance done to them over the last 20 years.
And therein lies the problem. If you make something extremely cheap or free people don't care about it, won't invest to maintain it, and it falls into disrepair. My house is 40 years old and we work hard to maintain it. A 20 year old house shouldn't be falling apart.
Even if it were, that doesn't mean everyone has a right to the same quality housing. Everyone has the right to bear arms, but a rich person can own and bear a better gun than the poor, and that is not considered a breach of the right.
dtmfadvice | 19 hours ago
This is the actual problem that the disingenuous "affordable for whomst?" folks are approaching: we have such a screwed up housing market that we wind up spending subsidy dollars on people who make enough that they should be served by the market, then run out of money for the really expensive cases -- people making under 50% AMI or people who need both housing and social services in the same place.
It doesn't help that the means testing process is so onerous that we wind up excluding people in need because we fear someone who doesn't "deserve" it getting a discount. So people like the guy in the article get screwed two ways: he's ineligible for lightly-subsidized housing because he needs more help than that, and even the housing he IS eligible for is scarce and hard to access.
Snlxdd | 18 hours ago
I think the issue is a lot of metro areas tend to take a symptomatic approach to affordable housing. They institute programs and subsidies on the buyer side that enable people to buy or rent homes that they otherwise would be unable to.
At face value it seems good, but underneath they’re just adding more demand to the buy side which boosts housing prices across the board. So housing gets more expensive for everyone at the cost of the people who qualify getting a subsidy.
I’d rather see programs focus on the supply side and making the market more affordable. Reform zoning standards, invest in better public transportation to make living further out more economically viable, fund infrastructure for new developments.
dogs_gt_cats | 18 hours ago
> fund infrastructure for new developments.
I am a real estate investor. My biggest concern with this one is that no developer is going to put money into creating "affordable" units when for a few grand more at construction time (mostly modest upgrades) they can sell the unit as a luxury unit and demand one or more thousand dollars a month premium over an "affordable" one. Over the lifespan of the unit that's a different of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for a relatively modest investment.
What normally happens is new "luxury" units get built, and people seeking luxury move into them, which leaves previous but now "dated" luxury apartments as the new "affordable." But that cycle takes time, and is also counterbalanced by new populations moving into an area.
Most places that build "affordable" units will only do the absolute minimum to get whatever financial incentive.
Personally from your ideas, I think the investment in public transit is a real essential one.
Key-Organization3158 | 18 hours ago
All evidence shows that building any kind of housing reduces the prices at all levels. The solution is just to build more. Then you can adsorb wealthy renters/buyers as well as people moving.
You don't need subsidies. The problem of housing affordability is almost 100% a government driven problem.
Minneapolis just removed bad regulations. And they saw:
>Researchers examined how the Minneapolis 2040 Plan and the elimination of parking minimums helped usher in a boom in multifamily construction, with the city increasing its housing stock by 12% between 2017 and 2022.
>Average rents increased by only 1% over those five years, per the report. Meanwhile, the rest of the state increased its housing stock by just 4% and average rents went up 14%.
https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2026/06/25/how-minneapolis-kept-aparment-rents-down
kalidoscopiclyso | 5 hours ago
It's not onlt government subsidies for housing that drives up prices (tho the rent charged by section 8 voucher landlords can be raised every year if market rate goes up. This is absorbed by the hud housing authority until they raise it too much and the tenant pays the difference )
AI enabled price managing software drives up prices through sharing prices and suggesting higher vacancies
Eric848448 | 17 hours ago
Exactly! Nobody goes out of their way to build shitty housing. They build housing that targets what the market can pay. Then it ages and eventually becomes shitty housing.
Either_Reflection_78 | 2 hours ago
They are building plenty of houses in the PNW, and the building is just as poor as it was 20 years ago.
The plumbing sucks here, and the builds are the bare minimum for most buyers. New builds are not solving anything where I am at. If anything, the homes and units are just sitting here with high prices, but with no buyers.
If you own, it’s not a good time to sell.
Erinaceous | 18 hours ago
This points to a problem with YIMBY just build higher policies. Most affordable housing is old stock housing that used to be upscale but now has shifted down in value. Tearing this down to build up generally means these units aren't replaced and what goes in is a 'luxury' shoebox. It probably also replaces a missing middle 3 bedroom with a studio.
Meanwhile prices don't necessarily go down. Manchester for example embarked on the largest housing build out in Europe and rents went up 20%. To get rents to go down you need to build above the 7% natural vacancy rate but in many markets rents are so unaffordable that you'd need close to 14% vacancy and a 40-50% reduction in asking rents. This is obviously not a condition which you're going to be able to finance a new development so any building would dry up before it even neared affordability.
YoohooCthulhu | 15 hours ago
Rents going down isn’t necessarily the goal—preventing rents from rising as dramatically in the future is
Erinaceous | 15 hours ago
Without rent stabilization how is that going to happen? Landlord's will raise rent regardless because it's incredibly costly of a tenant to move, especially tenants with children in school or jobs nearby.
Having effective supply doesn't automatically stabilize rents. It just gives tenants slightly more bargaining power in an already completely assymetric power relationship. Remember a basic assumption of supply and demand is equal power and both parties being price takers. Conditions which are almost never met in rental markets.
YoohooCthulhu | 15 hours ago
Rents have not always risen as rapidly as they have now when there was more units relative to demand
Upstairs_Scholar6269 | 3 hours ago
More units relative demand? What are you talking about? If there more units than demand, this problem wouldn't exist, and we wouldn't be talking about this!
User-NetOfInter | 14 hours ago
You don’t need the government dictating pricing in to have affordable housing.
Erinaceous | 13 hours ago
You kind of do when you look at the details of how multiunit rental property financing works. Most loans like this have debt service coverage ratios and loan to value limits among other covenants that set a certain rental price based on the cost structure of the loan. The only way you're going to get affordability out of those contracts is:
Radically increase wages
Rent stabilization, vacancy decontrol and tenancy guarantees
Massive defaults in the housing sector
Massive increases in non-market or public housing
Definancialization of housing development (eg public banking )
So if those options you're going to need government for most of them except for the massive default option
User-NetOfInter | 13 hours ago
One developer of a 40 unit apartment building couldn’t give a flying fuck about improving the economic welfare of a 100k person city
Upstairs_Scholar6269 | 3 hours ago
Please stop with the cherry picked numbers. This is about builders/owners giving less than a fraction-of-a- fuck about helping people.
Erinaceous | 13 hours ago
Exactly. And the market won't solve this for exactly the same reason
Upstairs_Scholar6269 | 3 hours ago
We aren't talking about individuals buying as much as renting. Try to stay on topic, please.
YoohooCthulhu | 15 hours ago
Affordable housing is a move to have, but honestly a lot of this of just triage—we’re talking places people will want to move because those places are creating lots of jobs, so if you don’t add net housing, the affordability situation will just get worse
Upstairs_Scholar6269 | 3 hours ago
That has to be the least comprehensible explanation. I can't agree or disagree, because it lacks basic understandability.
schockergd | 18 hours ago
Correct.
There are many parts in rural America that still see houses built in the $50,000 range per unit. The problem is you would never ever get any of these kinds of units past city council or whatever because they will drive down property prices. Yet in the laissez-faire parts of America you don't deal with neighborhoods where a run-of-the-mill home runs half a million dollars. They will absolutely refuse a bunch of $50,000 homes being built on lots next door to them.
Furthermore, there are incredibly well built very nice homes being sold that are factory built here right in the United States in the $80,000 range. Yet those also are going to be practically impossible to place in any large metro area due to zoning.
coke_and_coffee | 15 hours ago
The land in a metro area is the valuable part of a home. It doesn’t matter how much the home costs to construct. This is why we need middle and high-rises to increase affordability.
min_mus | 14 hours ago
> The land in a metro area is the valuable part of a home.
Absolutely. Older "tear-down" houses on 0.25 acre (1012 m^2 ) lots in my neighborhood are selling for more than $500k simply for their lots.
schockergd | 11 hours ago
I have pretty small lots with tiny homes that residents love. They were all over my town till the started zoning requirements.
User-NetOfInter | 14 hours ago
We need to remove nonsense zoning and parking requirements so that developers will choose to build what the market demands.
tinbuddychrist | 10 hours ago
I agree with you except for the "because they will drive down property prices" part. People oppose these things because of their preferences, not because they are laser-focused on property values. The most valuable properties are actually those located in dense urban areas. If you wanted to maximize your property values, you WOULDN'T complain about high-rise apartment buildings going up next door.
schockergd | 9 hours ago
I'm just telling you directly what I've been told by neighbors to properties I've wanted to re-develop.
alex114323 | 17 hours ago
This right here bingo. We need to build more housing point blank period. It’s a pure supply vs demand equation issue. Texas is a polarizing state but one thing they know how to do is build housing stock. We keep throwing money at all the wrong programs IMO. We need to spur home building ASAP.
Hacking_the_Gibson | 15 hours ago
Texas has abundant land and those fucking people are willing to drive like two hours one way to a job.
It's a study in masochism.
Super_Mario_Luigi | 18 hours ago
It's all just performative. The market is the market in the end.
jayr114 | 18 hours ago
It isn’t really a free market though. It’s heavily regulated by government so the market can’t naturally balance supply and demand, plus the market isn’t suited to providing the infrastructure needed by new housing.
Government has to make sure the infrastructure is there and the regulations support the market supplying enough housing to meet demand.
dxrey65 | 17 hours ago
Building codes, for example, set a pretty hard floor on how much even the most basic house must cost, because every house has an extremely long list of requirements. It's easy to say that this means we provide decent housing for all, and there are some good regulations, but building codes are highly influenced by the largest corporations that manufactuer the goods that go into houses, and by the biggest builders themselves.
LeagueJealous | 17 hours ago
Yes. 1. No flat roofs. 2. Mustn't be able to hear the toilet flush. Etc. Keeps a lot of "Amazon" homes off the market.
morbie5 | 15 hours ago
> Government has to make sure the infrastructure is there
Yup and that isn't cheap to do either
WellHung67 | 15 hours ago
This isn’t true for infill housing in cities. Which infrastructure do you meant? If you’re thinking of suburban sprawl and the infrastructure needed for that, the government should not be subsidizing that. That’s unsustainable and not a good use of resources
Jscapistm | 12 hours ago
I mean yes it is. More people means you need more schools, more water, more doctors, more gyms/places to work out, more food, more transportation, etc. It might be more efficient that suburbs but it is still needed and still costs money, and it likely costs more money up front than suburbs too because the land for those things is at a premium and you might have to redevelop things entirely. It pays off long term but it does need that initial investment.
Upstairs_Scholar6269 | 2 hours ago
And we start by pulling all of our hundreds of military bases from all over the world, out.
We need to spend our money on our power grid, our water and sewage systems and our roadways. On true, efficient green energy, on efficient mass transit,
For fuck sake people, this is 2026, not 1955. Wake the hell up.
Upstairs_Scholar6269 | 2 hours ago
We are the government. If we want to correct the problems, we can. Simply saying "Oh the government says ..." is bullshit. We need to house these people affordably, there is no acceptable debate about if or why we should, only how.
Christ on a cracker people, why is this even a debate?
Rakatango | 18 hours ago
Which is why a market is an inhumane way of dealing with basic needs
khearan | 18 hours ago
What’s the alternative? The government provides and assigns you a house somewhere?
AthenaeSolon | 17 hours ago
Only when there’s a need. Examples include teachers needing to be within a certain range of the district they serve.
SawNickYouth | 18 hours ago
Of course not, but if we're using the market to allocate housing, desirable areas are always going to expensive. And while we can sort of chip away at that at the edges, there's only so much we can do because the demand will be there such that prices will always be higher than in less desirable places. So if we're about the market, we also have to reconcile the fact that less wealthy people are going to have to live in less desirable locations.
khearan | 17 hours ago
I think that is reconciled, isn't it? I think that's been reconciled since at least Roman times. When I was buying a house my wife and I considered NYC but made a conscious choice against it because of how expensive it is. Also, other people in this comment chain are saying yes, government should assign housing.
SawNickYouth | 17 hours ago
But that's my point. For so called market purists, why also the wailing that people can't afford to live in certain cities?
khearan | 17 hours ago
Oh, that I don't know. I've never considered that overlap. I've always thought people upset about affordability in certain area are not free market advocates. I haven't looked into data or anything on that, though.
SawNickYouth | 15 hours ago
I agree that people upset they are priced out of certain neighborhoods or cities are not free market purists. Because they recognize the free market doesn't solve their particular issue or problem.
coke_and_coffee | 15 hours ago
If we were allowed to build as dense as Manhattan anywhere in the country, then anyone could afford to live VERY close to the most desirable places.
SawNickYouth | 14 hours ago
Even if "allowed to build as sense as Manhattan" doesn't mean most places would. But clearly any additional development would help, sure.
The larger point is that like it or not, people want to have the right to shape development in their communities and view that as more important than less restrictive private property rights or zoning that would allow more density. I get that a loud contingent online don't agree but that's democracy.
coke_and_coffee | 13 hours ago
> I get that a loud contingent online don't agree but that's democracy.
In a sense, yes. But the reality looks a lot more like corruption than democracy. A tiny contingency of boomer homeowners understand how to influence local city councils and push through NIMBY policies.
It’s not like these are large ballot initiatives that communities vote on.
Additional, most NIMBY policies that exist today are inherited. They weren’t actually voted on by any living person. We’re starting to see the effects of bad historical policies and have to navigate that reality.
SawNickYouth | 11 hours ago
It's not corruption at all. They show up, they vote, they get the ear of their elected representatives. The people disproportionately affected by NIMBYism by and large don't participate, don't vote, don't build coalitions to make change happen.
The rules of the game have long been written and aren't secret to anyone paying attention. If you don't like the rules and don't participate, that's your own problem.
WellHung67 | 15 hours ago
Why? Builders are going to want to build where they can fetch the highest prices, so you will expect more housing in desirable places and less in undesirable places. Usually “desirable” places have lots of jobs so people will be able to justify the higher prices. And then when enough gets built, you can more or less solve the housing crisis.
It’s a supply problem and you can either have the government build it or have private companies compete to build it either way the outcome is the same, more housing
SawNickYouth | 15 hours ago
A common theory that doesn't play out that way in the real world, for myriad reasons. Especially in contemporary society. And it's also why there's a housing affordability crisis in virtually every country and most cities. There's very few, if any, places in this world where lower incomes and the poor live affordably.
coke_and_coffee | 14 hours ago
> There's very few, if any, places in this world where lower incomes and the poor live affordably.
This is a truism. That’s exactly how you define poor.
The poor of today live MUCH more comfortably than in the past. That’s what matters.
SawNickYouth | 14 hours ago
I don't think that's what matters if you're truly poor though. I think telling them that they have it better than poor people in other countries or from decades previous is particularly tone deaf.
WellHung67 | 15 hours ago
It doesn’t play out because the laws are set up to restrict the free market. The US has way too many zoning regulations that restrict housing such that rent continues to rise. NIMBYs are also quite strong. The solution is to take away local control, like California has done with SB 79, so that new and denser housing can’t be blocked.
It may not make it so that every person has an affordable home at any income, but once you build a shit ton you can then start to figure out how to house the lowest earning and poorest people. Right now not even median earners can afford rent.
But tell me, what other method other than massively densifying works here?
SawNickYouth | 15 hours ago
It's not shocking the market is "restricted" by regulations - it's always been that way and always will. There is no purely free market absent regulations. And it's also not shocking incumbents or influential/powerful groups leverage regulations to their advantage. Happens in every single market too.
Wingerism014 | 18 hours ago
Yes. Ideally you choose from an array of govt built choices.
WellHung67 | 15 hours ago
Okay, but since that won’t happen anytime soon, we have to look at how to make market rate housing buildable today. It can be done, simply make it so local control doesn’t apply and let er rip. Since supply and demand exist it will make housing more affordable than not building any. And the more you build the better it is - the market wants to provide housing, that’s what high prices means, but it is systematically blocked at every level by NIMBYs
Wingerism014 | 15 hours ago
NIMBYs own the housing market, yeah. Building more housing drives their equity down, so that's why we aren't building: competition is bad for them.
WellHung67 | 15 hours ago
The thing is, it doesn’t. When you have a massive apartment complex near you the land value goes up. There’s more value to the land since there’s more demand. They simply don’t want change. It’s really nefarious because they’ll never say that, they’ll just block all attempts at any compromise
zeezle | 10 hours ago
Yeah, I think people completely do not understand the motivations of people who object to development projects.
They buy a house they love, in a neighborhood they like, because they like it how it is. Building a giant apartment complex completely destroys their peace and quiet.
Now there's a very good argument that the need to have housing at all for all those people who live in the new complex far outweighs someone getting to keep their neighborhood exactly as it was. But people just ignore the fact that the existing residents' quality of life gets completely destroyed in the process and now they have to live next to a big noisy apartment complex.
You can't logically expect people to not be mad about that, or not try to prevent it.
Wingerism014 | 15 hours ago
Which is why market competition doesn't work for housing.
coke_and_coffee | 14 hours ago
This is a myth. NIMBYs aren’t trying to protect the value of their property. In fact, building higher density often increases the value of property. Compare a building in Dayton, Ohio with one in Manhattan.
NIMBYs mostly exist because people are afraid of change. That’s really what it comes down to.
Mirageswirl | 17 hours ago
Yes, that is the only way to ensure that working class people can afford to live in HCOL regions.
khearan | 17 hours ago
Do you trust a Trump-like government to run a program like this?
Mirageswirl | 17 hours ago
There are many governments inside and outside of the US that aren’t run by Trump.
khearan | 17 hours ago
Okay, well we are talking about the US in this post. So this is a state-run program?
Mirageswirl | 17 hours ago
State governments and the federal government post Trump can build and own housing. The Singapore model is one good approach.
Obviously the Trump administration will not be doing anything positive so not really relevant to the discussion.
Jscapistm | 12 hours ago
It is not necessarily bad for government to build housing. Having government assign housing however is a recipe for disaster.
Mirageswirl | 9 hours ago
Every rationed good needs an allocation method ie triage, first come first served, lottery etc.
coke_and_coffee | 14 hours ago
Why should working class people live in HCOL places?
coke_and_coffee | 15 hours ago
Food has never been more affordable. The market for food works just fine, because there’s so little regulation around it.
Upstairs_Scholar6269 | 3 hours ago
The "market" being an owners preset belief in the minimum he will accept. Self sacrifice being anethma to the market.
Some_Conference2091 | 16 hours ago
You are correct.
It's so obvious. I'm surprised that this isn't being implemented.
shruglifeOG | 16 hours ago
a lot of metro areas are cash strapped for one reason or another and don't want to pay for housing and other subsidies for people who may never afford market rents. They're hoping that population will relocate or move in with family so they don't have to deal with it.
Upstairs_Scholar6269 | 3 hours ago
You "THINK" this is the issue? Why are you posting your guess? This is a serious problem and random guesses aren't remotely helpful. I have dozens of real solutions, but because I'm nobody, well nobody listens to me. But at least I'm not spouting unsubstantiated guesses.
OkDragonfruit7262 | 10 hours ago
I’d rather neither because overpopulation is the true driver of all our problems.
zedazeni | 17 hours ago
Meanwhile I work with people who are single mothers, have multiple children (same father), are in Section 8, get Medicaid, food stamps, and are physically and otherwise fully able to work part time but don’t because they don’t want to lose their “benefits.”
I work in a zip code with an average annual household income of less than USD 25,000. I frequently hear similar stories from others.
The system was designed to keep poor people (Black people specifically) on the dole and have the rest of us angry at the “welfare queens”
Expensive-Object-830 | 16 hours ago
The benefits cliff/welfare trap a real problem. Although personally, I’d rather have “welfare queens” than homeless families.
morbie5 | 15 hours ago
> The system was designed to keep poor people
It wasn't. It was designed so that only the people that "really need it" were eligible and the side effect is it can keep people poor.
dtmfadvice | 12 hours ago
(Edit: Apologies if this is off-topic, but...) How do you expect the new Medicaid work requirements to impact your clients?
Because it really looks to me like a lot of low-income families are about to have more paperwork and less health insurance.
WellHung67 | 17 hours ago
At the end of the day it’s a supply and demand problem. And really only a supply one because demand for housing, you can’t not have a place to stay. So we just need to build more and figure out why the market isn’t addressing this crisis (hint it’s zoning and NIMBYs)
LimeDry7124 | 16 hours ago
I've been saying this for years. Minimum square footage requirements and not being able to do some of the home construction yourself is making it expensive.
Antique-Attempt9460 | 15 hours ago
100% Housing near me is SO unaffordable, which feels criminal.
morbie5 | 15 hours ago
> he's ineligible for lightly-subsidized housing
That costs the government a lot less per unit so it makes some sense there might be more of it
BTW Austin was supposed to be a "success story" for housing affordability
dtmfadvice | 15 hours ago
Austin hasn't completely solved all its problems, it's just moving in the right direction.
People will throw one bucket of water on a house fire, see that it hasn't put the whole fire out, and claim that water obviously doesn't extinguish fire.
mattjouff | 18 hours ago
When we were looking for a rental a few years ago, you found one that was a bit cheaper than others in the same category but we didn’t qualify for applying because we made too much money (it was part of a low income program).
The thing is, if your income was low enough to qualify, there is no way in hell you should be renting that expensive of a home. It made zero sense. Renting that unit with the required income would 100 Bankrupt you.
catforbrains | 17 hours ago
That was my experience too. I'm like how are you charging this much rent to people making that little money? The math doesn't math. They make the people applying go through hoops and intense financial scrutiny to get the place but then force people to lie on all of that because there's no way you're affording groceries without another income in the house.
Defiant_Wolf5934 | 6 hours ago
The reason they are doing it is because they don't want those government programs to be taken advantage of. I remember back in ~2015 when I was looking at apartments, there were income restricted units that were going for $800 a month where I was at, but you could only make $40,000 per year, before taxes. For a family of four. There is no way in hell a family of four, grossing $40,000 per year before taxes, is making ends meet. $800 per month would, at the time, be almost half their net take home pay. It's insane. These programs, by design, do not get adjusted for inflation and don't offer a cushion at all for making slightly too much. Same goes for unemployment insurance. It pays such a pittance (barely $1,000 per month in most states) that it is hardly anything to live off of.
ballistic762 | 2 hours ago
I live near a low-income housing apartment complex and I’ve come to realize that the secret a lot of people are dancing around is cash.
On paper (W-2), someone can show $32,000 or less, sometimes with several dependents. That number is often what housing programs, lenders, and neighbors see. Their actual cash coming in can be a lot higher than that W-2, especially if the job is tip-heavy or paid mostly in cash.
That’s the part that makes people say, “How do they have a decent car, new phones, and still qualify for income-restricted housing?”
Low-income housing (fancy tax-credit apartments) uses reported household income against an area limit. Limits vary by city and household size. In my area, “extremely low” for a small household sits under the mid $30ks, and “low” is higher. The application form looks at W-2 wages. What it does not automatically see is cash that never hit a paycheck.
The jobs I hear from the mothers who live there with dependents that can look modest on a W-2 and still print money in a good week:
• steakhouse waitress
• Bartender (sports bars)
• Cocktail waitress
• Hair stylist with rented booth, nail tech, lash tech (cash + Venmo tips)
And 1 Tattoo artist that does cash-based discounts as a side hustle
They are able to get subsidized housing by bypassing W-2, it’s a huge advantage so you can quality with a state’s subsidized Medicaid plan. Free prescriptions etc
Serious-Conversation | 18 hours ago
I'm from a poor, declining city in Tennessee.
When I moved back from a major Midwestern metro in 2016 (after also having spent probably six months in metro Boston on business travel during the years I lived in the Midwest), the typical house might have cost $150k and the typical person might make $15/hr. Rent for a 2BR was in the $700-$800 range most places.
The typical wage might have been $20/hr, but the housing has effectively doubled. Wages are low here. Housing is comparatively high due to retirees seeking tax arbitrage from wealthier areas.
The working class got shafted while carpetbaggers make out well.
Available_Finger_513 | 17 hours ago
Maintenance costs have exploded on homes too. It isn't just that people don't qualify, it's that even if they did qualify, they wouldn't be able to afford to maintain the home.
Serious-Conversation | 17 hours ago
Mine is on the market hopefully this week or >!next.!<
It's a DR Horton shitbox that is showing issues in year two.
HOA dues are doubling when the association has about six months of dues in reserve. No explanation.
The mortgage servicer screwed up the property tax withholding that led to a payment hike of around $300/month.
Taxes are rising. It's a high tax area locally. It's the Temu version of a nice suburb. Schools aren't great. Incomes are relatively low for what town leadership is trying to do.
A note that was affordable for me in 1/2025 isn't now.
SatoshiBlockamoto | 16 hours ago
Selling a brand new house in less than 2 years is a horrible financial decision.
Serious-Conversation | 12 hours ago
What do you do?
Wait for a $30l foundation repair bill with a jackhammer in a living room?
No need to hang onto it because of the sunk cost fallacy.
Unreal-Operator | 16 hours ago
It happening way more than you think. People are getting attacked from all sides. Its madness.
SatoshiBlockamoto | 16 hours ago
People have always and will always make bad financial decisions. It's a big part of the economy actually.
Available_Finger_513 | 13 hours ago
Some people made like 100k doing that the last few years lol
FractalFunny66 | 12 hours ago
As long as landlords get TAX BREAKS for empty buildings, there is no encouragement to rent them out at affordable prices. Empty buildings should be taxed triple -- then you will see the prices come down. Until then, as more and more people get desperate, more and more will squat -- what other choice will we have under these anti-human political systems?!
Tyler10274 | 17 hours ago
"I watch them fight and die, in the name of freedom. They speak of liberty and justice. But for who?"
The answer? For whomst can pay to be free and liberated. If not, be a good slave and join the forever wars to get a chance at Americana, pleb. Or make just enough to be comfortable if possible and die to exposure if not.
We can't just get rid of slavery! It's in the soul of the nation. So, the definition of slave must change. How else to benefit those who control 'freedom'.
It's why Lincoln was so afraid of doing what actually needed to be done to cut out the cancer. Wasn't strong enough, with the death of his child and the nation in tatters. And we continue to pay for it, with this insidious ideology festering and now boiling over to the point the entire world views us as lepers.
As always, economics of America and underclass of slavelike conditions go hand in hand. To benefit the production of the nation. Who turns a blind eye and can then claim they are 'strong and just'.
Sorry America, but playing nice with the slavers. Still got Lincoln shot in the head.
Tell me, when these homeless are scooped up due to a failing system and imprisoned against their will and inevitably forced to do hard labor at <$2 an hour. Like is current and common with prisoners today. Beyond the whip, what is the difference? That is has been replaced with a baton, taser, and pistol?
Even slaves were paid pennies. Fake pennies, but they had the hope of buying their freedom with them. To help with keeping them compliant. Today is just a new kind of freedom. 'Financial', freedom.
It's not lost on me that America proceeded to mint Lincoln's face on, what is effectively a worthless topper currency. Similar to those self-purchase coins.
America continuing to be the world's scariest joke, since 1776.
GurProfessional9534 | 13 hours ago
We had the ownership society under Bush Jr, which tried to lower the ladder and get people into housing who could not have otherwise afforded it. With 20/20 hindsight, we know now that it was a failure. We need to learn lessons from policies like these, or we are doomed to repeat them.
The idea was that housing passively generates wealth, so people just need help getting on board and the market will take it from there.
Except, anyone who has actually owned a house can tell you it doesn’t actually with that way. Your hvac goes down, your roof is damaged by hail, you discover a plumbing leak in your wall, a strong wind storm blows down your fence. You are constantly shelling out unplanned money, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars at a time. Or you get laid off, and suddenly you’re trying to firesell into a downturn before you get foreclosed on.
People who can’t afford housing shouldn’t be wedged into it. It puts them in a precarious position that they are not prepared to handle. The long-term positive benefits of homeownership can be replicated in more liquid assets, which don’t require upkeep, like stocks and bonds. There’s no reason that people _have_ to get on the investment ladder specifically in real estate, even if your goal is to raise up the poor or disadvantaged groups.
As for housing policy itself, I see a lot of people saying the solution is to build more housing. But the system is built to resist that at several levels. This solution is easier said than done.
First, even if you pull out all the regulatory stops, builders still will not build into a glut. They will build when the roi is worth it; and from their perspective, building until prices go down sharply is just self-sabotage.
Second, existing residents are required to sign off on housing development policy, indirectly, through their votes, volunteering, and money. In areas that are mainly renter, like major metropolitan areas, there may be more of an appetite for policies that make housing cheaper and more numerous, catering to lower socioeconomic classes. But in areas that are largely homeowner, there will typically be resistance to it. Homeowners tend to hate this kind of growth. They don’t want to see their real estate values go down, nor do they want to see the traffic build up in their communities. They don’t want people from lower socioeconomic classes in their neighborhoods. They don’t want urban sprawl, construction everywhere, zones where teenagers start to loiter. They don’t want lines to build up at their Starbucks, and wait times to increase at their restaurants. They don’t want a halfway house to be built across the street, or section 8 housing. They don’t want crime or poverty to increase. They want professionals, two-income nuclear families with prestigious careers, and similar people who can afford expensive housing to move in. They don’t want their views and natural areas to become obscured or cluttered with housing. They don’t want their historic architectural feel to be disrupted by modern housing and commercial buildings. They don’t want different politics to enter their voting district. Some of these problems are just imagined, some really happen. But both influence voters at the polls.
Third, when you subsidize housing, you might offset the cost but you simultaneously increase demand. As a result, the subsidy just becomes absorbed in the price increases. In net, subsidies mostly enrich the sellers, not the buyers.
Fourth, when you get overbuilding that threatens vast oversupply, rather than selling these houses piecemeal in a bidding process that could drive down prices by making these properties compete against each other, these properties tend to be sold in bulk to investors. That bypasses the mechanism that would bid prices down. Major developments in general do not tend to let their own properties compete against themselves. Even if there are hundreds if houses available, only a few will be listed at a time. It creates an artificial sense of scarcity, even if there is an oversupply.
These are the kinds of challenges that we face, if we’re trying to increase supply as a mechanism of reducing housing prices. It likely won’t work. It’s a lot more common to resist change and tell people to go elsewhere. Especially if they are Californians or New Yorkers (depending on the coast), who are also seen as bringing in their big city remote wages and driving up the local costs of everything to unaffordable levels.
di2131 | 13 hours ago
Jarod, as in kushner Companies, owns 20,000 apartments. Fine and dandy I guess, except that they were just fined over $4 million for unlawfully charging excessive late fees and court costs from 2014-2021.
A pox on him. Just saying.
ishfery | 12 hours ago
My low income apartment is 2k+ utilities which I thankfully split with another person.
I have a pretty good professional job making ~1.5 minimum wage but am still considered low income.
We now make over the income limit but we're thankfully grandfathered in. I have no idea how people under the official limit make it work, especially because it seems like most people here have kids.
Low income housing generally doesn't work for "actually" low income people. There's a very narrow band in between being able to afford more income housing and being eligible for it.
As another example, from what I found online studios in my complex are ~1500 (although very nice and much larger than a micro studio).
Someone working full time minimum wage (and most people working minimum wage don't get 40 hrs/week or health insurance) makes ~2500/mo after taxes. Landlords generally want you to make 2.5-3x rent.
CormoranNeoTropical | 8 hours ago
In HCOL areas it’s annual income of 52x the month’s rent
ishfery | 8 hours ago
I'm in a HCOL and thankfully it's still 2.5-3x (at least mostly, I'm sure the nicest places have a different standard to keep things "classy").
CormoranNeoTropical | 6 hours ago
I guess I have mostly seen this in NYC and SF, maybe that has an extra letter (VHCOL?). But it’s been a thing in SF at least going back to the early 2000s.
When my ex and I rented an apartment together in 2007, the rent was $1800 a month so the qualifying income was really not that high: $93,000. But a friend just told me he’s paying $5000 a month in upper Manhattan, that’s a minimum income of $260,000. The rent is just too high!
There are buildings in Manhattan where the apartments cost millions to tens of millions and the first ground rule is “no financing,” too.
Of course, all of that is vey much off the topic of affordable housing.
moshennik | 16 hours ago
"Mathew Davis, who lives in a homeless shelter in Austin, Texas, would love an apartment of his own. But with the little money he makes donating blood plasma"
How about getting an actual job? Not a fancy job.. but like any job?
Strong_Weakness2867 | 15 hours ago
>who lives in a homeless shelter
Once you reach this point its almost impossible to get hired. No one is interviewing people without a fixed address, access to clean clothes or a shower.
moshennik | 15 hours ago
that's not true at all.
i own a small business, i have given chances to a number of homeless people who came in asking for work.. unfortunately zero of them worked out.
however the opposite is true.. people who don't want to work end up in a shelter without clean clothes or shower.
honey_graves | 13 hours ago
Yea and my dad works at Nintendo
etTuPlutus | 12 hours ago
Something like 10% of the country owns a small business. Why is this so hard for people to understand.
moshennik | 13 hours ago
i'm very happy for you!
notnatasharostova | 14 hours ago
You yourself are only one life changing accident or illness away from ending up like the same people you look down on.
moshennik | 13 hours ago
it's not one life changing accident away, it's a long series of really bad decisions away..
Wide_Ask6025 | 11 hours ago
Many are foster kids that aged out
moshennik | 9 hours ago
small percentage of the total homeless population.
notnatasharostova | 8 hours ago
You do realize that most homeless people are employed, right?
moshennik | 7 hours ago
you realize you just made up this "fact"?
only about 50% of homeless people held any kind of a job at all within the previous 12 months. Very small fraction had real full time employment.
northman46 | 13 hours ago
What chemicals is he using?
ChickenCesarSlut | 13 hours ago
It’s very difficult to get hired for any kind of job if you’re at the point of living in a homeless shelter. The most basic requirements to get hired pretty much anywhere are clean clothes that fit, having reliable access to a smartphone or computer, transportation options, and basic hygiene. None of that is usually possible if you live at a shelter, at least not consistently. You may have offered jobs to homeless people in the past, but you’re one person in the entire world. It’s not realistic to think there are just countless opportunities for work everywhere, because there aren’t.
moshennik | 13 hours ago
Again, there are a few things in play here
He likely made a large number of really bad life decisions before he ended up where he's now.
We have a vast safety net available in this country for those who are willing to be productive.
People "donating plasma" living in homeless shelters made this choice.. and keep making it every day.
ChickenCesarSlut | 12 hours ago
Okay, and? Like I said, it’s very difficult to find employment without housing. Sure, he probably made bad decisions. Why does that matter at the moment so much to you? How do you know he isn’t trying to find a job? You have no idea. People don’t deserve to be homeless forever just because they made bad decisions in the past.
This applies to loads of people and many of them ARE actively trying to better their current situations, but it’s simply hard to do that if you have nowhere to sleep safely or keep your belongings or shower every day. That’s just reality is all I’m saying. It’s possible, but it takes time and Herculean effort when you’re starting from ground zero.
notnatasharostova | 8 hours ago
"Vast safety net". What a joke.
moshennik | 7 hours ago
well.. In Oregon we spend about $80k/homeless person/year..
may be a joke to you, mr money bags..
SatoshiBlockamoto | 16 hours ago
But see that would require actual effort. If someone can sell plasma for $100/week with zero effort, and have the government give free housing then why bother getting a job? This is how welfare programs perpetuate poverty.
notnatasharostova | 14 hours ago
All this tells me is that you have no idea what it is actually like to live in a homeless shelter.
Voat-the-Goat | 14 hours ago
There is a high risk now that a renter will destroy your property, that the renter won't leave the property and you'll have to hire a lawyer or go through an eviction process. If that were streamlined and made easier, the cost to rent would go down.
honey_graves | 13 hours ago
Easy way to say you’ve never actually lived in a rental
probablymagic | 13 hours ago
I mean, this person is 100% correct. This is also why landlords totally discriminate against people they think are low income. When you can’t evict people easily, getting a good tenant is really high stakes.
My buddy rents out his downstairs unit in CA and was telling me all the tricks he uses. It sucks for poor people, but I get why he worries when it might take 1-2 years and cost $100k to get somebody out.
TXtogo | an hour ago
>Portland resident Jaiden Barbee earns around 55% of the area median income and is on waitlists for affordable housing. But, he says, he’d pay more for a market-rate apartment to avoid the lengthy application process.
“I’d rather spend the $200 extra just to get into a place easier that’s wherever I want” and doesn’t have “all these hoops,” he said
Things poor people say
Low-Car-6331 | 14 hours ago
>But with the little money he makes donating blood plasma, even a $450-a-month tiny home with no running water and a communal bathroom would be a stretch.
I just stopped there, so the persons only source of income is donating blood plasma...
As much as I get that finding a job is hard sometimes, this is just a bullshit title to actual story.
MaudeAlp | 8 hours ago
They can definitely find housing, they just don’t want to live in the areas that are filled with affordable housing and poor people. Guess what, many people living in the “nice” parts of town also wish they didn’t have to spend so much, they’re only spending so much to avoid being around poor people.
Solution to this is make a super affordable low price but very highly plans strictly policed town, not just crime but etiquette. I would 100% choose to live there.
DeathMetal007 | 19 hours ago
It seems to me like since housing is a right and the right to the best housing goes to the people who can pay more. So the places left vacant are usually the worst to be in causing people to move or delay their access to subpar housing. So even the poorest can’t get into better housing because they are locked out of certain housing by income level and locked in to subpar housing by income level. So the right became a conditional right.
Snlxdd | 19 hours ago
Housing is not considered a right in the U.S. and never really has been.
Practically all U.S. rights are negative rights (outside of the 7th amendment). At their core, they’re not things that citizens are guaranteed, they’re limitations on what exactly the government can do.
That’s not to say the government shouldn’t be making housing available. But guaranteeing that as a fundamental right would be a massive change in the U.S.
curiiouscat | 18 hours ago
Just as an anecdote, housing is a right in NYC so there are places in the US where it's considered a right
libsaway | 18 hours ago
Even then, it's not a right in that you can just turn up to NYC, get housed, and if you don't, you can sue the city.
matthewmorgado | 18 hours ago
I think OP meant that every person has a moral right to housing. Or, in the language of the Declaration of Independence, a natural right to housing. These are supposed to be different from legal rights. e.g. Even if it became illegal to criticize the government, we'd still have a moral or natural right to free speech. The violation of the moral or natural right helps explain why the lack of a corresponding legal right is wrong.
SatoshiBlockamoto | 16 hours ago
The DOI says we are endowed with natural right to Life, Liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness. Meaning the individual can pursue happiness but it's not a guarantee or a right to achieve happiness. There's nothing in there about housing.
matthewmorgado | 15 hours ago
I agree that the moral or natural right to housing isn't in the Declaration of Independence. I just meant the very concept of a moral or natural right is in that document. Sorry for the confusion! I realize now that my original post wasn't worded optimally.
PracticalWallaby7492 | 15 hours ago
It's not defined as a right by the US but it is defined as a right by the UN. For all civilized countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_housing
Few-Emergency-3521 | 15 hours ago
I mean, it's "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" vs. "pursuit of property".
Sea_One_6500 | 18 hours ago
A federal judge just ruled that US citizens do not have a constitutional right to clean water, and we do not have the right to know the truth from the government during a crisis, so yeah, they're happy to let us die in the streets.
welshwelsh | 18 hours ago
Since when did housing become a right?
Anyway I'm not sure what you're trying to say, sounds like how the market is supposed to work. More income means better housing in more convenient locations.
I wouldn't say people with low income are "locked in" to subpar housing because that implies they can't do anything about it. They can't afford decent housing, but that will change once they manage to increase their income.
hypatianata | 18 hours ago
It’s a basic human right but a lot of countries like the US don’t seem to care about that.
annehboo | 18 hours ago
It most certainly should be a right.
Flushles | 18 hours ago
But why, what would it do? Countries that consider housing to be a human right still have homelessness.
I assume the idea of declaring it a right is to solve a problem, but what problem does it actually solve?
The solutions are (imo) pretty straightforward, but politically unpopular, you have to build more and more densely which will lower the value of already owned homes and piss off some of your most reliable voters.
Serious_Swan_2371 | 18 hours ago
Yes but not a right to have exactly equal property with everyone else
That’s impossible, the same house in North Dakota is objectively worse to live in and less valuable than the same house in Beverly Hills
Climate matters and how close you are to cities and infrastructure matters, and obviously the quality of house matters too
Making housing equal is not feasible, we’d have to tear down all the nice houses and build some sort of gradient where homes get nicer the further from better locations you go
Hawk13424 | 18 hours ago
Except I have a right to not be forced to labor for you. That is a more fundamental right.
As a result, I have a right to not be forced to build you a house. I have a right to not be forced to labor at something else and then have the proceeds from that taken to pay to build you a house.
Assuming you are an adult, then you are responsible for paying your own way through life.
1-Dollar-Doge-Coins | 16 hours ago
> I have a right to not be forced to labor at something else and then have the proceeds from that taken to pay...
Oh boy, wait until you find out about taxes.
Luffy-in-my-cup | 18 hours ago
Nobody has a right to someone else’s property or labor.
1-Dollar-Doge-Coins | 16 hours ago
> Nobody has a right to someone else’s property or labor.
Not directly, no, but it happens indirectly via taxes, with certain social programs.
SatoshiBlockamoto | 16 hours ago
I think that's his point....
mistressbitcoin | 18 hours ago
Great, I'd like you to build me a mansion for free.
annehboo | 18 hours ago
lol who said anything about mansions?
So people don’t deserve to have housing?
This sub is wild.
mistressbitcoin | 17 hours ago
Equality. I dont want to live in a shantytown when there are mansions.
1-Dollar-Doge-Coins | 16 hours ago
Literally no one is saying "all" or "any" housing should be a right.
khearan | 14 hours ago
But clearly people in this thread are saying housing in say, major cities, should be guaranteed because they are more desirable. Why? Can the government choose to put you up anywhere? What if it’s a better deal to put people up in North Dakota?
1-Dollar-Doge-Coins | 13 hours ago
What if you don’t live in North Dakota? Are you saying the government should also pay to move you, your stuff, and help you find a new job (assuming you have a job that just doesn’t pay enough for housing), etc?
Hawk13424 | 18 hours ago
No able-bodied adult deserves anything that another would have to be forced to provide.
whycarbon | 17 hours ago
libertarian solipsism is a delusion and you live in society whether you accept you do or not.
SawNickYouth | 18 hours ago
I have a right to beachfront property in Malibu.
Super_Mario_Luigi | 18 hours ago
Housing is a right = I like hearing that wherever I want to live, should be given to me, because I want it
JamesLahey08 | 19 hours ago
Housing is not considered a right in the US at least. It should be but it just isn't.
Unkechaug | 18 hours ago
That basically sums up the problem. Shelter is a basic need, yet it’s not a right, and it’s effectively illegal to sleep (or even be in) most places.
Dic3dCarrots | 18 hours ago
Specifically it is not a right in the federal constitution, however. Individual states within the union do confer this right
Available_Finger_513 | 17 hours ago
Most "Cheap" housing, at least here in Atlanta, were starter homes that were built 20+ years ago and have had 0 maintenance done to them over the last 20 years.
SatoshiBlockamoto | 16 hours ago
And therein lies the problem. If you make something extremely cheap or free people don't care about it, won't invest to maintain it, and it falls into disrepair. My house is 40 years old and we work hard to maintain it. A 20 year old house shouldn't be falling apart.
Hawk13424 | 18 hours ago
Housing is not a right. Anything others have to pay for isn’t a right as they have a right not to labor for you.
libsaway | 18 hours ago
Ok, so
I don't think housing is considered a right
Even if it were, that doesn't mean everyone has a right to the same quality housing. Everyone has the right to bear arms, but a rich person can own and bear a better gun than the poor, and that is not considered a breach of the right.
LimeDry7124 | 15 hours ago
Whatever you can afford. And that's the problem in the US. Nobody liked compact pickups with a "wimpy" inline 4 so full-size it is.