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HOW TO SOLVE THE HOMELESS CRISIS AND MAKE HOUSING AFFORDABLE AGAIN
The current direction of homeless and housing policies in California will lead either to an economic crash as the burden of government subsidies and entitlements finally becomes unsustainable, or, perhaps worse, California’s middle class will be utterly destroyed as “inclusive” zoning destroys residential suburbs. Subsidized investors will purchase and demolish detached homes, replacing them with apartments where people will live for free and with no conditions on their behavior. Only the very wealthiest neighborhoods will be able to
afford perpetual litigation to chase away these developers. The incentive for people to work will disappear.
There is an alternative to this
dismal future. Policymakers
can learn from the example
of 1960s California. They can
learn from the mistakes that
were made, of course, but
they can also restore the best
practices that made California
such a wonderful place to live. They may recognize that almost everybody, regardless of ethnicity, aspires to raise families in detached homes in spacious suburbs. Biased surveys that make claims to the contrary omit a crucial opening phrase from the question: “IF you could afford it,” would you prefer to live in a detached home with a yard? That’s a big IF.
Instead of seeding intact neighborhoods with scandalously expensive subsidized housing projects that turn into crime infested drug dens, local authorities should be able to enforce stricter laws against intoxication, vagrancy and petty theft. They should be able to move offenders out of otherwise
CALIFORNIA POLICY CENTER
pleasant neighborhoods and into supervised, inexpensive tent encampments where they can sober up and get put to work. Central planning from Sacramento should not be imposing one-size-fits-all homeless and housing solutions on California’s cities and counties, especially since the “solutions” coming out of Sacramento are just making problems worse.
To solve the housing shortage, which is politically contrived, the laws that are cordoning off California’s cities and only permitting development inside preexisting boundaries must be scrapped. California is not running out of open space, and
claiming that expanding cities causes climate change is a preposterous lie. Deregulate the housing industry, and spend public money on freeways and water projects instead of high speed rail and subsidized housing. Abandoning those boondoggles will free up tens of billions to build new enabling infrastructure.
There is no reason why Californians cannot have the same opportunities that were available to their grandparents, two generations ago. But they need to recognize that “compassionate” policies that only result in increasing the numbers of homeless people, tragically addicted to drugs and crime, is not compassion. And central planning designed to rescue victims of “disparate outcomes” will merely serve to make everyone oppressed, as it destroys the motivation and ability for people to pursue individual achievement.
These are tough realities, but acknowledging them can lead to beautiful outcomes.
“To solve the housing shortage, which is politically contrived, the laws that are cordoning off California’s cities and only permitting development inside preexisting boundaries must be scrapped.”
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