Comment by toomuchtodo
6 hours ago
I think it’s almost impossible to build enough housing so everyone can live exactly where they want (unless something drastic happens with regards to policy, capital, construction, etc, think New Deal but targeting housing), but also think it’s entirely possible to have enough housing stock so we don’t have hundreds of thousands of people homeless. I cannot predict what the next few decades look like unfortunately, and how long it will take for demographics to ease housing pressure.
(I cannot speak to Buffalo, but I donate to A Tiny Home For Good, which provides housing for the disadvantaged in Syracuse; I strongly believe their model would scale given appropriate resources, as it relates to homelessness)
https://www.atinyhomeforgood.org/about
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-homeless-people-are-i...
We really screwed the pooch on remote work, which would have made it less important to live in “the hot city” and would have let people live in Toledo or Buffalo if they wanted.
There are multiple categories of homeless people, with some (the most visible ones) choosing what cities they are unhoused in. Seattle (where I live) is never going to be able to house all of them: the more money we throw at the problem (and we spend a lot!), the worse it gets for obvious reasons. It is much easier to solve homeless problems in a city that isn’t a destination due to climate, social services spending, or drug availability. We do lots of tiny home villages here also, they cost around $100k/year/unit to run, which doesn’t make sense, but that’s what the non profits are charging and what the city/county are paying.