> what happens if they stop being in that category? What happens when the only housing available is for drug addicts and you just happen to be poor?

I agree with your general sentiment that we should build more, but having housing dedicated to those who are having issues (drugs, mental issues, etc) can help break a cycle that may not be broken with simply having more affordable housing. There have been several initiatives that have shown that we can save money on homeless people by simply giving them a place to live for free, and a lot of the benefit comes down to the fact that being homeless exacerbates their issues, the costs of which fall on tax payers anyway.

In some sense, I actually agree with you. But I would like to see the US set a national goal of finding some way to foster the creation of enough low cost, market based housing to house 2 percent of the population.

I don't want it to be poverty housing or The Projects or a Ghetto. I think there are big problems with that. But cost matters and I think we need to find an elegant solution that does this as a market based solution.

It's a hard problem to solve. I am still thinking on it, so I feel this comment is kind of half baked. But, yeah, there are inherent problems with providing people benefits based on having X problem. It tends to entrench that problem and penalize people who are poor for other reasons.

Relax zoning codes for affordable housing developments (e.g. < x% median housing price in area).

A lot of the existing Section 8 / older housing stock that currently serves this purpose isn't in great condition or up to modern codes.

Better to accept some good (the most important modern codes are enforced) than to aim for the perfect and have only million dollar condos built.

Here in the UK a few years ago, it was popular to increase housing supply through "cutting red tape" [1] i.e. deregulating.

Then there was a tower block fire where 71 people died [2] - most of them poor, where it's widely believed the death toll would have been much lower were regulations stricter and better enforced.

As you can imagine, deregulating building safety is no longer an idea politicians are eager to put their name to.

[1] http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20150319093156/htt...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire

Presumably fire safety (I believe it was specifically combustible cladding?) would be one of the "core" regulations not relaxed. Along with similar immediate public health.

I'm not sure how to ask this, but can you give some specifics? Zoning codes vary from place to place. Do you have some sources for how to actually do this?

That's a rather broad suggestion and I feel like it gives me nothing to latch onto. Pretend I'm your mayor. What, specifically, do I need to keep and what, specifically, can I relax?

I am not an architect, although that was a portion of my university work. So I'll give you an unfulfilling answer.

Because codes are arbitrary, and vary from administrative area to area, I'd suggest working by pilot.

Caveat: I'm talking about building codes here. In many places, FAR (floor area ratio) / density / zero lot line zoning codes may be a larger obstacle to generating good, cheap housing.

Design a project that attempts to provide low-cost, safe, bare minimum housing. Then start the approval process. Empower a panel to take notes on what happens and make recommendations on waivers for each issue. And optimize for cost -- including approval time!

Then bring those back to your (the mayor's) desk, and if needed, back to the local populace.

It seems a fair bargain to me: in exchange for quality, cheaper housing (a social good), government agrees to relax less important codes which drive up costs (allowing the developer / builder to make a profit on such housing).

[Soapbox] Part of the issue with deregulation is that it's often done in a top-down, political way (by necessity).

When in reality, the deregulation that matters is infinitely nuanced (e.g. "The local water board wrote a requirement for not more than 20° bends in drainage systems, but by upsizing pipes or using catch basins, the same flow could run up to 70° bends.")

And the only way these things are recognized is through actual projects (e.g. Mr. Steve's).

I don't get the Mr. Steve's reference.

But I actually like your answer overall.

TFA these comments were posted under ;)

https://www.ricksteves.com/about-rick/trinity-place

Oh. Thx.

Rough week.

Np, they happen. :) Happy {insert holiday, if appropriate} wishes!

Excellent question. I'd love to see specifics for areas with very high rents, densely populated areas, etc.

I think the biggest trick is to actually get the "safe and healthy" regulations right, particularly when it comes to ongoing enforcement. There are cities where known unsafe apartment buildings just decay for years because there's no political will to hold the landlords accountable (unsurprisingly, tenants of these buildings tend to be poor and socially marginalized people).

There's also an issue (perhaps encompassing the above) of attracting real estate developers without selling out local government to them. As far as I can tell, they will fight tooth-and-nail for every regulatory concession, tax incentive and taxpayer infrastructure dollar they can possibly get, to the point of funding their buddies' campaigns for mayor/council. I doubt that there's any regulatory regime that's favorable enough to avoid this fight; it's not a matter of giving them enough, it's a matter of what they think they can extract.

Part of that is often rent control, which as a price ceiling directly causes quality drops beyond what people are generally willing to tolerate in exchange for a discount.

Even if rent control raises the risk, it's far from a requirement. These things also happen in cities whose state governments have banned rent control.

That latter case has been an issue. Poor people mixed in with people who have drugs and other issues should not be mixed together, specially poor families -ie kids exposed to all that comes with substance abuse.

An interesting thing I noticed while traveling in Central America is that in the poorest of the poor places on earth, there is no such thing as homelessness really. Anybody can just build a shack anywhere and have some amount of shelter and a place to call home. It’s not what you would call a ‘home’ in the us, but it’s more dignified that sleeping on a street corner in LA.

In lots of places, the poor have a right to exchange comfort, safety, dignity, etc. for other things they value more. In USA, they don't have that right. The artificial constraints that we all face to some extent, hit the poor the hardest.

Then earthquake or something similar comes and those shanty towns burry their occupants. Problem solved.

> what happens if they stop being in that category

Simple: help them to find better, long term housing. Or, other forms of specialized housing.

Let's take the drug addiction example: homeless persons with drug problems can be best helped by first providing them with no-strings-attached, no-conditions housing to get them off the street and into the access of the care system, then once they're back on their feet again get them to addiction treatment and then into ordinary streetworker care. The point is, people in different conditions need different environments - and different care.

I don't think homelessness is normally related to housing crises. Maybe in SV, but not most other places, at least.

I have had a college class on Homelessness and Public Policy through SFSU. As shocking as it seems to be to many people, lack of affordable housing* actually promotes homelessness.

* For clarity's sake, I mean that as literally as possible: lack of housing with a low enough cost, not lack of government sponsored etc housing. Adding this because it has come up on HN in the past as an issue.

> What happens when the only housing available is for drug addicts and you just happen to be poor?

The same thing that happens when the only parking available is reserved for the disabled and you're not disabled?

Difference being that it can seem enticing to ease yourself into a life of heroin or crack, but not so much to break your own legs.