Abundance Isn't Going to Happen Unless Politicians Are Scared of the Status Quo

Re:Abundance Isn't Going to Happen Unless Politicians Are Sc... by legitster on Thursday March 27, 2025 @02:14PM (#43496339)

> invest tens of millions of public dollars every year into new public housing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-room_occupancy

An SRO costs 25% as much to build as a studio apartment.

The real obvious solution is to take all of the money we are pumping into "long-term" affordable housing options into basically just dormitories. If it's good enough for college students, it should be good enough for anyone looking to get off the streets.

I think people really underrate how much of a knock-on affect there would be if we built enough SROs to meet demand. It would essentially establish a housing "floor" in any housing market, and undercut the ability to rent-seek up the rest of the housing market.

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Re:Abundance Isn't Going to Happen Unless Politicians Are Sc... by TulliusCicero on Thursday March 27, 2025 @02:29PM (#43496536)

Yeah, I think form factors like this should be part of the answer. But part of it has to be getting costs down for regular apartments too. It's not uncommon to see that even non-profit orgs take 400k or 500k per 1br apartment in a building in major cities, which is just crazy.

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Re:Abundance Isn't Going to Happen Unless Politicians Are Sc... by s1artibartfast on Thursday March 27, 2025 @03:33PM (#43497216)

Oakland was looking at 800k for half size shipping containers retrofitted into single room studios with windows.

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Re:Abundance Isn't Going to Happen Unless Politicians Are Sc... by legitster on Thursday March 27, 2025 @04:28PM (#43497802)

Shipping containers are a huge red flag that a project is a gimmick.

People have this mistaken idea that there are a ton of shipping containers that need to be recycled (there was a brief period in the mid aughts where this may have been true). But a used shipping container is neither cheap nor a great material to build a home from.

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Re:Abundance Isn't Going to Happen Unless Politicians Are Sc... by ty6853 on Thursday March 27, 2025 @06:17PM (#43498837)

Last I checked you could get a 20 ft container for what, 6 grand? That's 160 sq ft. And you need a foundation. And to frame inside for insulation. If you go Amish style without mains power you could finish out a kacynziski sized studio for under 20k.

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Re:Abundance Isn't Going to Happen Unless Politicians Are Sc... by s1artibartfast on Thursday March 27, 2025 @07:22PM (#43499410)

800-20k is a pretty tidy profit margin for someone with connections. I think the bid was for a hundred of them.

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Re:Abundance Isn't Going to Happen Unless Politicians Are Sc... by bluecalm on Thursday March 27, 2025 @02:53PM (#43496808)

I am for that as well. Build dormitories as housing of last resort. Limit tenants rights to make eviction of non-payers easier. As it is landlords take all the risk and it makes life of honest tenants much expensive and more difficult. It should be easy to rent and it should be easy to evict non-paying tenants. If the society thinks we should house everyone then that cost should be on tax payers in general not the unlucky landlord.

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Re:Abundance Isn't Going to Happen Unless Politicians Are Sc... by bryanlarsen on Thursday March 27, 2025 @02:39PM (#43496665)

100 years ago rooming houses housed a large fraction of the population. They've been zoned out of existence. Let them come back.

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