Affordable Housing

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A high percentage of people on the street have serious medical or mental health issues. This often fuels addictions and then the general public concludes that homeless people are all alcoholics, addicts and crazy people and it either is basically their fault or there isn't much that can really be done because we don't know how to cure insanity.

In short, it gets dismissed as a personal problem, not a symptom of a systemic problem.

But, homelessness is on the rise nationwide. So, it really doesn't make sense to act like homelessness is merely caused by individuals being irresponsible or unfortunate. This is clearly a systemic problem.

In the 1950s, new homes were around 1200 sq. ft. and housed an average of about 3.5 people. These days, new homes are around 2500 sq. ft. and house around 2.5 people. They also have more amenities, such as appliances. Meanwhile, homelessness is on the rise and the availability of affordable housing has been shrinking for decades.

Additionally, we used to have more boarding houses and SROs where young people could go live on their own and have a small space to call their own. But, these days, the default assumption is that single young adults need to rent an apartment or house designed for the nuclear family and share it with unrelated roommates.

So, if you are concerned about the rising levels of homelessness, work on the issue of affordable housing. Get involved in local government and advocate for more small scale, affordable housing at market rates, not Section 8 housing. Get involved in the housing industry and try to get more genuinely affordable housing built. Join the Tiny House movement. Work on making financial instruments available for financing genuine housing alternatives.

The housing industry in America today was born post WW2 when "the boys" came home and there was unprecedented, overwhelming demand for single family detached houses designed for the nuclear family. That style of housing is what all of our policies, social norms, financing instruments, etc is geared towards.

So, our housing has converged on that standard. Meanwhile, our demographics have diverged away from the nuclear family. We have more childless singletons, more childless couples, more single parents etc. The available housing stock is an incredibly poor fit for our population. The fit is getting worse, not better.

There are things happening, such as the Tiny House movement, in reaction to this. But a lot more needs to happen.

There are many pieces to this problem. Working on any piece of it is a good thing.

You can work on the policy end of things. You can work on the construction end of things. You can work on financing products. There are no doubt many other things I am not thinking of. If you can do anything to help create more small spaces that are genuinely decent places to live and genuinely affordable for people of ordinary means, please do so. It will put you firmly in the camp of part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

If the number of small, affordable spaces in walkable areas went up enough, homelessness in America would decline. That would be one of the best things you could do to help the homeless: Give them a path out of homelessness that doesn't involve charity.

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