On April 22, the Supreme Court City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson Hearing. A lower court ruled that Grants Pass’s de facto criminalization of homelessness constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” and therefore violates the Eighth Amendment.
Unfortunately, it appears likely that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority will overturn the lower court’s decision. If they did so, whatever the majority opinion wrote, they would really be paraphrasing Anatole France’s opinion. famous proverb “The law, in its solemn equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, to steal bread.”
No one can deny that America has a homeless problem. Over 600,000 with homeless people on a particular day thousands of dead Every year. But we already have potential solutions, such as expelling the homeless from our cities or locking them up for the crime of homelessness, as some politicians have argued. Not.
in campaign video In the book, released last year, former President Donald Trump wrote, “Our once great cities have become uninhabitable, turning them into unsanitary nightmares for the homeless, drug addicts, and the violent and dangerously deranged.” ” he complained. He went on to call for the arrest and forced relocation of homeless residents to “tent cities” staffed by medical professionals.
“This strategy is far better and far cheaper than spending millions of taxpayer dollars to house homeless people in luxury hotels without addressing the underlying problems of homelessness,” Trump said. did.
Frankly, the solutions proposed by President Trump avoid addressing the real causes of homelessness, save money only at the expense of the homeless population, and only postpone the problem a little further.
Like many conservatives, Trump blames drug addiction and mental illness for homelessness. But even if no one suffered from either condition, there would still be a massive homelessness problem.
After all, if homelessness is the result of mental illness and drug addiction, one would expect to see a correlation between the prevalence of mental illness and drug addiction and the number of homeless people in a city or state.but we don’t.
Lack of work is not the real cause of homelessness.U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness report “40% to 60% of people experiencing homelessness have a job.”
It may sound tautological, but homelessness is simply a lack of housing.
And the solution to not being able to buy a house is build much more housing, invest in public housing Provide legal protection to vulnerable renters.
I’ve written about this several times before, but it’s too difficult to build affordable housing in American cities today.When it’s not completely illegal Onerous zoning laws, affordable housing projects, and homeless shelters make it difficult to build dense housing. stone wall Through so-called community input meetings that are not representative.
Fortunately, some states The worst barriers to building enough housing for all are being dismantled, but we still have Huge backlog of much-needed construction. Re-legalizing construction could eventually allow the private sector to fill the gap, but that could take decades. Moreover, low-income households will always have a hard time affording livable housing at market rates.
Solving homelessness will require more than technical changes to zoning codes. Parking requirementsNo matter how good those changes may be. It will require full mobilization by both local and federal governments.
On April 19, the Chicago City Council approved publication. $1.25 billion We issued a bond to fund a five-year investment in affordable housing.revenue will be used It’s about building affordable rental housing and affordable “owner housing” (homes that people with deeds live in).
together Montgomery County, MarylandChicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is modeling a new way of thinking about housing production.
Private builders and developers will dominate the U.S. real estate market for at least the next few decades, but that doesn’t mean the status quo is optimal. Housing production is incredibly cyclical And a lot depends on interest rates. When homebuyers enter the market at the wrong time in the cycle, they end up climbing the proverbial stream without a paddle.
Government involvement in housing construction may increase further Equalize construction fees Make new housing more affordable by attaching conditions to subsidized loans or by allowing the government itself to own and rent out the apartments at below-market rates.
But even with subsidies for affordable housing developments, many tenants will still be at the mercy of their landlords. The very nature of renting means that the renter can only enjoy shelter according to the wishes of the landlord.
in spite of years of opposition “Just cause” eviction protections from landlords in New York finally made it into several bills this year. Good cause laws limit the reasons a landlord can use to refuse to renew a tenant’s lease, and New York state law: also encourage Do not increase rent by more than 3% or 1.5 times the rate of inflation, whichever is greater.
many critics They argue that cause laws, like rent control, affect housing production and only further discourage investment in older buildings and construction of new ones. But when combined with the removal of unnecessary roadblocks and government investment, there is no reason to expect that just-cause eviction laws will do anything other than make tenants safer in their homes.
Unfortunately, according to analysis The advocacy group Housing Justice for All says recent changes to the proposed bill mean that even if it passes, it would only apply to a small number of New Yorkers. There is. At least for now, renters in New York will have to worry about the whims of their landlords every time their leases are renewed, no matter what happens in Albany.
Homelessness is a big problem, but we have the right tools in our toolbox to solve it. And no matter what Trump says, the solution is not just to force homeless people out of the cities they have lived in for decades and into tent cities, out of sight and awareness.
State and local governments across the country have passed several appropriate laws. But to actually tackle this problem head-on, America needs an all-in-one approach that combines zoning reform, government funding for affordable housing, and tenant protections.
