San Diego’s Housing Crisis - It’s About the Tyranny of ME and MINE
This is the year of In My Back Yard. There are N(Not)IMBYs, Y(Yes)IMBYs, and now PH(Public Housing)IMBYs. All these acronyms are bandied about in news coverage these days because there simply are not enough places for people to live.
We might be able to solve this problem --it will take years-- were it not for fear campaigns, racism, and just plain self-centeredness. Me instead of We is the order of the day in these United States.
The drive to protect what is “mine” will eventually lead to increasing numbers of us having nothing at all. This is a moral problem, one that will require a major restructuring of expectations in society. It’s not a matter of IF, it’s a matter of WHEN. So let’s take a look around...
The really short version of this story says that it's the deliberate strategy of increasing inequality on the part of our economic and political overlords at the root of this problem. Worship of market-solutions has replaced the idea of taking collective action.
Available housing hasn’t kept pace with demand. While California needs to build 180,000 additional units of housing annually to keep up with projected household growth, the average number of units being built is less than half that over the past decade.
What people are paid has not kept up with what real estate (or rent) costs. Median housing costs for homeowners in California with mortgages is 47% higher than the national average. Renters in the state pay 40% more than the national mean. The median household income statewide is only 18% higher than the national average.
A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California shows San Diego and Orange Counties have the highest number (58%) of adults in the state who say their housing costs are causing a financial strain.
These factors are strongly related to the astounding and increasing numbers of homeless people in the region. Rather than unite behind policies that might ease the problem, an ongoing lack of political will caused by “what about ism” has meant the city and the state fund services, but can’t remove the roadblocks preventing increasing te housing stock.
In San Diego, nearly two dozen downtown single room occupancy (SRO) properties --the last refuge for poverty housing-- were lost to redevelopment. A 2003 state law allowed them to be torn down without owners having to concern themselves about replacement housing.
Today’s news includes a story about attorney Cory Briggs filing suit in response to moves to demolish another 185 SRO facility without a plan for replacement housing. The one-time bribe offered tenants doesn’t address the problem of there being no other affordable place to relocate.
Our so-called redevelopment agencies squandered monies that could have been used to find/fund/support replacement housing.
In San Diego, potential funding for affordable housing and homeless services has been and is being used as an enticement to get funding to build an expanded convention center.
Voters will get to see the latest version of this hustle on the March, 2020 ballot, which asks for approval to raise the hotel tax and promises to generate $3.5 billion for convention center expansion, $551 million for road repairs and $1.8 billion for homelessness programs, including $147 million over five years that backers say will get an estimated 1,900 people off the streets or into permanent housing.
There’s so much wrong with this it’s hard to know where to start. The lowest hanging fruit in this instance is the (probable) requirement that a two thirds majority will be required to pass the measure. It ain’t gonna happen. Too many San Diegans resent the hotel industry’s avarice when it comes to dipping into the public till.
There is a proposed measure for the November 2020 ballot to approve a $900 million bond measure dedicated to actual construction of affordable housing. Should it pass, and polling says there is substantial support, the problem will then be finding suitable locations.
Lately it seems as though nobody in San Diego wants affordable housing in their neighborhood. A 28 unit proposed development on the site of the old Mission Hills library has run into --putting it mildly-- considerable hostility.
Here’s Michael Smolens in today’s Union-Tribune:
Meanwhile, residents from Encanto and other southeastern San Diego communities said the city is violating state and federal fair-housing laws by clustering low-income housing in their communities, according to the Union-Tribune’s Jeff McDonald.
Their federal lawsuit cited data that “show that just 17 percent of more than 350 low-income projects developed in San Diego County in recent years were outside the affected communities.
“Neighborhoods such as Southeastern San Diego and City Heights received a combined total of 4,488 low-income housing units while the non-affected communities like La Jolla, Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach received zero,” the complaint states.
A visit the Next Door site for just about any neighborhood in San Diego will make your stomach churn as rumors and misinformation about any change in the status quo regarding construction pop up (and sometimes are removed by moderators) nearly every day.
A thread about proposed bike lanes leads to repeated (and untrue) complaints that apartment buildings are currently being built without parking. A 2.2 acre site in University Heights being readied for construction of luxury condos is the target of a claim about a fictional safe injection facility. And, OMG, everything and anything is a threat to “property values.”
Meanwhile, while these keyboard warriors are spouting bullshit, the densification of North Park is underway. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there’s much workforce (the new, less scary name for affordable) housing in the works. The danger here is that the neighborhood will have lots of buildings and not enough housing. AirBnB and all cash foreign investors can make building mostly empty buildings profitable.
Despite the nihilist bluster, Californians are amenable to solutions currently on the table.
From the May, 2019 survey by the Public Policy Institute of California:
Solid majorities support two state policy proposals intended to create more affordable housing: 62 percent favor requiring local governments to change zoning for new development from single-family to multi-family housing near transit and job centers, and 61 percent favor requiring localities to approve a certain amount of housing before receiving state transportation funding. However, fewer than half (47%) favor reducing state regulation of development through changes to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Homeowners are less likely than renters to support changing zoning laws (51% to 72%), tying transportation funds to new housing (50% to 71%), and changing CEQA (40% to 54%).
Solid majorities of Californians (63% adults, 66% likely voters) believe that homelessness is a big problem in their part of California, including majorities across political parties (70% Democrats, 66% independents, 58% Republicans), regions, and demographic groups…
...As for possible fixes, a large majority of adults, 62 percent, said they were in favor of mandating that local governments change their zoning laws to allow denser development near transit centers and job hubs. (That, you may recall, is about what the controversial Senate Bill 50 would have done had it not died in the Legislature this year.)
Another obstacle to solving the housing crisis has its roots in racism and can be found in the California State Constitution, as Liam Dillon’s reporting at the Los Angeles Times spotlighted recently.
https://twitter.com/dillonliam/status/1092544697065586688
There are efforts underway to repeal Article 34 in the State Legislature. We’ll see if California’s closet racists, hiding behind the cloak of local control can stop repeal again.
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An extreme example of ME and MINE:
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1136089026002411522
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