Politics, Homelessness and the Lack of Affordable Housing

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I came to Duluth in 1986 when the city had not yet recovered from what was called "The Reagan Recession" even though its roots were in the 70's which ended with double digit inflation, high unemployment and an energy crisis. What I remember most vividly was reading a front page story about a new paper mill that had 100 job openings and 13,000 job applicants.

Another article at the time highlighted the problem of affordable housing here. In the subsequent decades homelessness and the lack of affordable housing have been recurring themes here. 

In 2007 the St. Louis County and our city kicked off a major program to eliminate homelessness titled End Homelessness In Ten (EHIT). Despite the fanfare surrounding this ambitious effort, a May story in the Duluth News Tribune stated that we have more homeless than ever in this county. The article, titled "Our Community Is In Need": St. Louis County Hears Grim Report On Homelessness, stated "In 2020, 2,188 households, totaling 3,170 people, were served by programs for people experiencing homelessness, including 751 people homeless for the first time."

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Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal produce an early morning eNewsletter highlighting the day's top stories. The WSJ version ends The 10-Point with a question that readers can respond to. Yesterday's question had to do with affordable housing. Or rather, the question was about soaring housing prices. Here are a few notes from this morning's replies.

Ben K stated that soaring prices were a reflection of unmet demand. The solution to reduce housing costs? "We must increase supply."

Someone told me recently that to build the paper mill in West Duluth they had to eliminate 400 family homes. Have these ever been replaced? The population of Duluth has not increased sine we got here 35 years ago, although the Mayor had a press conference last week in which she announced we increased by a little under 500 since 2010. (It is still in the 86,000 range.)

Ben K went on to say, "Allow accessory dwelling units in single-family zoning. Allow apartments to be built above shops, even above big-box retailers. Reduce minimum lot and square footage requirements. Reduce paperwork for demolish-and-rebuild projects. Reduce mandatory parking requirements. Reduce paperwork for changing a property’s zoning to match its neighbors, and aggressively upzone along transit lines. In other words, get the government out of the way!"

By way of contrast, Myles Z of New Jersey believes, "It is time for the government to get back into building public housing. There is no profit to be made [by developers] in providing housing to the poorest members of our society." Incentives matter.

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In September, Reason magazine published an article titled "California Is Clueless About Homelessness." It's a story about how Los Angeles has been using 1.2 billion dollars to build houses for homeless people in L.A. The money was approved in 2016 to build 10,000 new units for homeless people. Over the past five years only 700 homes have been completed. At that rate, they city will end up with 1400 homes at an average cost of $857,143 each.

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Politicians are good at ribbon cutting and making pronouncements, there seems to be no end of programs initiated with good intentions that get bogged down and tangled in red tape. End Homelessness In Ten (EHIT) was a good slogan. What we need are real solutions. 

This is the first of several articles I'm hoping to assemble. Thanks for reading.