CALIFORNIA - THE OPEN BORDERS STATE IN MELTDOWN

CA HAS THE MOST ILLEGALS AND THE MOST HOMELESS LEGALS. NOT HARD TO DO THE MATH ON THAT!

8 Million Face Evictions In August As Rent Prices Hit Unprecedented Levels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTgLGZsvrOo

If you live in America, are you seeing rent prices go up or down in your area this year? Despite recent claims that rent price growth is cooling down, new surveys just published by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and Freddie Mac found that the majority of U.S. households, -- or about two-thirds of the entire population, -- reported that they had experienced at least one rent hike in 2023. Meanwhile, one in 10 said that they saw a whopping $400 price increase in the first quarter,  With the cost of housing exploding across the country, more and more people are missing rent payments and facing evictions. Today, eviction fillings are actually 50% higher than in 2019, when there were no pandemic moratoriums in place and the market was still considered “normal”. Official estimates reveal that more than 8 million renters may lose their homes this month, and that may be just the beginning of a trend that will devastate countless American families. In 2019, the average price for a two-bedroom apartment in the U.S. was just $1,320. Today, families are paying on average $700 more in rent per month for the same two-bedroom unit. That’s a staggering 53% increase in just four years. Just in the past twelve months, rents rose by 26%, and a shortage of affordable homes is squeezing many American families, and putting them an edge closer to facing eviction this year. A new survey published by the research center just a few weeks back found that 60% of U.S. households experienced at least one rent increase since January, including 17% who experienced two or more rent hikes. The increases ranged between $75 to $100 per week, meaning that for some families monthly rents have become $400 more expensive so far this year, with a ratio of 1 in 10, or about 4.4 million renters reporting that’s their case. In contrast, a separate survey conducted by Freddie Mac revealed that just 38% of renters saw their wages increase, and 33% say their raise won’t cover their increased rent. The research sought to gauge the impact of rising prices on consumers' housing choices, and it was conducted this year from June 6 to 10 among a representative sample of 2,000 American consumers, aged 18 and older. Mirroring recent turmoil in the housing and rent markets, Alignable’s July Rent Report, released last week, exposed that rent delinquency rates have just experienced the highest surge in five months, jumping six percentage points from March, at 13.17%, or 28% than a year ago levels, when moratoriums were still in place in many areas. Put another way, 8,070,524 people ages 18 or older in the U.S. aren’t caught up on rent payments and have already received an eviction notice, meaning that they could lose their homes at any minute now. This month, a record number of households can be displaced from their communities because they can no longer keep up with abusive rent hikes. That will have a far-reaching impact on our society as the disparity between the haves and have-nots gets even wider in America. But without a doubt, the biggest consequence of this crisis will be the devastating effect it will have on the finances, mental and physical health, and every other aspect of the lives of millions of Americans who can no longer afford their homes. Behind each one of these numbers and stats, there is a person, a family, a history. And if action isn’t taken to prevent mass evictions, all of these lives may be shattered all around us.

Solutions in Plain Sight

California could make a major dent in its homelessness problem merely by reversing some of its most destructive policies.

/ Eye on the News / The Social Order

Aug 14 2023/ Share

Half of America’s so-called unsheltered homeless live in California. It’s not hard to understand why. Along with having the most hospitable weather on earth, California is a welcoming place for drug addicts, petty thieves, and anyone else attracted to beachside living, free government food, and no requirement to work.

Federal policy has played a part in California’s homelessness problem. The counterproductive “Housing First” rule, emanating from the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Obama era, favors programs that prioritize “supportive housing” over activities like drug counseling or job training.

The courts have given California further incentives to reject a more holistic approach to reducing homelessness. Most notably, a ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Martin v. Boise, prohibits enforcement of local vagrancy laws unless a community offers sufficient shelter beds. Rather than challenge this ruling, cities across California’s forgiving coast have allowed bureaucrats and “nonprofit” developers (with for-profit vendors and interlocking directorates) to build up a homeless-industrial complex—a vast, parasitic enterprise that constructs “permanent supportive housing” at an average cost well in excess of $500,000 per unit, and at a rate that doesn’t begin to keep pace with the growth of the unsheltered population.

California’s state laws add fuel to the fire. There is Proposition 47, sold to voters in 2014 as somehow guaranteed to reduce crime merely by downgrading felony drug and property crimes to misdemeanors. On top of that came Proposition 57, approved by voters in 2016, and abetted by AB 109, passed by the legislature in 2011; both of these released tens of thousands of “nonviolent” criminals out of state prisons and county jails without the means to monitor and assist their transition back into society. All these measures, designed to lower crime and restore order to chaotic streets, have had the opposite effect.

 It isn’t as if solutions to California’s homeless epidemic aren’t hiding in plain sight: repeal Prop. 47, Prop. 57, and AB 109, and watch tens of thousands of homeless suddenly find housing. If laws against vagrancy, drug use, and petty theft are once again enforced, it will no longer be possible to live on the Venice Beach boardwalk, perpetually high, scaring the straights, and stealing whatever amenities aren’t provided for free by government “ambassadors.” Once the choice is “go to the shelter or go to jail,” the incentives will reverse, and the remaining problems will become more manageable.

California’s shelter situation is also not without solutions. The new facilities being built are grossly overpriced and sited in locations deliberately chosen to escalate costs, based on the absurd premise that everyone deserves to live on the beach in Southern California regardless of their means. There is no reason that the City and County of Los Angeles cannot erect shelters on less expensive real estate. These shelters could be built on one of L.A. County’s estimated 14,000 government-owned properties, or, if they cannot be located on land outside of residential neighborhoods, the city or county could purchase land in rural areas. Huge all-weather tents that cost under $1,000 each could house homeless families with children. Why aren’t California communities trying out solutions like these?

There’s plenty of money to do so—a stupefying amount of money, in fact, almost none of which is spent wisely. Last year, Los Angeles County spent over $1 billion on homeless programs. The City of Los Angeles is planning to spend $1.3 billion this year. The other 87 cities in L.A. County are no doubt also allocating substantial funds for the homeless. It’s reasonable to estimate that more than $3 billion will get spent this year, overall, by local governments in the county to assist, at last count, 75,000 homeless, 55,000 of them unsheltered. That’s $40,000 per person. More affordable solutions would leave a lot of money left over for security, operations, food, health care, job training, and drug counseling.

Anyone who expects California’s state and local governments to do anything sensible, however, is ignoring history and the corruption that grips the state. Amendment 2, passed by the state legislature and now scheduled to go before California voters in March 2024, will take away the right of local governments to reject the placement of public-housing projects in their neighborhoods. Piling on, the state legislature is also offering California’s spring primary voters Amendment 10, championed by Governor Gavin Newsom, which will declare an inalienable “right to housing” for all Californians. Imagine the implementation of this beast.

What about deregulating the most over-regulated housing market in America—the real reason housing is unaffordable in California? Not a chance. Better to tamper with the state constitution so that the government and its cronies can handle California’s housing shortage and homelessness surplus. They’ve done everything so well so far.

Not to be outdone by Sacramento’s follies, Los Angeles has come up with a “Responsible Hotel Ordinance,” a measure that would “require hotel operators to report to the city, every day, the number of vacant rooms at their establishments so the city can send homeless people over to the hotels to stay in the rooms that night.” Taxpayers will foot the bill, of course. The impact on tourists and conventioneers? Likely severe.

Some might argue that housing the unsheltered in tents is inhumane. They’re wrong. But it is inhumane to spend obscene amounts of money on overbuilt, overpriced, inappropriately located “supportive housing” while leaving addicts dying in the streets and letting criminals terrorize public venues. Let’s build the tents and use all the suddenly available cash to help these individuals recover their sobriety, their sanity, their skills, their dignity, and their lives.

Edward Ring co-founded the California Policy Center in 2013 and served as its first president. He is the author of two books, Fixing California (2021) and The Abundance Choice (2022).

Photo by APU GOMES/AFP via Getty Images