Soubirous Housing/Homelessness Q2
The first question to tackle is do we owe people “affordable housing?” Decades ago thousands relocated to the inland regions seeking lower cost housing. They traded a longer commute to higher paying jobs for lower housing costs. Now, the inland housing values have gone up and there is a hue and cry for affordable housing. Affordable for who? Should taxpayers, presumably those who sought cheaper inland housing, pay for others to have affordable housing near them? How is that fair? What has driven the prices so high? Is it overregulation? Is it building policies based on NIMBYism?
Maybe we should dig deeper and analyze the underlying cause of the high home costs. Is the demand too high for the available supply? If so, how do we fix that? There is a push to build more affordable housing. Define affordable and determine why the market is so high. Private sector developers and builders have no incentive to build unsubsidized lower cost housing when the rents are high and there’s a huge demand for housing – any housing. Unless the taxpayers subsidies the housing, builders cannot afford to build “cheap” housing. Cheap housing can eventually lead to lower overall property values and depreciate existing housing markets. Discussion must address these topics.
