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Housing shortfall, costs and affordability
#16
(08-11-2022, 03:53 PM)tomh009 Wrote:
(08-10-2022, 10:50 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: I'm confused, are you implying these are not the same thing?

Yes. Single people living with roommates is not unusual in most countries (and I have done it, too, both during and after university). It doesn't mean you are actually homeless. You may not be able to afford a complete house/apartment, or you may simply choose to spend less by sharing one.

And even if you consider all people with roommates to need their own houses/apartments, even so, building 36,000 housing units would not solve the affordability issue. Even if the housing market cools down, construction costs are simply too high for many people.

Being underhoused should absolutely be counted towards the housing shortage, not just those who have made it all the way to homelessness. It's not just people living with unwanted roommates (often strangers) to "save money", but people raising children in one bedroom apartments, people living in illegal and unsafe units, people living in houses way over capacity, etc.

Increased construction costs may be a concern, but probably not as big as it seems. If supply outgrows demand, prices will almost invariably fall. Older existing buildings will generally depreciate in value (the structure itself), only increasing modestly as construction costs increase. It's the value of land caused by a lack of supply that really drives up the cost.
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#17
I watched this video yesterday. I think that it is relevant to the discussion.
Why Tokyo has Tons of Affordable Housing but America Doesn't

Why is the cost of living in Tokyo so stable? Rent for an average apartment in the biggest city in the world has barely risen 20% over the last 15 years. How is a city that is still growing in population able to keep the price of housing so low when compared to other large international cities like New York and London? When you consider how much land is available in Japan vs the United States, it doesn't make much sense.

This story about urban design and city planning explores how policy choices made by the Japanese government in the 60s allowed the biggest city in the world to become the land of housing abundance. And it all comes down to zoning. The Japanese system of zoning is smart and inclusive, and it enables them to build a huge amount of housing. Housing in dense, walkable neighborhoods, where mass transit is viable and where all the amenities you could need are right around the corner.
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#18
(08-10-2022, 04:25 PM)panamaniac Wrote:
(08-10-2022, 01:43 PM).jeffster Wrote: 1500 units is peanuts compared what is needed. I can't remember the exact number, but Kitchener is about 40,000+ units behind of what is needed. It would take 20 massive projects like this just to start to clear the backlog of what is needed.

Where did the 40,000+ number come from?   That seems high even for Kitchener CMA, let alone Kitchener.

Right, should have explained, and I may have been on the low side:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/h...-1.6498898

Canada needs 5.8 million homes by 2030 -- to make it possible for affordable housing.

Canada's official population as of 2021: 36,991,981
Region of Waterloo population as of 2021: 587,165
Percent of Canada that lives in Waterloo Region: 1.59%

Houses needed in Canada 5,800,000 - 1.59% of that is 92,220.

The 40,000 I got was from a real estate agent, but that was "the now" and not what we'd need in addition to 2030.

Either way, we need close to 12,000 units for the next 8 years to break even and 40,000 immediately.

So no matter how much proposals come in, there is little risk they'd site empty if the landlord is going to be reasonable for rent, like it was 20 years ago.
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#19
Yes ... but for any commercial landlord to invest hundreds of thousands (or millions) into construction, they will need to get a return on that investment, otherwise they simply won't do it. So, getting to the rents of 20 years ago is highly unlikely.

Also, if we are looking to provide separate housing units for the underhoused (living at home, or, gasp, sharing with someone else) there will need to be more small units built in order to keep the costs low, including small 1BR units and bachelor/studio apartments.

I would be interested in knowing what form of multi-residential construction is the most cost-effective. My guess is stacked townhouses/walk-ups, assuming they are far enough from the urban core to keep the land costs low, but that's really just a guess.
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#20
I was just speaking to a new grad student of mine from Iran and his impression was that they don't really have zoning laws there. Would be interesting to see if that yields Jane Jacobs style cities today.
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#21
(08-12-2022, 01:13 PM)plam Wrote: I was just speaking to a new grad student of mine from Iran and his impression was that they don't really have zoning laws there. Would be interesting to see if that yields Jane Jacobs style cities today.

I believe that you can look to Houston for that. They have no bylaws regarding land use, only subdivision and splitting.
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#22
(08-12-2022, 07:34 PM)Bytor Wrote:
(08-12-2022, 01:13 PM)plam Wrote: I was just speaking to a new grad student of mine from Iran and his impression was that they don't really have zoning laws there. Would be interesting to see if that yields Jane Jacobs style cities today.

I believe that you can look to Houston for that. They have no bylaws regarding land use, only subdivision and splitting.

Not quite, I think that's also affected by the zillions of highways in Houston, which must affect land uses too (parking lot construction?)
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#23
How A Small Canadian City Took On Chronic Homelessness

Last year, Alberta’s Medicine Hat announced that it had become the first city in Canada to reach functional zero chronic homelessness.
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#24
(08-12-2022, 10:53 AM)tomh009 Wrote: Yes ... but for any commercial landlord to invest hundreds of thousands (or millions) into construction, they will need to get a return on that investment, otherwise they simply won't do it. So, getting to the rents of 20 years ago is highly unlikely.

Adjusted for inflation, maybe; not adjusted for inflation, no way, nohow.
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#25
Interesting news from NZ:

Quote:"The seismic shifts we've seen in housing supply and demand drove down New Zealand's housing shortage to an estimated 23,000 homes, still large but massively down from a revised 57,000 shortage estimated last year.

"The current yawning gap between supply and demand points to New Zealand's cumulative housing shortage disappearing over the next 12 months.

There is a NZ Herald article about it, but it's behind a paywall.
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#26
(08-24-2022, 12:28 AM)plam Wrote: Interesting news from NZ:

Quote:"The seismic shifts we've seen in housing supply and demand drove down New Zealand's housing shortage to an estimated 23,000 homes, still large but massively down from a revised 57,000 shortage estimated last year.

"The current yawning gap between supply and demand points to New Zealand's cumulative housing shortage disappearing over the next 12 months.

There is a NZ Herald article about it, but it's behind a paywall.
A search reveals that there are several publications with articles on the report that are not paywalled. https://nzme.pressreader.com/article/281870122241265
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#27
Apparently there are children living in the encampments in DTK:

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...pment.html

I expect this to result in bad takes all around.

Nobody, especially children should be living in an encampment...but breaking it up will only increase the harm involved.

Taking the children away from their children is also not ideal (nor does punishing the parents help) doubly so because apparently they are indigenous and our social programs have a horrific history AND PRESENT of taking away indigenous children from their parents. To be honest, the quotes are confusing at best.

Honestly, this only makes the situation sadder and more desperate...the only good takes are to be furious at NIMBYs.

As an aside, why does the region not have to prove that breaking up the encampment will be safer than leaving the encampment.

Staff have ONLY talked about the risk of keeping it, not the risk of removing it.

This kind of oversight is obviously intentional, but who are they fooling...the public, sure, they're gullible...but I certainly hope they aren't fooling a judge or council.
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#28
(10-03-2022, 11:27 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Nobody, especially children should be living in an encampment...but breaking it up will only increase the harm involved.

Do you have evidence for this? I understand the dangers of evicting people from their only form of housing with no other place to go, but we all understand the dangers of surrounding yourself with negative influences, and the benefits and surrounding yourself with positive influences. I've personally seen and experienced this dynamic first hand with drug use, and I can tell you that not a single person I knew stopped damaging amounts of drug use without first removing themselves from being surrounded by drug users. The same dynamic also applies for various forms of crime, also concentrated in encampments.

Urbanists often argue for the benefits of communities that mix together the various classes, acknowledging the problems that concentrated poverty creates. Why is this different?

(10-03-2022, 11:27 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Honestly, this only makes the situation sadder and more desperate...the only good takes are to be furious at NIMBYs.

Really?

Quote:“They’re now using drugs, going to jail and getting charged because they are selling drugs. They are being human trafficked, molested,” said Trites, who has a caseload of five children in encampments.

“They’re in these situations where they’re surrounded by people who don’t have good intentions, who don’t care if they cause harm to children,” Trites said.

Is it a bad take to be furious about literally human traffickers and child molesters living in or being involved with these encampments? Did NIMBYs help create the environment that made this possible? Sure, but it's insane to blame them for the actual crimes, rather than the people committing them.

Honestly this perspective in the current situation has been bothering me for a very long time. We tend to get "two sides" the this argument: 1) The people in question (homeless, addicts, mentally ill) are victims and the debate stops there, or 2) the people in question are criminals, and the debate stops there. Debate around this issue tends to simplify and stratify into these two buckets, though I hope most on this forum can recognize the nuance and significant overlap between the two. I think I will probably disagree with the average user here by suggesting the current leniency towards criminal behaviour is creating more victims among the general public (including other encampment members, such as these children) than the victimhood that the encampment residents themselves represent.

In other words, I think people here are too hung up on the victimhood of encampment residents that they are missing the bigger picture and creating a much worse outcome than is possible. Don't just blame NIMBYs for the knock-on effects of their actions, look at the effects of what you are supporting too.

(10-03-2022, 11:27 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: As an aside, why does the region not have to prove that breaking up the encampment will be safer than leaving the encampment.

Staff have ONLY talked about the risk of keeping it, not the risk of removing it.

This kind of oversight is obviously intentional, but who are they fooling...the public, sure, they're gullible...but I certainly hope they aren't fooling a judge or council.

I don't think it's that nefarious, to be honest. The sort of "natural state" of Canadian cities is to not have encampments... this is new and out of the ordinary for us, and of course no one talks about the risk of returning to the status quo. They are obviously missing the issues with that status quo that led to this situation, but as you suggested elsewhere with people like Chapman, they don't view this as a societal failure like having a housing shortage, and so their perspective on returning to the status quo is not surprising.
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#29
(10-03-2022, 02:55 PM)dtkvictim Wrote:
(10-03-2022, 11:27 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Nobody, especially children should be living in an encampment...but breaking it up will only increase the harm involved.

Do you have evidence for this? I understand the dangers of evicting people from their only form of housing with no other place to go, but we all understand the dangers of surrounding yourself with negative influences, and the benefits and surrounding yourself with positive influences. I've personally seen and experienced this dynamic first hand with drug use, and I can tell you that not a single person I knew stopped damaging amounts of drug use without first removing themselves from being surrounded by drug users. The same dynamic also applies for various forms of crime, also concentrated in encampments.

Urbanists often argue for the benefits of communities that mix together the various classes, acknowledging the problems that concentrated poverty creates. Why is this different?

I don't have evidence and I am not an expert. And I should clarify, I'm not saying there aren't bad parents who shouldn't be allowed to raise their children. But merely being impoverished does not make someone a bad parent.

That being said, foster parents are also often problematic. And being bounced between many different facilities and foster situations is inherently harmful to children. Therefore, removing them is not harm free, so you need to demonstrate that the situation they are in is MORE harmful than the harm of removing them.

It's the same problem with evictions.

(10-03-2022, 02:55 PM)dtkvictim Wrote:
(10-03-2022, 11:27 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Honestly, this only makes the situation sadder and more desperate...the only good takes are to be furious at NIMBYs.

Really?

Quote:“They’re now using drugs, going to jail and getting charged because they are selling drugs. They are being human trafficked, molested,” said Trites, who has a caseload of five children in encampments.

“They’re in these situations where they’re surrounded by people who don’t have good intentions, who don’t care if they cause harm to children,” Trites said.

Is it a bad take to be furious about literally human traffickers and child molesters living in or being involved with these encampments? Did NIMBYs help create the environment that made this possible? Sure, but it's insane to blame them for the actual crimes, rather than the people committing them.

This is the quote I was very confused by. Is this person suggesting that the children in the camp are actively being trafficked or molested right now? If so, that's an entirely different story, the police should be arresting people, etc. etc. But that doesn't make sense to me. Is there the potential for that harm, yes, but if it was actually happening right now to these children, I feel like the quotes would be coming from WRPS. So it seems like that is not actually happening.

(10-03-2022, 02:55 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: Honestly this perspective in the current situation has been bothering me for a very long time. We tend to get "two sides" the this argument: 1) The people in question (homeless, addicts, mentally ill) are victims and the debate stops there, or 2) the people in question are criminals, and the debate stops there. Debate around this issue tends to simplify and stratify into these two buckets, though I hope most on this forum can recognize the nuance and significant overlap between the two. I think I will probably disagree with the average user here by suggesting the current leniency towards criminal behaviour is creating more victims among the general public (including other encampment members, such as these children) than the victimhood that the encampment residents themselves represent.

In other words, I think people here are too hung up on the victimhood of encampment residents that they are missing the bigger picture and creating a much worse outcome than is possible. Don't just blame NIMBYs for the knock-on effects of their actions, look at the effects of what you are supporting too.

When it comes to questions of blame and fault and such, I tend to look at who has power and agency in a situation. NIMBYs have an immense amount of power, and they use that power to harm others.

The people in the encampment, you're right, there is tons of overlap. Many are victims, many are criminals, but the one unifying feature, is that they have almost no power or agency at all over their lives. Forget the war on cars, these people's shelter, access to food, and personal safety is subject to the whims of politicians, community members, and yes other encampment residents.

Being powerless like that changes how you feel about the world, about other people, about a community.

(10-03-2022, 02:55 PM)dtkvictim Wrote:
(10-03-2022, 11:27 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: As an aside, why does the region not have to prove that breaking up the encampment will be safer than leaving the encampment.

Staff have ONLY talked about the risk of keeping it, not the risk of removing it.

This kind of oversight is obviously intentional, but who are they fooling...the public, sure, they're gullible...but I certainly hope they aren't fooling a judge or council.

I don't think it's that nefarious, to be honest. The sort of "natural state" of Canadian cities is to not have encampments... this is new and out of the ordinary for us, and of course no one talks about the risk of returning to the status quo. They are obviously missing the issues with that status quo that led to this situation, but as you suggested elsewhere with people like Chapman, they don't view this as a societal failure like having a housing shortage, and so their perspective on returning to the status quo is not surprising.

I mean, it's a fair point...maybe I'm more analytical in nature...or at least have seen this false isolation argument too many times already.

But I really think that we should demand better from people in power to make these decisions (judges, council, etc.). But AFAIK nobody in those positions have asked staff to perform a risk assessment of evictions. And it isn't even the first time staff have had nothing to say in that regard, when they bulldozed the encampment on Charles St. they were asked where those people went and they answered with a literal shrug.
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#30
(10-04-2022, 04:43 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: But I really think that we should demand better from people in power to make these decisions (judges, council, etc.). But AFAIK nobody in those positions have asked staff to perform a risk assessment of evictions. And it isn't even the first time staff have had nothing to say in that regard, when they bulldozed the encampment on Charles St. they were asked where those people went and they answered with a literal shrug.

However, the regional council clearly directed the staff to change this approach, and this kind of eviction has not happened again, not at Weber/Victoria, not at Roos Island, and to my knowledge anywhere else at the region. They are clearly taking a more measured approach to this, and trying to ensure that the people have a place to go to after the encampment is closed.

Whether they are successful at this still remains to be seen.
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