SB 51: the California politics thread

i'm not sure what your point is. this is a bad program.

the paperwork required puts it out of reach of people who otherwise qualify (as is described in the article). and it's literally a wealth transfer to existing real estate owners that likely makes housing *less* affordable for people without access to the program.

I read the article three times and it doesn't say anything about paperwork? It does mention that Sacramento County had a disproportionate number of beneficiaries that was likely due to knowing about it earlier, which is more of an outreach issue?

also -- it sounds like it sort of is modeled on the land trust/co-op housing structure, where the state recoups its investment and then funds other lower income borrowers? So I'm trying to understand where you're coming up with "wealth transfer"?

i'm assuming the administrative burden is the reason the people who got it were disproportionately white and near sacramento.

when the state gives people money to buy homes they can't afford (instead of providing public housing, or using state power to drive down prices by permitting or building), the money goes to the people *selling* the homes. that's the sense in which it's a wealth transfer. doing it like this also maintains/raises prices for everyone, i.e. it literally make the macro problem of housing affordability worse by further inflating the market.

programs like this are apparently seen as necessary because it's politically untenable to permit privately-built housing, much less build and operate public housing. but if you want to know what doing this at scale does in practice, and who it helps, look at the housing market in SE england from the 1980s to today. the policy making (nominally democratic) establishment of CA is voluntarily choosing the same policies as thatcher because they are in a suicide pact with the voters of CA. luckily in the case of CA, state capacity is minimal so the effect is much smaller and it probably won't make as much difference as it did in SE england.

i'm assuming the administrative burden is the reason the people who got it were disproportionately white and near sacramento.

so this is your assumption and not something I missed in reading because it was buried in some other link I didn't follow? ... based on my experience (which isn't extensive, but is relevant) with governmental programs related to housing and grants, if there was administrative burden, it was likely a "middle management" burden ... and it wasn't related to the individual beneficiaries but the intermediary agencies that were tasked with outreach and implementation. I remember this from the ERAP program a couple years back, as well as the grants to nonprofits and small businesses for Covid relief. There was a definite discrepancy in terms of implementation and getting funding to beneficiaries in the case of the latter on a regional basis. My region had the grant program for microbusinesses go through a regional community college district ... we got our money in February ... of this year. Other regions, that are more affluent and have better infrastructure around these things, they got their money out well before ...

programs like this are apparently seen as necessary because it's politically untenable to permit privately-built housing, much less build and operate public housing.

you're making a really blanket assertion here that only applies to parts of the state tbh. Other parts of the state are politically aligned with these things, but the costs are prohibitive. New construction of housing in CA is like ... $400/sq ft (last I remember what a developer told me within the past couple years). That's a lot of the reason why so much of new housing is market rate ... it's tied up with financing and lenders who require certain numbers ... anyway, you probably know this because you are a knowledgeable person.

So then you have other options -- subsidized construction -- non-profit developers -- opportunity zone funds -- that helps somewhat, but obviously not enough

Then you keep thinking outside of the box -- how about repurposing existing buildings, to reduce the cost of new construction? ... then you get into the morass of the thousands of pages of sometimes conflicting codes related to buildings that keep getting more restrictive ... and navigating that process adds an extremely long amount of delays to the actual building of housing for people to live in.

Then you come up with another outside of the box idea -- how about we come up with another type of housing that isn't called a "dwelling unit" to bypass a lot of the legislation against building housing and codes related to how to build housing and converting buildings into housing (i.e. "dwelling units") ... and you have the CA ADU laws ... where you can have a "Multi-family ADU"

ok obv I can go on about this even more but i won't

based on my experience (which isn't extensive, but is relevant) with governmental programs related to housing and grants, if there was administrative burden, it was likely a "middle management" burden ... and it wasn't related to the individual beneficiaries but the intermediary agencies that were tasked with outreach and implementation.

sure. i didn't mean the individual applicant was put off by paperwork. i meant there is a pipeline of administrative complexity and insufficient state capacity that means the the people who need it most are less likely to benefit (per the article), which in itself makes the problem of disparate housing worse.

you're making a really blanket assertion here

ok. i'll add a word: it's politically untenable to permit sufficient privately-built housing, much less build and operate public housing". i know there are mainstream and more creative ways to finance construction, which is what the rest of your post focuses on. but 1) restrictive zoning means that financing is beside the point if you want to add housing that would meaningfully increase supply (e.g. most of LA county is zoned single family!) 2) there's no public housing because of one of those suicidal ballot measures we love.

housing is too expensive. this program treats the symptom, insofar as it affects a few people best connected to govt services, at the cost of making current homeowners richer, and making the problem of affordability worse.

Suffice to say.. Atherton residents (including one Steph Curry) really, really, really don't want any middle class people living in apartments there

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/atherton-housing-element-revisions-multifamily-17907641.php

lol

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/grieving-redness-in-the-west-reading-malcolm-harris-after-mike-davis/

https://www.reddit.com/r/berkeley/comments/15sfmyb/how_to_survive_as_a_female_homeless_student_at_uc/

TLDR: nonimmigrant F-1 visa with a sponsor for the visa/tuition/meal plan but apparently not willing to sponsor any more than that. I'm pretty sure you can work part-time with a F-1 (I had a couple interns in similar situations) but this person is pretty set on living out of their storage container in Concord(?).

No matter what the outcome, I am ready to vote on this in November.

sorry someone can’t afford something they want to do, can’t relate but i’m told this is tragic 😢

uc berkeley (my alma mater) is kind of a shitty school tho

i was hung up on the detail that their tuition is $3500 and tuition plus dorm lodging is $4100 and that wasn’t option but their sponsor paying $3500 and being homeless was

so … idk the whole story sounds fishy. just go to diablo valley or wherever for two years, that’s what the smart kids at berkeley all do anyway, fuck taking calc 1 or physics 7 in a stadium lecture hall with 800 other kids

Nothing has changed. Undergrad housing at Berkeley was a monumental hassle even back when I was an undergrad.

xp - but wouldn't the student have the same housing issue if they went to DVC? If the sponsor wasn't going to pay for housing, does it matter what the tuition is? ... i think the $4100 lodging amount was for living in a co-op. I'm assuming that is cheaper than living in a dorm?

xp living in a storage unit seems like a bit more than a hassle.

well if they are just straight up homeless and/or choosing to live in a shipping container because affordable housing isn't available ok, that's basically the civic issue in san diego rn too (that and whether you like the new miami style padres uniform)

i thought the story was "this is what i have to do to attend berkeley" which sorry but unlike basic housing attending the UC of your choice cost be damned is not a basic human right

i say this as someone who routinely has seniors turn down free rides to UCLA to go to SDSU instead because they have to help with the family landscaping / maid service / restaurant on the weekends in order to make ends meet

As someone currently wearing a Juan Soto city connect friars shirsey, you know exactly where I stand on this issue, the late great.

I stayed in the dorms my freshman year (financial aid because I wasn't on a F-1) which were surrounded by zillion dollar mansions on the bluffs of LJ overlooking a nude beach where greased up old dudes j/o'd all day long but the waves were pretty good but yeah that area is ripe for a reassessment.

Cal is just surrounded by quaint bungalows, any neighborhood that close to a BART station should be rezoned, razed and then rebuilt from the ground up with true high-density buildings. Vote for me in Nov.

this is my ft employer so take what i say with a grain of salt but to their credit ucsd is building massive high rises to expand student housing. like way bigger than anything around even including the new university town center / golden triangle high rises, taller than midcity developments, real 20 story downtown stuff

they also fucked up by promising 2000 undergrads housing, which mysteriously vaporized. oh and they also want to entice me and other "senior staff" into $5k/mo rental units close to downtown lmao. thanks but i'm happy driving in from la mesa

i like the new uniform and it seems to be catching on with the ppl

". . . where greased up old dudes j/o'd all day long . . ."

I feel seen.

https://www.lajollalight.com/news/education/story/2023-08-17/campus-housing-shortage-leaves-more-than-2-300-uc-san-diego-students-on-waiting-lists-for-beds

hard to overstate how tall these 21 story student blocks are compared to what's around them. the tallest thing that comes to mind is the space-mountain-esque mormon temple, whose tippy top spires only reach 14 stories. the hyatt regency is 13 stories i think and the geisel library is only like 10 stories

". . . where greased up old dudes j/o'd all day long . . ."

I feel seen.

― nickn, Thursday, August 17, 2023 11:29 AM (two hours ago)

haha <3

i thought the story was "this is what i have to do to attend berkeley" which sorry but unlike basic housing attending the UC of your choice cost be damned is not a basic human right

― the late great, Thursday, August 17, 2023 1:53 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

eh, california has a bigger GDP than almost every country on earth. kids with the grades to get places at its best universities should not have to live like this. or this https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/california-vehicular-homelessness-car-dwelling-los-angeles/674901/.

i mean aside from the fact that this is morally obscene for any student (K-12 or higher ed) to have to live like this, it's also not in the interests of the state, assuming you accept the premise that the state benefits from a public university. i feel like i'm losing my mind here.

there are a lot of public universities that aren’t uc berkeley

if you’re talking abt a homeless crisis, i’m highly sympathetic. if you’re telling me it’s especially bad because some of the homeless have 4.5 gpa and 1400 SAT … no

kids with the grades to get places at its best universities should not have to live like this

i realize you are not trying to start a fight about this and neither am i, but speaking as a so called “lifetime employee”, if you think the uc/csu is actually a meritocracy / tries to function like one / even should function like one then i have opinions4u

i assume m bison has opinions on this too!

Feels like there's more to that reddit post that is not covered by the umbrella of California statewide politics.

Incoming F1 students from China that may feel slighted at being undersponsored and drop reddit posts like that to call attention to their plight could very well write a grant application or secure additional funds (China is the 2nd richest country in the world and yes, has banks). There's something off about the post in general ("*Please do not suggest any advice regarding loans; I am not considering that option." nor replying to any advice to seek part-time employment). Seems like a personal matter that went awry.

if not human trafficking, hello oxford st sweatshops

i think i mean university??

i mean

_i thought the story was "this is what i have to do to attend berkeley" which sorry but unlike basic housing attending the UC of your choice cost be damned is not a basic human right

― the late great, Thursday, August 17, 2023 1:53 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink_


eh, california has a bigger GDP than almost every country on earth. kids with the grades to get places at its best universities should not have to live like this. or this https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/california-vehicular-homelessness-car-dwelling-los-angeles/674901🕸/.

that’s what i mean by basic housing

totally different than “no student should have to live like this”

the difference with ppl that want basic housing is they’re not going to insist on walking distance to uc berkeley, they just want a place where they can work and afford to live

what % of car homeless are instagram influencers tho

I lived in a converted UHaul truck for four years in California. It was very difficult. Having a trust fund and being a van-man is very different than working a full-time job at bad pay and being a van-man.

No matter what the outcome, I am ready to vote on this in November.

vote on what now? what's on the ballot that would address this?

housing at Cal has always, always been bad. I started there in 1990 and was told it was a longshot to get housing (I lived at home and commuted, which was a mistake for multiple reasons; wound up getting an apartment a year later). Cal admits entirely too many students these days, IMO, given their lack of housing. They need to build more but I frankly think they will always find a way to admit more than they can house regardless of how much they build.

santa cruz is even worse, from what I understand.

As in, I was agreeing with you, tlg— that caek’s post made it out as tho it was unseemly for students to be living out of cars or storage units when so many people live that was is what I was objecting to. No one should have to live like that, I know because I fucking did it.

Wealthy Berkeley residents want to live in a college town, but they don't want any college students there.

yeah those people are shitheads. also I don't know that they really want to live in a college town. they maybe think they do, but they don't.

anywhere can be a college town if you just act like you’re in college, duh look at guerneville

spring break twelve months of the year

their tuition is $3500 and tuition plus dorm lodging is $4100

what???? it doesn't say tuition is $3500 unless I missed something. tuition at UC is quite a bit higher than that even for in-state.

worth noting that one of the major NIMBY assholes in Berkeley is Robert Reich.

it was in the reddit thread?? idk all my kids get free rides basically

In state tuition to berkeley is 14k/yr. The poster said their sponsor paid the tuition. I'm not sure who their sponsor is and why they didn't also agree to pay for housing, that doesn't seem like a very good sponsor to me.

I think you saw this: "The cost for a full UC meal plan is $3,535. Is that what your sponsor is paying? The cost for one semester room and board in the coops is $4,131"

ohhh thx. yes i misread that