I have wondered why “The Stick” hadn’t been developed yet, and your note above renewed my interest as to the “why”. Wonder no more as it seems some of the usual suspects have their fingers stirring the pot.
An old article for sure, but insightful none the less.
Down south, most of the 5 Points projects (Great Park) and those built in surrounding communities, have become foreign cash buyer pump and dumps. First and second phase buyers put their homes back on the market shortly after closing with 30-50% mark ups. The next foreign cash buyers swoop in, but hold the homes as rentals for a year - sometimes even leaving them vacant - put them on the market at a 30-50% mark up, wash, rinse, repeat. Let’s hope these Bay Area projects don’t suffer the same fate.
Oh, and the thought of putting the homeless on that land? Is there a gas leak in your home? Should I call emergency services and ask for a wellness check? Blink twice if you’re being held hostage… there has to be something terrible going on for one to imagine that the Homeless Industrial Complex might ever use that land. There’s too much money floating around for them NOT to use that land for real housing.
Sorry irony doesn’t translate on the web. But seriously if the homeless took the park like they did with peoples park 50 years ago things might get shaken up. Better than having them live on the streets downtown…BTW they are finally going to maybe build housing at people’s park… only took 54 years… government in action
Back in the 60’s we involuntarily confined nutcases. Then along came “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest” an similar films. Now it’s darn near impossible to commit someone.
" Judy Schroeder was living a stable retirement in this affluent Florida enclave. Then her apartment building was sold to a new owner during the pandemic and she lost her part-time job working at a family-owned liquor store.
What followed was a swift descent into homelessness."
So she’s working during “retirement” to make ends meet and had very little savings. That is literally the definition of an unstable retirement to me.
Homelessness lobby. There is a vested interest in keeping people homeless. And the housing the build is overpriced instant ghetto
they build ridiculously overpriced, overbuilt housing projects. Cities and counties create massive bureaucracies. The nonprofits don’t just run these projects – the actual people staffing these shelters aren’t overpaid – they operate huge bureaucratic empires with overhead, marketing budgets, and executive salaries that do nothing for the homeless.
Using GovernmentJobs.com, keyword “Homeless” you can see the number of open positions (239 as of 10/27/2023) with the majority of jobs over $80kpy with full government sourced benefits.
It is a Industrial Complex that does little, if anything to cure this problem. To believe otherwise is to deny reality.
Homelessness is primarily a mental health issue. That problem needs to be separated from those who need affordable housing. Low income housing can be solved by having excess City/County/State land donated to builders - given that land costs are the highest expense of the build process - then cap the profit margin at X percent. Heck, the land could have a 30 year lease and eventually be paid for if some of these government do-nothings had the smarts to think of a plan that may actually work. As for the mental health crisis - that’s outside of my pay grade to answer.