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The meme on homelessness is significantly understated. From USAFacts.org, Around 23 out of every 10,000 Americans — 771,480 people — experienced homelessness in January 2024 according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) annual point-in-time report. It was close on the number of churches; approximately 355,000 Christian churches exist in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteI thought exactly!!!!! And again all these strip malls and vacant buildings sitting empty, and they could be being used to house homeless and centers for homeless to get help and start anew. Oc course one of the greedy bastard owners would have to donate the buildings.
ReplyDeleteAn observed issue with using these former, now empty, retail locations is not the space for people to safely sleep, BUT the need for hygiene and bodily waste infrastructure to be expanded for these people. Which is an expense which also hampers the conversion of similar retail spaces into private apartments and such.
DeleteWhat those places CAN become would be places where job placement and other "office" functions could happen for the homeless population. THAT part sould be easy, or at least easier than it would be to convert them to living facilities. Job placement, job training, job enhancement training, and related functions. PLUS a physical fitness and clothing resale entities!
Cdadbr, thanks so very much for bringing up this not insignificant [!] challenge! Over the years, I have heard many call for vacant office towers to try to be converted to homeless and/or low-income housing or even low-cost housing for seniors. Other than in one or two notable cases (literally can count on one hand), this has never been a successful endeavor even when tried with the best of intentions.
DeleteA simple assessment of almost any "non-residential" building will show that trying to outfit it with plumbing, appropriate bathrooms and/or kitchen facilities as well as hygiene related facilities (such as laundry, etc.) easily shows that the cost of retrofitting these required services will be so exorbitant that it would actually be less expensive to just build new shelters and/or centers. While less expensive if done to a "shopping strip," still the cost is significant.
I truly wish it were as simple as stuffing homeless people into an office building or vacant shopping strip, but it's important to remember that beyond "homeless," they are PEOPLE first. That means there has to be a certificate of occupancy to accommodate them, and that is just not available unless you have all that expensive retrofitting.
Thanks again!
It would,, however, be very easy to turn old hotels / motels into housing for the homeless. Yet, here in Vegas, we tear them down and leave the land sitting vacant --- then chase the homeless out when they set up their makeshift tents on the vacant land.
DeleteGreat point, whkattk - and where I live, old hotels have been utilized in that format over the past several years at various times. They were also using old (practically condemned) hotels as a halfway house for newly transitioned/paroled state inmates.
DeleteBut there's the other challenge - real estate. Most companies or owners of the real estate these places are sitting on don't want to give them up for a "no/low ROI" for the public good. Instead, they are selling them off to to developers and investors to either reinvigorate into a new hotel, or to tear down and building family-dense housing (condos/townhomes) or new retail space.
It's all a game of money for everyone. That's why I was saying it's almost less expensive to buy the land and build new, purpose-built housing.
In Atlanta, the city/state closed down all the downtown homeless shelters (other than one that had about 100 beds or so) to get the homeless out of downtown (bad for tourism!); it did nothing but chase them to set up camps under freeway bridges and weed-choked lots. The city then started fencing all those areas off, which now has just chased them to the sidewalks and street corners. It's just crazy that they think the solution is NIMBY.
Only 350,000??? Why do I feel there's more than that. It seems as if there's one on every corner - like we used to see gas stations.
ReplyDeleteYes, it’s a hell of a lot more than that ! And it’s getting worse as the middle class is getting squeezed to death financially. You could lower taxes and the landlords and producers would raise prices because you have extra income they can now have to themselves.
DeleteThe cost of living is driven by a sickening greed.
-Rj
Rj - I agree with that assessment.
DeleteYou really raise the level of the discourse, don't you.
ReplyDelete