The reason for the high cost of rent and of purchasing houses is because of "rent seeking" on the part of landholders who wish to keep land costs high by restricting land use. Fix the zoning codes and density restrictions which will diminish the artificial "rent seeking" and you'll see a corresponding increase in market efficiency and lowering of the cost of housing.
For example, in Manhattan which is where I live, the number of people in Manhattan has decreased from 2.3 million to 1.6 million or 700,000 fewer citizens with a corresponding increase in the cost of living as there are far fewer apartments.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/opinion/gothams-towering-a...
I don't know why you were downvoted. You are exactly right. Until SV makes the connection between forcing everyone to live in ranch homes and homelessness the problem will never go away.
The best way to reduce homelessness is to reduce rent costs. The best way to reduce rent costs is to create more supply of rental homes.
Not just rental homes, but AFFORDABLE rental homes. There's plenty of development going on here, but it's all $800,000 townhouses and luxury apartment buildings. This is not housing for the poor or even for middle class workers for that matter.
It is inaccurate to say there are far fewer apartments in Manhattan-- many neighborhoods simply became less crowded, as improving mass transit meant that a working-class family sharing a one- or two-room apartment could have a larger space in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, or suburbs beyond, while maintaining access to Manhattan wages. There are also far more single adults and childless couples in the American population (especially in NYC) versus 1910, meaning an apartment that once held a family now often houses only one or two people. The New York Times had an interesting piece on this last year[0]:
"Manhattan was much more crowded in the early 1900s than today, especially in the tenements of the Lower East Side. For example, in 1910, 66 people lived on the four residential floors of 94 Orchard Street. Today, the buildilng houses 15 people."
And, in fact, many apartments have been built in Manhattan since 1910-- much of far northern Manhattan wasn't developed by then, and middle-class apartment houses were in their infancy.
That isn't to say that Manhattan (and its commuter-shed) doesn't need more new housing, and that the 1963 zoning code governing NYC isn't problematic: for example, inner Brooklyn, on top of tons of subway lines still has parking requirements, and many areas are zoned such that any new construction would be less dense than what it would replace. The problem isn't a supply that's been reduced, but rather a supply that isn't increasing along with demand, with zoning laws that often prevent any densification that would lead to increased supply.
The same problem holds in Silicon Valley, except that its zoning holds it to a suburban, rather than an insufficiently urban, form.
The tech companies should be in on this. They have to pay higher salaries to retain employees because rent costs so much. If they lobbied for more abundant housing they could decrease the salaries they have to pay and save a bundle.
This guy gets it. Liberalizing zoning rules and restrictions would go a long way to alleviating this problem. For some reason liberals are against liberalization in this day and age.
For example, in Manhattan which is where I live, the number of people in Manhattan has decreased from 2.3 million to 1.6 million or 700,000 fewer citizens with a corresponding increase in the cost of living as there are far fewer apartments. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/opinion/gothams-towering-a...