Table of ContentsIntroductionTopic AnalysisConclusionWorks Cited IntroductionHave you ever seen homeless people sitting or lying in the street when you travel around town? If so, you may have noticed that you see them much more frequently than before. Due to growing inequality, it became very difficult for the middle classes to bear the cost of living in urban areas, some of them moved to suburban areas, and others could not adapt to the gigantic changes and then became homeless. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In "Affordable Housing in California: The Political Economy of Homelessness" written by Martin, Edward J, said that homeless people lack work experience and training. Most homeless people are unable to find employment, which also widens the inequality gap. As the economy grows rapidly, total income has increased, but the rise in wages has not been distributed equally between the rich and the poor. There is a need to address the problem of breaking down segregation so that the middle class is not continually forced out of city centers. What should people do to make it possible for those who need it to have affordable housing? To make the case for affordable housing, new luxury units must be continuously built, old buildings must be transformed into affordable housing, and the process of demolition of old apartments must be slowed down.Topic AnalysisLower-middle-class families have struggle to afford to buy or rent a home for several reasons. In the article “The Affordable Housing Crisis, Explained” by Patrick Sisson et al, they discussed the factors that make housing unaffordable. The inability of the housing stock to free up is one of the problems, the new generations (aged fifty-five or over) were more independent than the older generations and, combined with their longer lifespan, less Fewer homes are being released. And as decreasing inventory causes prices to rise, housing becomes more expensive. The mortgage interest deduction, introduced in 1913, was also a law that benefited homeowners rather than renters. Homeowners can repay the interest on their home loans from their income taxes, which overall increases inequality between those who own a home and those who cannot afford one. Because housing becomes unaffordable, the middle classes spend most of their wages on household payments, while the rich might spend their money on investments, higher education, or hoarding more homes and making money by collecting rent. Younger generations just entering the job market also saw that their salaries did not allow them to pay high rents, that they might have to stay at home until their twenties. Rising construction costs also block the construction of affordable housing. The costs of building affordable housing are skyrocketing, but that's not the only case. The main problem is that fewer and fewer construction companies are willing to build entry-level homes, which restricts the supply of starter homes, and prices rise quickly and easily since demand far exceeds the offer. Restrictions on building heights also made houses unaffordable because the number of dwellings islimited in a fixed space, while it goes without saying that land is expensive in urban areas, particularly flourishing ones. It had become increasingly difficult for construction companies to build. affordable homes. In “Why do developers only build luxury housing?” " by Daniel Herriges, editor of Strong Towns since 2015, the author provided several data describing the situation: "according to data from the National Association of Home Builders, the median cost of building a single-family home in 2015 was $289,415, or $103 per square foot.” With this minimum cost, it would be out of reach for a portion of middle- or lower-class buyers, even if the construction company worked without wages and rejected the land price. And when built in an apartment building, the average price per square foot reaches $192, renting an apartment per month can easily cost more than $1,500. Minimum costs make it almost impossible to tell construction companies to stop building luxury units and only build luxury apartments. affordable homes. The reality is that even though they intended to build buildings for the middle class, minimum costs were already preventing some low-income buyers from choosing newly constructed affordable housing. The shortage of affordable housing was causing starter home prices to skyrocket, there is a need to bring more affordable homes onto the market to slow the price rise. Since building affordable housing won't work, building luxury housing might be a better solution to the problem. However, not everyone agrees with building luxury housing. Some might even consider this idea ridiculous. Opponents might say, “Since what we are trying to provide is affordable homes, why should we build luxury homes?” They could argue that if governments paid the costs of building affordable housing and put laws in place to prevent construction companies from building only luxury housing, the problem could be solved directly. It is said that the construction of luxury housing only benefits construction companies and the rich. “All we need to do is encircle a piece of land and build affordable houses on it,” they believe, it’s a simple and straightforward method. Building luxury homes doesn't seem to have an impact on the situation, at least not as obvious as what they think is the influence of building affordable homes. And in recent years, several cities have tried exactly their proposed solution. Building affordable housing, however, has not solved the problem. The failures can be seen by reading an article written by Alan Ehrenhalt, who has contributed to the Washington Post Book World, the New York Times Book Review and the opinion page, New Republic and the Wall Street Journal. And he also received the American Political Science Association's McWilliams Prize for distinguished contributions to the field of political science in 2000. In "Why Affordable Housing is Hard to Build," Ehrenhalt cited examples from several cities that built affordable housing, but none of them worked very well. A Texas city, Arlington, is an example of failure after years. “In 2000, there were more than 20,000 units deemed affordable for low- and moderate-income residents… since then, more than 13,000 of those units have disappeared.” On the other hand, building affordable housing depends on moneygovernments. An article written by Joe Cortright, Impresa's president and principal economist who has specialized in urban economies for the past two decades, also shared the same opinion. In his article "Why 'Affordable' Housing Is So Expensive to Build," Cortright explains that the cost of building affordable homes is well over budget: "New affordable units in California will cost nearly $825,000 each, according to recent news articles...at this cost per unit, it is simply beyond the financial reach of California or any other state to be able to afford to build housing for all rent-burdened households. » In other words, no state can afford to build enough affordable housing. Building affordable housing may seem to work in a short time, but the enormous cost has determined that it is not a sustainable or effective method. Overall, building affordable housing is not the right solution, and there is not enough budget for it. Continuing to build luxury housing and slowing down the process of demolishing old ones is how we should advocate for affordable housing. In another article “How Luxury Housing Becomes Affordable” also written by Joe Cortright, he explains that this is always how we have generated affordable housing through this “filtering” process. How it works is that housing tends to become more affordable as it ages. A few decades later, once luxurious buildings become obsolete and modest, so the price drops. Cortright cited as examples the Timberlee Apartments built in 1960 and the Belmont Court building built in 1910. They were both luxury buildings at the time they were built. Over time, Timberlee Apartments become affordable and transition into housing for low-income families. But later the government paid 65 million to demolish these apartments, which resulted in the displacement of hundreds of families. On the other hand, the Belmont Court building has undergone a different evolution. It still exists in the city and its monthly rent is $1,100, much lower than the average rent in Portland, which is around $1,600. New buildings are always built for the rich and turn into affordable housing once they are dilapidated and no longer considered luxury. Additionally, Cortright says, “What causes affordability problems is when we stop building new housing or build it too slowly to be able to do so. filter aging housing down to the bottom of the market. We should continue to build new luxury units so that affordable housing can be produced continuously. We should also slow down the process of demolishing old apartments. When these two processes are balanced, the stock of affordable housing would also be balanced and would no longer be squeezed.Conclusion In summary, what we should do to advocate for affordable housing is to build new luxury buildings, retain enough old ones and keep them at an affordable level. accommodation. If we build a luxury building now, it is equivalent to building an affordable building after 50 years. This is more achievable than building new affordable housing since it has always worked, it's how the majority of affordable housing has been produced, and it follows the natural marketing system instead of trying to fight against it. Once the process is balanced, there will be enough affordable housing in stock, and prices will not continue to skyrocket too,. 2019.