PLANNING WATCH – Overcrowding and homelessness are both increasing because — after controlling for inflation – the price of housing is up and most wages are flat. The causes are not a mystery: elected officials who dance the tune of major campaign contributors.
While the housing crisis is already severe in US urban areas, the situation is particularly tough in the greater Los Angeles area because elected officials ultimately control housing policies. For them, their concerns are rarely their poorly housed constituents. Instead they parrot that false narrative that an (imaginary) housing shortage is the cause of rising homelessness and overcrowding.
This explanation is not only wrong, but it hides the real causes of both homelessness and overcrowding. As shown in the chart below, the price of housing has continued to increase, while most incomes have been flat for the past 50 years. In fact, Los Angeles has an ample supply of vacant houses and apartments. What it lacks is people with enough income to buy or rent them. The problem is simply a lack of money by the homeless and overcrowded, not the supply of housing. Nearly all of these groups would gladly move if they could afford to rent or buy. But they can’t afford existing vacant housing, so they remain homeless or over-crowded.
Until this situation is remedied with higher wages, real rent control, and the restoration of public housing, little will change…