Of course, if one is the retributive sort, nothing grinds one’s spleen more than someone worse off getting something “they don’t deserve”.
I personally don’t understand why the some exceptionally wealthy billionaire in California doesn’t solve the homelessness problem themselves, expending some mere fraction of their net worth (i.e., the value of a couple bucks to the rest of us).
If you were an exceptionally wealthy billionaire, how would you solve it? Especially considering that the obvious approach of "build housing" is largely illegal.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
I'm glad that the state government has taken a step in the right direction, but the situation on the ground as you describe it still doesn't sound very friendly. There's enough risks in investment and business (that is, property development) as it is without needing to fight City Hall on top of it.
> Obtaining the necessary land and building permits is still extremely expensive.
Land I understand, since it's of a fixed supply in a highly desired area, but there's no reason why permitting should be so burdensome if policy intent is to foster more building.
The proof of this is that the rich regularly manipulate zoning laws. Look at what Google and Apple did to Palo Alto.
The US is not that corrupt yet. The billionaire might be able to bribe the zoning board members, but it would be pretty sacrificial of one’s self to risk a felony just to watch the building’s freshly laid foundation get destroyed, because that is only how far one might get without the cops getting involved.
Housing is more expensive because of the opposite, it incentives everyone to come get it.
On a federal level, housing and healthcare might be cheaper than imprisonment. But what is even cheaper (in the short run) is ignoring it altogether.
>I personally don’t understand why the some exceptionally wealthy billionaire in California doesn’t solve the homelessness problem themselves, expending some mere fraction of their net worth (i.e., the value of a couple bucks to the rest of us).
Because the problem is far more expensive than any single billionaire or even group of billionaires entire net worth. Even if they could handle just California's population. there are 290M people in the rest of the country, and a significant portion who would not mind coming to California for free housing.
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/06/1134230388/village-salt-lake-...
Median rent in SLC: 1.8k/mo, 21.6k/yr
Federal prison: ~39k/yr
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/09/01/2021-18...
Median rent in CA: 2.9k/mo, 34.8k/yr (according to Zillow)
CA prison: 106k/yr (!)
https://lao.ca.gov/policyareas/cj/6_cj_inmatecost
Incarcerating the homeless is not an economic decision, it’s an emotional one. Society doesn’t mind wasting endless amounts of money doing it, because the cruelty is the point.
CA prison might be 3x expensive per year, but would CA be looking to house 3x or more people if they offered free housing?
Bear in mind mere homelessness is not unequivocally a crime in the states, see Martin v. Boise (2020 or so).
