There’s what exists on paper according to the authorities, and then there’s reality on the ground. The recent fires in Sonoma and Napa counties destroyed 7,000 buildings – almost all of them single family suburban homes. Entire subdivisions were wiped out overnight. This occurred in a part of the world where the gap between what the average person earns and the cost of buying or renting property had already created a massive problem that absolutely no one could solve. All the fast, affordable, pragmatic responses are politically and culturally unacceptable. So the void has been filled with ad hoc adaptations that never appear on any official documents.
.
.
.
.
.
.There are various ways working class people organize their affairs at a tolerable price point. First, people live with family or friends who already own property. These arrangements sometimes involve rent or the pooling of resources, but the main point isn’t necessarily monetary. People just look after the folks they care about.
.
.
.
.
.
.The second form of tolerably priced working class housing had always been the stock of older places that were built before zoning regulations and building codes made modest duplexes and granny cottages illegal. There’s a fixed supply of such structures since we haven’t built new ones for decades. Prices have increased in both nominal and relative terms as wages dropped and property values soared. But these were still some of the best deals in town if you could find a vacancy.
.
.
.
.
.
.The third option for de facto affordable housing involves property owners who carve out arrangements that don’t conform to regulations, but meet the basic needs of tenants. These situations are mostly cultivated by folks who are house rich, but cash poor. They need supplemental income but can’t manage the insane costs and complexity associated with permits and inspections. Unofficial apartments massaged out of old garages, attics, and potting sheds do the job. Mobile campers parked in driveways and back gardens function as external bedrooms with shared kitchen and bath facilities inside the main house. These are self selecting populations in particular parts of town where neighbors find it mutually advantageous to cut each other slack. In general the newer more expensive developments loaded up with Home Owners Associations and active municipal code enforcement make sure none of this can ever occur.
.
.
.
.
.
.The semi-rural landscape of northern California was an early adopter of the Tiny House movement. Building a small high quality home suitable for an individual or couple is within the reach of many people. The additional $500,000 for a spoonful of land as well as tens of thousands for permits, impact fees, and infrastructure to build it on is not. Personal relationships and quiet side deals connect Tiny Housers with people who have land to park on for a reasonable fee. This is illegal and the authorities can and do intervene on occasion. But for the right people in the right locations there’s a blind eye.
.
.
.
.
.Lower down the food chain are people who don’t have family or friends to fall back on, can’t afford a Tiny House, and don’t have the required connections with a sympathetic property owner. They tend to live in aging RVs or in cars, mini vans, and pick up trucks as best they can. There’s infinitely less tolerance for these arrangements and the police play whack-a-mole pushing these folks from place to place. If there are any infractions, lack of insurance, or improper registration the vehicles are towed and held until the violations are remedied – along with the associated fees and penalties. Once their already precarious situation is disrupted it’s extremely difficult to recover. There are a huge number of people living like this all over California.
.
.
.
.
.That takes us down to the next level of accommodations. None. The majority of the homeless people I encounter and talk with are the kinds of people who would be able to manage if their low wage part time jobs paid more and/or any kind of accommodations were available at a lower price. The assumption is that these people are personal failures due to poor judgement, bad life choices, and addiction. The reality is that the majority could be productive well adjusted citizens if the larger economy functioned differently.
.
Google.
So let’s get back to the recent fires and the loss of 7,000 homes. I know a young couple who rent a little cottage in a neighborhood that wasn’t affected by the fires at all. They each have a good job and manage to live a comfortable middle class life. But they don’t make the kind of money that will allow them to own a home. They’ve rented from a family they’ve known for years. The landlady lives around the corner and the landlady’s son and daughter-in-law live next door. Unfortunately the daughter-in-law’s parents just lost their home to fire ten miles away.
.
Google.
For entirely understandable reasons the landlady has agreed to take in the in-laws who will be living in the son’s house. The son and daughter-in-law will be moving in to the tenant’s house. And the tenants will be… leaving. They have no idea where they’ll be going and they’ll be entering a rental market where 7,000 other households are now frantically trying to secure a spot as well. Ouch.
There may not be any place to live, but there’s plenty of free parking.
Or opt out and move to the milwaukee, twin cities, cinncinati, Pittsburgh. Ideal conditions for a middle class person to become moderately ahead: affordability, good wages, plus walkability. Just opt out on auto mania.
No argument from me.
According to the Census Bureau, California has the highest rate of poverty in the US when adjusted for housing costs. Even higher than Mississippi, which is not known for unaffordable housing. Much of this is quite apparent in the Central Valley, but as pointed out in this article, you can spot it all over if you look. Even in outlying parts of California prices are high. To someone from the Bay Area home prices can seem low in Fresno or Redding, but they are are high if you earn Fresno or Redding wages.
According to American Community Survey data for 2016, and assuming that all the housing units with 5+ bedrooms had just five, there were about 366 million bedrooms in the U.S. that year. Plus 3.5 million housing units with no bedrooms.
And there were 323 million people.
Like food, it’s a distributional issue. Wealthier and older people often have extra bedrooms, while the poor share or even go homeless. Unlike food, it’s not easily fixed with governmental subsidies. Most of the people with extra bedrooms don’t need money enough to put up with living with strangers.
Bleak.
So they’re returning folks’ stolen rights (to use their property as they see fit) to them- for a few months?
Given the length of the permitting process, the inundation of local contractors (many of whom I’m sure lost their own homes), and arduous regulations that made the homes that were there illegal to rebuild- what exactly is going to change in months? This will take years.
A few months is only enough time for the media to stop paying attention, not to solve any problems (that they don’t want to solve).
Yep.
On paper, Sonoma County looks great. Nice weather. A nice Main Street or two. Vineyards! But the reality of living there… is that it’s mostly a third string suburban smear without any reason to exist other than being sort of close (e.g. a brutal 2 hour commute) to the Bay Area. No jobs or industry. No culture. High housing costs. Gangs and meth too if that’s your thing. These poor folks who are or have been displaced should take a look around this big country of ours.
You’ve just described most of the country. Is it different in Orlando? Dallas? Atlanta? New Jersey?
It is a little different in other places.
Orlando at least has low-skill jobs (theme park and retail) as well as high-skill jobs (aerospace and health care), and no shortage of housing within less than a two hour commute. (In less than two hours one can commute to either coastal area, Tampa or Daytona/Cocoa/Cape Canaveral). Dallas has no real growth limits and is far less unaffordable than Northern California. ATL is limited mostly by traffic, and Jersey by taxes. None have the pleasant climate of coastal California.
All are, of course car-dependent sprawl, but subject to fewer catastrophic “natural” disasters than California.
Orlando, Atlanta, and Dallas are all at least much less expensive. Otherwise pretty similar.
I live in Plano Texas (Dallas) and I walk to work everyday. Is this the reality for most people? No, But mixed use communities are growing increasingly common all over North Dallas.
I do have to drive to go to a climbing gym, go two-stepping and it’s 30 minutes to get downtown for a “real” night out but if I want a beer or to eat out with friends I have plenty of options without walking distance.
I was listening to the radio the other day to a demographer who was discussing a new type of housesharing ad for places in our big, unaffordable cities in Australia – for people to share bedrooms, as rents for a single room are exceeding incomes. An ad might read like this: Two females seek third female to share large master bedroom.
I don’t know if this is common elsewhere, but a cold wind just whistled by me as I heard that news. This is a level of housing crisis that hasn’t been seen for a very long time in Australia, if ever. I am eyeing off spaces in the backyard where I can build a cabin for when the kids need to move back home..
I actually have Australian friends here in California who live in precisely this way in single family homes in Silicon Valley. A typical plain vanilla house costs $1M+. Even kids working for Google, Apple, PayPal, etc making $100K+ at an entry level position have a hard time finding accommodations. Immigrants or temporary workers with visa restrictions (Indians, Russians, Chinese, Brazilians, Canadians…) are particularly limited in their options. So they rent a house and each room has four bunks. It’s dormitory living. Some enjoy the camaraderie. Often all the kids are from the same country/university/employer/home city. Sometimes they don’t love it, but they’ll be done in two years and rotate out to better things.
Pretty rational description of our Sonoma County situation as it stands today. I fear it will become much more desperate and despondent before it gets better. It is true that most of us just simply took in our friends and family. But then what? Santa Rosa and the County have already adopted emergency measures to allow people to park their RVs on a friend’s property and use exsisting sheds and offices as temporary rentals, etc., for the next few months. All of our newly homeless friends are moving away, even as they plan to rebuild. I don’t expect them to return.
Yep.