{"items": [{"author": "Peter", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122610669072", "anchor": "fb-10100122610669072", "service": "fb", "text": "The previous rent control system was full of such corruptions. Most others still are.", "timestamp": "1574261448"}, {"author": "lynettebye", "source_link": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JnuLRnT82ehgMBxm6#hCrPhxJevYv4GCa4z", "anchor": "lw-hCrPhxJevYv4GCa4z", "service": "lw", "text": "I'd expect that too many people apply for most units for it to be worth that much effort to game. A quick search indicates that 40-500 people might apply for a unit. If it takes someone several years to successfully apply after they are eligible, that doubles the lost earnings. They also can't resell the unit for several decades, so they are locked in for a long time. The option value of moving in the next 40 years seems significant.\nhttps://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2019/02/20/inclusionary-development-housing-affordable\nhttps://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/style/2014/12/15/boston-housing-lottery-offers-luxury-low-cost/aAPOGUm4FwbvHExq27mDUM/story.html\n", "timestamp": 1574262122}, {"author": "jkaufman", "source_link": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JnuLRnT82ehgMBxm6#d58JNZ8qeBNsxum9i", "anchor": "lw-d58JNZ8qeBNsxum9i", "service": "lw", "text": "→ I agree that today this isn't too much of an issue because there are so few units. But there are proposals to build far more affordability-restricted housing, and I no longer think that's such a good idea.\n

Some of what I describe above, however, is an issue today. Consider the \"Buy land, take advantage of density bonuses, build a large 100% affordable fancy building, and sell the units to your just-out-of-school currently-low-earning children\" case.\n", "timestamp": 1574263499}, {"author": "BDan", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122621537292", "anchor": "fb-10100122621537292", "service": "fb", "text": "If there\u2019s actually enough affordable housing for all the people who need it, the pool of people who don\u2019t would be substantially smaller, and presumably only a fraction would try to cheat.

This post feels to me a lot like people complaining that things like SNAP shouldn\u2019t exist because there is some potential that people who don\u2019t \u201cneed\u201d it might get it.", "timestamp": "1574266025"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122621537292&reply_comment_id=10100122624211932", "anchor": "fb-10100122621537292_10100122624211932", "service": "fb", "text": "→ SNAP is much harder to exploit:

* You need to qualify for it on an ongoing basis

* The potential benefits you can get from it are low

Since neither of these are the case for affordable housing some sort of abuse is much more likely.", "timestamp": "1574266816"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122621537292&reply_comment_id=10100122624316722", "anchor": "fb-10100122621537292_10100122624316722", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Exploiting it also doesn't require \"actually enough affordable housing for all the people who need it\", since you can transfer an affordable-restricted property to anyone who meets the criteria.

Also see the \"Buy land, take advantage of density bonuses, build a large 100% affordable fancy building, and sell the units to your just-out-of-school currently-low-earning children\" example above.", "timestamp": "1574266873"}, {"author": "BDan", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122621537292&reply_comment_id=10100122624890572", "anchor": "fb-10100122621537292_10100122624890572", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Jeff Kaufman I did not say that exploitation required having sufficient affordable housing available. Having enough available makes exploitation much less of a problem, because there will still be enough housing for low income folks. The very low supply of affordable housing is a much bigger problem, regardless of exploitation.", "timestamp": "1574267126"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122621537292&reply_comment_id=10100122636701902", "anchor": "fb-10100122621537292_10100122636701902", "service": "fb", "text": "→ BDan sorry, I misunderstood your objection!

The problem isn't just that rich people could get affordable housing they don't need, but that they could use it to avoid large amounts of property and inheritance taxes", "timestamp": "1574271166"}, {"author": "Eli", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122683213692", "anchor": "fb-10100122683213692", "service": "fb", "text": "The preoccupation with parsing the deserving poor from the undeserving poor is at the root of many bad (read: ineffective, if not actively harmful) policies. Universal programs (social security, e.g.) get around this because they specifically *aren\u2019t* premised on the idea that lazy people will exploit the programs in ways not originally intended.

I understand your hypothesis has to do with rich people exploiting programs designed to help the poor, not the less-poor taking spaces reserved for the very-poor, but consider that affordable housing initiatives don\u2019t have to have this design.

For example: \u201cfull funding of the Section 8 program to eliminate waitlists, the banning of no-fault evictions, the abolition of exclusionary zoning ordinances, and the creation of a National Fair Housing Agency to end housing discrimination. Under the Housing for All plan, $32 billion will be spent over five years on ending homelessness by expanding McKinney-Vento homeless assistance grants and the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund... [and] a national cap on annual rent increases at no more than 3 percent or 1.5 times the Consumer Price Index (whichever is higher) to help prevent the exploitation of tenants at the hands of private landlords.\u201d

https://harvardpolitics.com/.../housing-for-all-sanders.../", "timestamp": "1574290517"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122683213692&reply_comment_id=10100122685828452", "anchor": "fb-10100122683213692_10100122685828452", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Eli I'm talking about one concrete form of affordable housing here, which is a kind there's currently a movement to dramatically expand. The problem is that rich people could use it as a tax shelter; undeserving poor isn't the issue here at all.

The Sanders proposal (https://berniesanders.com/issues/housing-all/) includes $10T to expand this system, so it's worth figuring it whether it would be exploited!

Public housing is much less exploitable, so I think building that is still a good idea.

I don't think Section 8 will fix the problem (https://slatestarcodex.com/.../06/against-tulip-subsidies/) unless we combine it with a dramatic increase in housing construction. Otherwise it's a huge giveaway to landlords.

The property tax circuit breaker proposal is also a giveaway, this time to people who happen to be lucky enough to have bought homes that are rapidly increasing in value.

Overall I'd want to see more focus on removing zoning regulations that prevent construction of new housing that would lower rents. We are decades behind on new housing, and if we build enough to get housing down to the cost of construction then we can get *market rate* housing down to today's *affordable* level.", "timestamp": "1574291657"}, {"author": "Eli", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122683213692&reply_comment_id=10100122963322352", "anchor": "fb-10100122683213692_10100122963322352", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Jeff, there doesn\u2019t seem to be much evidence of widespread \u2018abuse\u2019 of the kind you describe in the above post, so it was curious that you focused on what a rational agent might do when faced with soaring market rate housing and a handful of affordable units in the manner you describe. I believe that we do need to rapidly densify urban areas, and reinvest in transit. I think the public purse is well-suited to subsidizing the most expensive elements of these projects. Sanders, AOC, Omar, Tlaib, Jayapal, Garcia, and Pressley are pushing for this.

But they embrace many other tools to promote or guarantee affordability as well\u2014I think deed restrictions may be the most micro-level technique to attempt to keep buildings affordable. My point is that there are all kinds of other methods, including some policies that are really promising when combined\u2014as opposed to in a vacuum\u2014that can\u2019t be easily gamed, and which aren\u2019t fiscal spending in nature.

See:
https://www.citylab.com/.../public-housing-homes.../602374/

\u201cLike the Sanders-AOC bill, Omar\u2019s housing push features a critical but easy-to-overlook detail: It repeals the Faircloth Amendment. Back in 1998, President Bill Clinton signed a welfare reform bill with a GOP rider attached that capped public housing at 1999 levels, making any new construction over this number illegal. Repealing this amendment is technically necessary to build even one more federal public housing unit beyond the limit set 20 years ago. Calls for the repeal of the Faircloth Amendment are evidence that progressives are undeterred by the failures of the past and determined to start a new social project.\u201d", "timestamp": "1574347907"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122683213692&reply_comment_id=10100122964524942", "anchor": "fb-10100122683213692_10100122964524942", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Eli I'm having trouble figuring out where we disagree on this? As I said above I agree we should build public housing and you agree we should remove zoning restrictions that limit urban density.", "timestamp": "1574348709"}, {"author": "Eli", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122683213692&reply_comment_id=10100122964934122", "anchor": "fb-10100122683213692_10100122964934122", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Housing, along with food and clean air and water, must be refigured as part of the \u201cirreducible minimum\u201d \u2013 a social custom that held that all members of the community are entitled to the means of life regardless of the amount of work they perform. The \u2018market\u2019 for housing is not something which can provide this, so it is necessary to reimagine ownership in a way that ensures that everyone has a safe place to sleep, raise a family, and feel at home in their community. I think the thing that wealthy or opportunistic people do which threatens this, is not suppressing their earnings in order to qualify as \u2018low-income\u2019, and eke out a living in Somerville, but rather, they buy any building they can, and become landlords who have concrete interests that are at odds with tenants AND developers (keeping the supply of housing low). But again, the lack of supply of is *not* the underlying problem as many YIMBYs claim, instead it\u2019s a symptom of a system where land is a speculative commodify and yet something which has historically enabled homeowners large and small to earn passive income through rents and appreciation. Decommodifying newly built housing (public housing, community land trusts) begins to chip away at this dynamic by not tethering the cost of building, buying/selling, or renting to a boom and bust economic cycle. It\u2019s the acute crisis that the US faces today which motivates people to undertake the work that should have been done throughout the 20th century.

https://www.thenation.com/.../homes-guarantee-housing.../", "timestamp": "1574349040"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122683213692&reply_comment_id=10100122965777432", "anchor": "fb-10100122683213692_10100122965777432", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Eli Thanks! Yes, I disagree with pretty much all of that as policy. Specifically, I think if you approach this from a perspective of \"subsidize the housing\" you'll give a lot of money to landlords and have constant political battles over whether to keep funding this expensive program, while if you approach it from a perspective of \"let people build so much housing that nearly everyone can afford it\" then housing will be so cheap that something in the range of our current (too low for today's situation) Section 8 funding would be enough.

I completely agree that everyone should have housing, just like they should have food, but if food was expensive because of restrictions on production the real fix would be \"remove those restrictions, and subsidize at the low price level\" and not \"subsidize food purchases however much it costs and produce some food federally\".", "timestamp": "1574349510"}, {"author": "Eli", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122683213692&reply_comment_id=10100122967823332", "anchor": "fb-10100122683213692_10100122967823332", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Jeff, I don\u2019t have a problem with the government \u2018subsidizing\u2019 landlords/property managers if said owners/managers are nonprofit orgs or GSEs or housing cooperatives. I\u2019m not suggesting that private for profit companies have a role to play here in affordable housing, except maybe as building construction contractors. The LIHTC exists for that purpose. Rentiers\u2014who by luck or exploitation happen to own all the housing stock\u2014just live off the excess rental income their units provide, after the cost of basic upkeep (which many simply kick down the road). This is not good economics in terms of efficiency or growth, and from a a welfare perspective it\u2019s abominable.

What I think you and I also may disagree on, is that you claim that wholesale upzoning will create enough of a surplus (again, I don\u2019t think this is an efficient market so I question that assumption) that eventually middle income people can afford rent or a mortgage because there will be, in your words so many homes that \u201cnearly everyone can afford it\u201d. I think more than just upzoning needs to be done so that the *nearly* preface is not necessary. In my recent comments I\u2019ve offered up a bunch of them. I also believe that it fundamentally *does* matter what gets built and how. There are even more ways to get new affordable housing built and have existing units managed so we all can pay less than a third of our incomes for quality housing, but they do vary by region in terms of how land use is currently planned, and how to leverage different sources of capital.

https://www.google.com/.../nycha-new-york-public-housing...", "timestamp": "1574350886"}, {"author": "Elliot", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122969639692", "anchor": "fb-10100122969639692", "service": "fb", "text": "If this exploit is so feasible, why is it not already common? There have been a lot of affordable housing programs already, and it doesn\u2019t seem to be a widespread exploit.

If I had to guess, I\u2019d guess that it doesn\u2019t work because these programs have lotteries and long wait lists.", "timestamp": "1574352324"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122969639692&reply_comment_id=10100122972713532", "anchor": "fb-10100122969639692_10100122972713532", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I think most of it becomes more of an issue as we build more affordable housing, and as more of it gets old enough to be resold.", "timestamp": "1574352922"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122969639692&reply_comment_id=10100122972883192", "anchor": "fb-10100122969639692_10100122972883192", "service": "fb", "text": "→ There are also some parts that are exploitable if affordable housing gives you bonus density or other advantages, which are new", "timestamp": "1574352955"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122969639692&reply_comment_id=10100122973501952", "anchor": "fb-10100122969639692_10100122973501952", "service": "fb", "text": "→ It can also take some time from \"an exploit is possible\" until \"people notice, and figure out how to take advantage of it\"", "timestamp": "1574353085"}, {"author": "Elliot", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122969639692&reply_comment_id=10100122973946062", "anchor": "fb-10100122969639692_10100122973946062", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Tax loopholes for rich people are not one of the areas where I expect it to take a long time. There are small armies of accountants and lawyers who are being paid good money to find these things.

So I would expect that the reason the exploit isn\u2019t observed is that it isn\u2019t feasible in practice.

You\u2019re right that if the blocking factor is lotteries and wait lists, it could become an issue with new development.", "timestamp": "1574353433"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100122606427572?comment_id=10100122969639692&reply_comment_id=10100122975033882", "anchor": "fb-10100122969639692_10100122975033882", "service": "fb", "text": "→ \"Tax loopholes for rich people are not one of the areas where I expect it to take a long time.\"

401ks took several years: 1978 to the early 80s. I'm curious how long others have taken to go from \"technically possible\" to \"heavily exploited\"", "timestamp": "1574353892"}]}