Affordable Housing

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normalthings
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by normalthings »

FangKC wrote: Fri Apr 12, 2019 12:01 am How about reducing parking minimums for retail centers where many of the parking spaces are never used? There are many opportunities to create affordable housing near and around existing grocery stores, and shopping malls. This would allow seniors, disabled, and low-income residents to live near retail centers. For many people, the only reason they require a car is to do shopping. If more housing is centered around shopping needs, and services, more residents can live car-free. Getting rid of those expenses immediately makes life more affordable.
Midtown Home Depot and Costco parking lots would be great places to start.
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TrolliKC
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Re: Affordable Housing

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Costco side seems about the right number of parking spots but Home Depot is a ridiculous waste on a prominent corner
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by FangKC »

It's not only in the City's core. Does the Sears (at former Antioch Mall) really need a surface parking lot this large? A park-and-ride bus stop already exists on-site near the Vivion Road intersection.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1925249 ... !1e3?hl=en

An analysis would probably find that there is an over-abundance of parking spaces in the area around Antioch and Vivion Road.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1898614 ... !1e3?hl=en
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beautyfromashes
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by beautyfromashes »

The internet has greatly reduced the need for parking. 20 Christmas’ ago at most malls, you’d have to wait for someone to leave for a parking spot. Unfortunately, it takes governments a long time to move on trends.
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alejandro46
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by alejandro46 »

FangKC wrote: Fri Apr 12, 2019 6:21 pm It's not only in the City's core. Does the Sears (at former Antioch Mall) really need a surface parking lot this large? A park-and-ride bus stop already exists on-site near the Vivion Road intersection.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1925249 ... !1e3?hl=en

An analysis would probably find that there is an over-abundance of parking spaces in the area around Antioch and Vivion Road.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1898614 ... !1e3?hl=en
No that lot is always empty. If you see the dirt rectangle shaped lot just to the north of Burlington, that has all been turned into low-rise apartments.
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Re: Affordable Housing

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Parson may restart Missouri low-income housing tax credit program without legislature
The state hasn’t issued any new tax credits for developers of low-income housing since former Gov. Eric Greitens maneuvered to shut the program down in 2017.

The program helped to create as many as 2,500 housing units each year for Missouri’s most vulnerable residents, including senior citizens, veterans and the disabled. But Greitens railed against the tax credit during his 2016 campaign for governor, calling it a special-interest boondoggle that largely benefited deep-pocketed developers.
...
The governor’s office said this week that Parson will take steps to revive the tax credit without the legislature.

“The governor has been pretty clear for the need for reform and accountability measures before restarting the program,” said Steele Shippy, communications director for the governor’s office. “The governor would prefer legislative reforms. But if (the legislature) is unable to get that done, he will consider what steps administratively could restart the program.”
...
An estimated 100,000 people are on waiting lists for low-income housing in Missouri, a number growing every day that the state keeps the tax credit program shut down, said Jeff Smith, the executive director of the Missouri Workforce Housing Association.

“It means more people getting left out in the cold,” Smith said.
...
But studies over the years have questioned its efficiency.

A 2017 report from State Auditor Nicole Galloway found that only 42 cents of every $1 of credit was used for low-income housing projects. Her findings match those of previous state auditors.
...
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politic ... 44759.html
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normalthings
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by normalthings »

We will never be able to subsidize enough housing for these people. However, we can invest in education and public transit needed to get these people better jobs with low barriers of entry. Think of how much good we could do with MoDots road expansion budget alone.
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chaglang
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by chaglang »

Curious if the 42 cents on the dollar is comparable to similar programs in other states and, if it’s worse, how Missouri can improve. That seems far more responsible than just ending the program. But this is a good reminder of what a bastard Greitens was.
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Re: Affordable Housing

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Yes, the solution is try to improve the program. Don't just shut it down, and ignore the affordable housing problem.

There are a significant number of people who are eligible for public housing, and Section 8 programs, who don't work--disabled people and seniors. So education and opening up better jobs is all well and good, but it doesn't help these residents. Disabled people are not just people in wheelchairs, or who have terrible physical illnesses. Most people on disability have mental health problems. In fact, the majority of disability claims are mental health-related. People living with these problems are often not employable, or reliably healthy long enough to hold even a part-time job.

There are a lot of seniors on Section 8 simply because they retired, and living on Social Security. They are probably the fastest growing segment of our population needing affordable housing.

Keep in mind the statistic that around 40 percent of American adults have less than $500 for an emergency. That is why there are so many applying for subsidized housing.
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by flyingember »

One problem we can take care of is to get people who can work off the public housing rolls, or at least reduce the numbers.

Disability is not necessarily an excuse. It's going to be case by case. There's companies that provide jobs to the disabled and mentally ill to provide them employment. It's not for everyone but for many it's an option out there.

There's no excuse to not get a better job because you will lose your housing as a result. The program shouldn't benefit laziness or inaction. It should benefit those in a bad situation not of their making. It should encourage people to aim for better through a scale of reducing benefits, not taking them away. Like if someone makes $2000 per year more, they shouldn't lose $5000 worth of housing benefits.
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Re: Affordable Housing

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The problem is that many people getting subsidized housing are working. They just aren't earning enough to afford a place to live on their income. The problem has been getting worse because incomes weren't rising as much as rents. Over years, this catches up with a lot of people, and puts them in an incredible bind. Getting a better job is not always possible for many people. In fact, many are worried about not losing their present job and spiraling even further downward taking lower and lower paying jobs each time.

People in subsidized housing do have incomes that go up and down. They have to submit financial information yearly, and their subsidy often changes dramatically based on their circumstances. One year it might be $450 a month, and the next year it might be $50. It might be a change in income, or simply one of their children moved out. A person can actually get a higher income job, but in that same year, see their medical expenses rise dramatically and eat up that new income.

Competition for affordable units also is made worse by so many seniors who drop into poverty after retirement. The baby boomer generation retiring increased those numbers dramatically. It's a tsunami of new citizens needing subsidized housing.

Many people lost their homes after the 2008 economic crisis, and ended up in subsidized rental housing. Many never recovered their former incomes, or they spent a lot of their savings and retirement money just trying to stay afloat. They are retiring with nothing.

If you worked with the mentally ill, you wouldn't be so quick to call it an excuse. Many mentally-ill people cannot hold down a job because their health is not reliable. Some have already been fired from jobs for this reason. They are not lazy. Many were highly-functioning at one time.

The few employers who will employ disabled and mentally-ill people usually do not pay them enough wages, or provide health care benefits, where they no longer need subsidized housing.

Disabled and mentally-ill people with Medicare drug plans can often have several hundred dollars in co-payments for medication alone. So even those with jobs require subsidized housing.

If it was so easy, this problem would have been solved.
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by flyingember »

Oh, I agree but it doesn't mean we can't utilize these options more than we do today. Even a 1% change in the numbers on assistance will open up money for people who are waiting.
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Re: Affordable Housing

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The affordable housing crisis, explained

https://www.curbed.com/2019/5/15/186177 ... -apartment
kcjak
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Re: Affordable Housing

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A developer plans to build affordable housing in Wichita using shipping containers.

https://www.kansas.com/news/business/bi ... 63209.html
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Re: Affordable Housing

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kcjak wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 7:12 am A developer plans to build affordable housing in Wichita using shipping containers.

https://www.kansas.com/news/business/bi ... 63209.html
Can't see these lasting more than a couple of years.
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by DaveKCMO »

Councilman Lucas passed a housing "plan" today (OMG FUNDING) but the controversial ordinance (affordable unit requirement for incentivized projects, which has been erroneously called 'inclusive zoning' but it's not actual zoning) was punted two weeks -- post election! -- after a 5-minute committee chat.

SCORE CM LUCAS.
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chaglang
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Re: Affordable Housing

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This is just the kind of feel-good, low impact kind of approach I’ve come to expect out of KC. We won’t change our Soviet style permitting process in order to greenlight projects faster to get more housing units built, we won’t try to align business relocation incentives with housing incentives to try and reduce the spatial mismatch that currently exists, we won’t enact a development boundary to keep housing closer to the center of the city and reduce the systemic stress we put on the KCATA by having to run bus routes to BFE and back. It allows everyone to feel like they fixed the problem without seriously addressing it at all.
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by FangKC »

This Is What a Street Looks like 39 Years after Legalizing Fourplexes

https://www.sightline.org/2019/06/21/th ... ourplexes/
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Re: Affordable Housing

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KCK had a housing summit today. Did anyone go? https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kck-housin ... 2593621206
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Re: Affordable Housing

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Meet the A.I. Landlord That’s Building a Single-Family-Home Empire
...
Sean Dobson, Amherst’s CEO, is an imposing Texan data savant who dropped out of college to get into mortgage trading. A decade ago, he made a killing shorting shaky debt during the housing crash. Today he’s adding 1,000 homes a month to his empire with the help of artificial intelligence, using data modeling to make dozens of offers a day on potentially profitable houses. The Main Street homes are a $3.2 billion investment that generates around $300 million in annual rental income, but Dobson harbors far bigger ambitions: “We want to get to 1 million homes in the next 15 years or so,” he says. While that figure reflects as much bravado as realism—it’s more than 60 times the number of homes Amherst owns today—the fact that it’s conceivable shows how much the housing market has changed, and how technology is helping investors profit from those changes.

The rise of the single-family-rental industry reflects profound shifts in the finances and attitudes of America’s families. Homeownership, long a bedrock of financial stability, has become unattainable or undesirable for many middle-income workers—for reasons including tighter lending standards, large college-debt loads, and lagging wage growth and savings. According to ­Yar­deni Research, slightly more than one in three households that would have been buying first homes before the financial crisis is now either renting or still living with their parents.

These trends translate into roughly 5 million households that are renting single-family homes rather than taking out mortgages and building equity, and that’s Amherst’s target market. Its specialty is grabbing run-down properties in nice, middle-class subdivisions—guided by algorithms that help it avoid bidding wars and money pits—which it then spruces up for the new rental generation. Amherst’s typical customers are couples in their early forties with one or two kids and household incomes around $60,000. They’re paying an average rent of $1,450 a month. “That’s almost exactly what they’d pay on a mortgage and other expenses if they owned the house,” says Dobson. “We’re catering to a whole new class of Americans—the former buyers who are now either forced renters or renters by choice.” And Dobson is betting that this new class is a permanent one.
...
http://fortune.com/longform/single-fami ... ket-newtab
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