I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

Reactions to the Satire

• Some found the piece funny, incisive, and depressingly accurate about “I care, but not enough to change anything” attitudes and NIMBY obstruction of both housing and transit.
• Others dismissed it as shallow, self‑righteous ranting that oversimplifies a complex problem and caricatures tech workers and homeowners.

Is “Not Enough Homes” the Main Cause?

• One camp argues the evidence is clear: higher housing costs strongly correlate with higher homelessness; building more units at any price point reduces overall rents and homelessness.
• Skeptics counter that many visible homeless people have severe mental illness or addiction and wouldn’t be “fixed” by more market housing; they emphasize welfare systems, treatment, and “21st‑century asylums.”
• Several note homelessness is a gradient: car‑dwellers with jobs, couch‑surfers, shelter users, rough sleepers. Cheaper housing mainly prevents people on the edge from falling into chronic street homelessness.

Affordable vs “Luxury” Housing

• Repeated complaints that new construction in US cities is overwhelmingly expensive apartments or “luxury” units, with little truly affordable stock.
• YIMBY‑style replies: even high‑end units help by freeing up older, cheaper housing (“filtering”) and expanding supply; the real problem is that building any housing is heavily restricted.
• Others respond that incentives under current finance, land prices, and building standards inherently push developers to the high end unless there are strong subsidies or public building.

Regulation, NIMBYism, and Politics

• Broad agreement that local zoning, height limits, parking minimums, and permitting delays constrain supply, often weaponized by homeowners worried about property values, traffic, noise, or “neighborhood character.”
• Debate over whether this is primarily a “blue state” problem (e.g., California) vs a rich‑area problem that transcends party; examples cited of both permissive (Texas, some Midwest cities) and reforming (Minnesota, Washington, Vienna) jurisdictions.
• Some stress that deregulation alone can just produce more expensive units unless tied to public or nonprofit affordable housing and stronger social safety nets.

Mental Health, Addiction, and “Two Homeless Populations”

• Common framing: a large “economic” homeless group (job loss, rent hikes, evictions) and a smaller but more visible group with severe psychiatric or substance‑use disorders.
• Several argue housing first programs show that stable housing makes treatment, employment, and recovery far more feasible, and that homelessness itself worsens mental health and drug use.
• Others insist a subset will still destroy housing or remain unsafe without supervised or institutional settings; they call for parallel investments in treatment facilities and supportive housing.

Investment, Empty Units, and Policy Levers

• Concerns about housing as an investment vehicle: corporate buyers, vacation rentals, and empty “investment properties” reducing effective supply and pushing working‑class renters out.
• Proposed remedies include progressive taxation on multiple property ownership, vacancy taxes, tighter rules on short‑term rentals, and large‑scale public or cooperative housing.
• Counter‑argument: much “hoarding” only works because severe supply constraints make land appreciation a near‑sure bet; fix supply and the speculative premium shrinks.