DESIGNER

John Hayden

PROFILE/DESCRIPTION

Article text courtesy of nytimes.com

“Can California Build Its Way Out of the Homelessness Crisis?”

"The homelessness problem in California is often presented as a simple math equation. If we have x number of people in the state and the number of housing units is lower than x, we will have people who are homeless. The solution to a supply problem, in other words, is more supply.

Not everyone agrees with this. On the left, tenant and anti-gentrification activists and scholars like Ananya Roy, whom I interviewed in an earlier edition of this newsletter, argue that simply building market-rate housing will do nothing to help poor citizens and the homeless. Instead, she says, the creation of even thousands of units of expensive apartments will benefit only the upper-middle-class professionals who can afford thousands of dollars in rent."