Homelessness and extended-stay hotels (NYT article)

[OzzieandHarriet]

This isn’t necessarily off-topic considering the number of people here who are landlords, but OMG, this is depressing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/magazine/extended-stay-hotels.html

[Sid Hoffman]

Housing is a human right, so New York needs to provide housing to those who need it free of charge. It's the richest city on Earth, they can afford it.

[OzzieandHarriet]

This is a nationwide problem - caused by many factors. The use of credit scores makes it even harder for people to pull themselves out of abject poverty than it was already because they can’t get jobs or rent apartments. And the people who have mental health or other issues are SOL.

[SunnyDays]

It is sad, but landlords can’t be blamed for not wanting to rent to people who are likely not able to pay long term.  They are not non-profits.  Municipal, state and federal governments need to take charge and provide low cost housing options.

The people profiled are stuck in a revolving door of evictions, moves, evictions, moves ......  Even this last resort option evicts tenants.  I found it ironic that the guy who started this long term stay business began by evicting the troublemakers and riff raff.  So he could then allow in other tenants who he also has to evict.  It’s really not a solution at all, it just keeps people coming and going and he makes a profit from it.

[BlueHouse]

It is sad, but landlords can’t be blamed for not wanting to rent to people who are likely not able to pay long term.  They are not non-profits.  Municipal, state and federal governments need to take charge and provide low cost housing options.

This post is kind of off-topic for this off-topic thread, but just curious if anyone else is old enough or remembers when Ed Koch, as mayor of NYC, used NY taxpayer dollars to house NY homeless people in motels in NJ.  BIG uproar. 

[Padonak]

This isn’t necessarily off-topic considering the number of people here who are landlords, but OMG, this is depressing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/magazine/extended-stay-hotels.html

Paywall

[OzzieandHarriet]

This isn’t necessarily off-topic considering the number of people here who are landlords, but OMG, this is depressing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/magazine/extended-stay-hotels.html

Paywall

The gist of it is that these extended-stay hotels offer very substandard living for rather high prices (if you add up the daily cost cf. a normal apartment rent), but a lot of people who end up in them have few options because they have poor credit or irregular income or life hardships (job loss, divorce, mental illness, drug problems) or all of the above. Plus the article talks about how the credit report, which has come into being fairly recently, follows people around and makes everything harder. Granted, all of the people they write about made bad choices, but a lot of them are trying to right themselves.

Bottom line: is it right that our fellow humans and neighbors be treated like garbage and allowed to slip further and further into destitution while those who exploit them make fortunes? And what about their children, who are innocent bystanders?

(Also: I recommend buying subscriptions to purveyors of good journalism so they can continue to exist. The New York Times, for all its faults, is one of them.)

[mm1970]

This isn’t necessarily off-topic considering the number of people here who are landlords, but OMG, this is depressing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/magazine/extended-stay-hotels.html

Paywall

The gist of it is that these extended-stay hotels offer very substandard living for rather high prices (if you add up the daily cost cf. a normal apartment rent), but a lot of people who end up in them have few options because they have poor credit or irregular income or life hardships (job loss, divorce, mental illness, drug problems) or all of the above. Plus the article talks about how the credit report, which has come into being fairly recently, follows people around and makes everything harder. Granted, all of the people they write about made bad choices, but a lot of them are trying to right themselves.

Bottom line: is it right that our fellow humans and neighbors be treated like garbage and allowed to slip further and further into destitution while those who exploit them make fortunes? And what about their children, who are innocent bystanders?

(Also: I recommend buying subscriptions to purveyors of good journalism so they can continue to exist. The New York Times, for all its faults, is one of them.)

I tossed this around for YEARS and finally subscribed to NYT.  I've never been so up on the news.

[Jenny Wren]

I will say it isn't necessarily bad choices. We lived in a Motel 6 for a couple of months about 16 years ago. No one would rent to us because we had no credit score and no cosigners, and we had both recently started new jobs in a new state -- never had a loan, no credit cards, nothing but our checking and saving accounts. We had changed states, and we weren't prepared as in our previous state it was more common for landlords to check with past landlords rather than look at credit scores. We finally found someone willing to rent to us for a ridiculously huge deposit (6 times the rent). He was nice enough to let us pay half the deposit upfront and then pay the rest in with rent over the next 3 months. If it hadn't been for him, we likely would have never found a place before blowing through our savings and getting stuck in the short term hotel cycle.

We did learn that you had to either take on the risk of debt, so you get a credit score, or be rich to get by in this country.

[WhiteTrashCash]

Nearly twenty years ago, my mentor found me a job working for a scenic railroad on Hillbilly Mountain and as part of my compensation managing the train station's snack bar, they paid my rent at an extended stay motel. It cost $75/week, so $300/month which is about $450 in today's money. It included utilities (but no cable or internet service) and furniture. I needed to provide my own dishes and I could wash them in the room's private bathroom sink. Most of my food was provided by my job, but I had a mini fridge I borrowed to keep milk cold for cereal in the morning and I had an immersion heater I used to heat water for instant coffee.

Lots of other low income folks lived in the other rooms at the motel and they were all decent enough. Just poor like I was. The extended stay industry wasn't what it is today as described in that article, so the fee was lower than apartments not more than them. I also didn't live in Las Vegas which is a rotten cesspool of villainy. People on Hillbilly Mountain at least try to be good to each other.

When I moved away from Hillbilly Mountain, my credit was completely shot due to a really bad relationship I was in where I foolishly co-signed a loan (not understanding the responsibility I was taking on) so I lived in a rented room I found on Craigslist in an apartment I shared with two completely strangers. The room came with a shared kitchen and shared bathroom and there was space behind the building for me to park my car. The main feature of the arrangement is that there was no credit check. It cost me $500 a month and I used the time repairing my credit with information I learned on the MyFICO forums. I also saved money for a real apartment.

The main difference maker was that I had a full-time steady job once I moved away from Hillbilly Mountain with wages that paid for all my expenses and allowed me to save. It was even a salaried job so I always knew what my paycheck was going to be. Most of the folks described in that article don't have anything like that. Particularly since they lost jobs due to the pandemic.

I wonder if Craigslist housing arrangements are still available in this day and age or whether all those apps have removed any incentive from doing something like that. It really seems like there are a lot fewer options for people who want to improve their lives. If everybody is checking credit, that leaves very few places for people to go so they can rebuild their lives and improve their credit to the point where opportunity opens up for them. I seriously don't know if I'd have as easy of a time changing my life these days as I did back then.

[FINate]

Bottom line: is it right that our fellow humans and neighbors be treated like garbage and allowed to slip further and further into destitution while those who exploit them make fortunes? And what about their children, who are innocent bystanders?

It's absolutely not right. The US should be ashamed of our inability to meet basic human rights. It should be noted that this cuts across the partisan divide, both Red and Blue places are responsible for this issue. The extended-stay owners (and landlords in general) are not solely to blame, though scapegoating them is a convenient narrative to shift blame. We have to ask why marginalized folks have no other option but extended stay hotels. Yes, in part part it's because of how background checks and criminal histories follow people for life. However, landlords are overly picky because there's a housing shortage, which means they can afford to be choosy. And there's a housing shortage because we don't build enough housing, especially multi-family.

The US needs to build a lot more small efficiency apartments in major metros. Places that are affordable by design, where those of modest means can thrive without cars or maintaining a yard. Yet look at what happens when projects like this are proposed. Affluent neighbors fear poor people moving in next door and do everything in their power to stop/hinder development. E.g. look at how much it's costing LA per unit of "affordable" housing.

[LennStar]

They should build more manga cafes.

Half-joke aside, public housing is one of the oldest social systems ever created (we are talking literally biblical ages here). It was always needed because there are always the same mechanism at work - it's more profitable to house non-poor than poor people, especially in a housing shortage.

As long as that doesn't change, "The Market" will never provide any reasonably good housing to poor people. 

[norajean]

Wages are rising and this may help the working poor. Here is Oregon it is difficult to hire unskilled labor for less than $25/hour. There are not enough workers. Wages will continue to rise and inflation follows.

[SunnyDays]

Wages are rising and this may help the working poor. Here is Oregon it is difficult to hire unskilled labor for less than $25/hour. There are not enough workers. Wages will continue to rise and inflation follows.

But isn't inflation exactly the problem?  It doesn't matter how much you make if it doesn't keep up with rising costs.  All the numbers get bigger, but relatively, people are still in the same situation.

[LennStar]

Wages are rising and this may help the working poor. Here is Oregon it is difficult to hire unskilled labor for less than $25/hour. There are not enough workers. Wages will continue to rise and inflation follows.

But isn't inflation exactly the problem?  It doesn't matter how much you make if it doesn't keep up with rising costs.  All the numbers get bigger, but relatively, people are still in the same situation.

That depends on what you measure as inflation.

Oversea air travels and new SUVs getting cheaper lowers the inflation rate, but does not help any poor. If food (or rent in this case) prices rise, it does hurt poor may more than rich people.

But anyway, if there is a 10% rise of minimum wage and 5% inflation you still come out ahead, is long as the living costs aren't rising (much) more than the 5% inflation.
On the other hand, a 5% inflation might "hurt" the richer people who live off capital gains or are so far above the minimum wage that it has no effect on them.

[Just Joe]

I think cheaper housing might be a bright spot for those of us between the coasts. Our small town has loads of small homes built in the 40s, 50s and 60s that are still quite comfortable. A few needed renovations and updates and they are good to go.

DW and I started out in a 1948 home that was 30x30 ft. It wasn't tiny home small but had plenty of space for two people and featured a guest room/office/storage room/whatever. That room was all those things at some point. DW and I talk about retiring to a home that size at some point when we don't need or want our current "country estate". ;)

I've spotted a few new tiny homes on the edges of town. They are spectacular. Usually a small size footprint with a dramatic roofline enabling loft bedrooms. Unnecessary perhaps for the person of limited means just getting started in life but generally the right idea.

I'm left wondering how far the USA can push the traditional "American Dream" before the consequences of these choices overwhelm how our society functions. It's looking more and more like European style cities is the way to go in the future but I think we all know people in the USA who would resist that tooth and nail.

Sort of like electric cars. I was reading comments related to an article. People who have never been in one, clearly know nothing about them yet but still make those "over my dead body" statements. It's happening folks, like it or not.

[LennStar]

You know, Eurpean style cities is wrong.
Human style cities is what you should think.
Humans have build their cities like this (walkable) since forever. Even the probably oldest village Göbekli Tepe had close together housing.
Because it just makes so much sense.

It makes no sense at all to move tons of steel around every time you want to do anything.

[Jenny Wren]

You know, Eurpean style cities is wrong.

I must agree with you. Having traveled abroad extensively, I've come to accept that the "American-style city" is the anomaly and not the other way around!