[homeles_ot-l] Ask Me Ottawa - New Story on Housing First

[Allan Moscovitch]

A few thoughts on this article.

Ian Lee’s comments appear to me to be based on text book economic theory. In my view markets can and do breakdown; they don’t work for many homeless people. While the housing problems of some people might be solved simply by increasing their incomes it is not clear to me that the public will support raising incomes high enough to allow everyone with poor or no housing to be better housed. Further, as long as there is a profit to be made from the changing nature of demand for housing by people with higher incomes, then poor people are always at risk of being pushed out of their housing by those who can pay more. Trickle down theory suggests that this is a good thing because it will create housing that is cheaper and available somewhere else. The reality is that this does not happen. The unregulated operations of private housing markets leads some people to be homeless, or near homeless. By cutting out the profit, we as a community, whether through non-profit, cooperative or government organizations, can increase supply more cheaply than the private market and we can as a community control a continuous supply of low cost housing. If as the data suggest, we have 10% poverty then we need at least a 10% supply of low income housing in the public and non profit sectors to house people who cannot obtain housing on their own. Private markets will not work to produce enough housing for people who are poor. One hundred and 50 years of experience in many different countries is likely enough to be able to draw this general conclusion. Markets work well to meet some goals and not others. The goal of adequate housing for people with low incomes has to be met through non market means. Housing First is one means to that end, but it too relies on private as well as social housing and as a consequence will generate only temporary solutions for some people.



From: homeles_ot-l [mailto:homeles_ot-l-bounces at list.web.net] On Behalf Of Erin Dej
Sent: July-11-14 9:45 AM
To: homeles_ot-l at list.web.net
Subject: [homeles_ot-l] Ask Me Ottawa - New Story on Housing First

Happy Friday,

Please check out the latest news item from Ask Me Ottawa. Emily Cook has a piece on the opportunities and challenges of using the housing first model in Ottawa.

http://askmeottawa.ca/housing-first-why-the-new-affordable-housing-model-may-hurt-those-who-need-it-most/


Erin Dej
PhD Candidate (ABD)
Department of Criminology
University of Ottawa
Tel: 613-282-3619
erin.dej at uottawa.ca<mailto:erin.dej at uottawa.ca>

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