dedoubt t1_j5ajr7w wrote on January 21, 2023 at 4:23 PM

Reply to comment by respaaaaaj in MaineHousing ready to spend $21 million to provide overnight shelters this winter by Shake-Spear4666

>The best way to bring down rent prices is to build more housing

That will help in the future. In the present what would help is somebody stopping the ever increasing rental prices, right now.

GaryHart2024 t1_j5b7lge wrote on January 21, 2023 at 7:01 PM

More units stalls increases. There's pretty decent research on this.

respaaaaaj t1_j5b6gxm wrote on January 21, 2023 at 6:53 PM

The issue with that is that short term measures to bring down on existing housing costs (rent control, limiting short term rentals second homes etc) discourages construction and frequently leads to landlords going condo potential driving rent up or at least availability down while also preventing the long term cost reduction that more construction brings.

SabbathBoiseSabbath t1_j5b72tm wrote on January 21, 2023 at 6:57 PM

So while places build new housing for prices to maybe fall 10 or 20 years from now, eff the people that need relief right now?

respaaaaaj t1_j5b81la wrote on January 21, 2023 at 7:04 PM

Yes government policy needs to balance short and long term interests, but the biggest issue is that attempts at short term reductions in costs of housing frequently backfire and either don't help short term and hurt long term or just straight up hurt both. This shit should have been addressed 5 to 10 years ago, but the best that can realistically be done is start on it now. (And it doesn't take 10 to 20 years for newly built housing to impact housing, nor does it take 10 to 20 years to build new housing).

SabbathBoiseSabbath t1_j5b9yy4 wrote on January 21, 2023 at 7:17 PM

Government (at any level) really doesn't do long term planning at all. In fact, I can't think of a single policy or program that is long term focused, other than maybe public lands conservation.

respaaaaaj t1_j5bawbi wrote on January 21, 2023 at 7:24 PM

I guess that would depend on what you consider long term, because things like zoning, environmental protections (of any kind), fishery and wildlife management, infrastructure, tax credits aimed at promoting particular kinds of buildings products vehicles home upgrades (heat pumps extra insulation windows that retain more heat) etc are all what I'd call long term just off the top of my head.

SabbathBoiseSabbath t1_j5bdsyh wrote on January 21, 2023 at 7:44 PM

Yeah, this is true. My previous comment was certainly too lazy and lacked nuance.

respaaaaaj t1_j5be8q0 wrote on January 21, 2023 at 7:47 PM

You are right that outside of emergency relief there aren't many short term actions taken by governments in regards to housing, because all of the short term options that governments have tried have risks of backfiring both short and long term.