Microsoft commits $500M to Seattle area homelessness cause

[Bammer]

Suck it, Home Shows!

[verb_to_trust]

No way any of that money gets misused or appropriated poorly.

[Anders]

A final nail in the Pearl Jam coffin.

[McParadigm]

No way any of that money gets misused or appropriated poorly.

It seems primarily interested in creating housing that Microsoft’s lower tier employees can potentially benefit from (not a complaint, given the state of housing in this city).

Developers will have access to $225 million in below market interest loans to build units aimed at households with $62,000 to $124,000 annual income. Additionally, $250 million in market rate loans will be extended to build housing for households with less than $48,150 annual income, still well above the poverty line.

[Monkey_Driven]

No way any of that money gets misused or appropriated poorly.

It seems primarily interested in creating housing that Microsoft’s lower tier employees can potentially benefit from (not a complaint, given the state of housing in this city).

Developers will have access to $225 million in below market interest loans to build units aimed at households with $62,000 to $124,000 annual income. Additionally, $250 million in market rate loans will be extended to build housing for households with less than $48,150 annual income, still well above the poverty line.

This seems like a good idea.

[Green Habit]

No way any of that money gets misused or appropriated poorly.

It seems primarily interested in creating housing that Microsoft’s lower tier employees can potentially benefit from (not a complaint, given the state of housing in this city).

Developers will have access to $225 million in below market interest loans to build units aimed at households with $62,000 to $124,000 annual income. Additionally, $250 million in market rate loans will be extended to build housing for households with less than $48,150 annual income, still well above the poverty line.

This seems like a good idea.

Yep. The more housing of any kind that any major city in the West can get, the better.

[4/5]

The more housing of any kind that any major city in the West with soaring housing costs can get, the better.

[Green Habit]

The more housing of any kind that any major city in the West with soaring housing costs can get, the better.

[simple schoolboy]

How is more housing going to help those with severe mental illness or substance abuse? The folks you see on the streets for long periods of time who refuse to stay in shelters? Housing is not their primary problem, and that myth needs to be slain.

Those temporarily out of work normally have some sort of support structure to fall back on, or live in their cars for a couple of months.

Maybe we need to better differentiate between the highly visible homeless that housing has almost no impact on, and the discreet homeless that additional housing stock may marginally benefit.

[Bi_3]

The more housing of any kind that any major city in the West with soaring housing costs can get, the better.

I don’t get this. Why should we encourage more and more people to be crammed into existing developed areas? Seems like planned suburban communities would allow for a more sustainable world going forward

[LoathedVermin72]

Or we could just kill all the rich people

[lennytheweedwhacker]

Or we could just kill all the rich people

starting with jorge and doug

[Green Habit]

I don’t get this. Why should we encourage more and more people to be crammed into existing developed areas? Seems like planned suburban communities would allow for a more sustainable world going forward

Before I respond, I'd like for you to expound on how you're defining "planned suburban community".

[4/5]

The more housing of any kind that any major city in the West with soaring housing costs can get, the better.

I don’t get this. Why should we encourage more and more people to be crammed into existing developed areas? Seems like planned suburban communities would allow for a more sustainable world going forward

I mean that's one way to frame it. I'd ask why should we prevent desperately wanted housing from being built instead of letting the market solve this government (read: homeowner NIMBY) created housing shortage.

[Green Habit]

I mean that's one way to frame it. I'd ask why should we prevent desperately wanted housing from being built instead of letting the market solve this government (read: homeowner NIMBY) created housing shortage.

Yeah, that's along the lines of what I'm prepared to argue. A good example of this was the Showbox brouhaha that occurred this summer. It was popularly pitted as a music venue versus a 44 story residential skyscraper, but the ultimate problem is that there's only a very small sliver of land in the Seattle metro area where either can be legally constructed--hence they had no choice but to "fight" against each other. The reason I want BI to explain "planned suburban communities" further, because if that means "allow property owners in the suburbs to build something other than only single family homes", then I can find plenty of room to agree.

[Bi_3]

I mean that's one way to frame it. I'd ask why should we prevent desperately wanted housing from being built instead of letting the market solve this government (read: homeowner NIMBY) created housing shortage.

Yeah, that's along the lines of what I'm prepared to argue. A good example of this was the Showbox brouhaha that occurred this summer. It was popularly pitted as a music venue versus a 44 story residential skyscraper, but the ultimate problem is that there's only a very small sliver of land in the Seattle metro area where either can be legally constructed--hence they had no choice but to "fight" against each other. The reason I want BI to explain "planned suburban communities" further, because if that means "allow property owners in the suburbs to build something other than only single family homes", then I can find plenty of room to agree.

This. I actually had the words 'something other than 4k sq ft homes' in the post originally, but removed it. Creating incentives to build moderately dense residential areas (while mandating school and public transport expansions to accommodate the population increase) seems like a better way to get more people closer to economic centers than to make cities denser and taller with the added benefit of the decades of urban planning and environmental knowledge we have now. The real key is making it easier, faster, and safer for people to get to their jobs so that commute time is not economic waste that is driven by a lack of affordable housing.