Who goes homeless? - government interference with rental properties denies homeless people housing

National Review, March 1, 1993 by Ernest van den Haag

HOW COME there are so many homeless people in American cities? By now the literature has established that at least a third of them are drug-addicted or mentally disturbed and would not stay in a dwelling even if it were available to them. Still, many other homeless people simply cannot afford the rent at which apartments are available.

This seems strange. If you need a new jacket you usually can buy it. If you can't spend five hundred dollars, you can find one for fifty. If that is too much, you can go to a thrift shop and get a used one for ten dollars or less. How come? The market for old and new jackets is not regulated by the government.

Or consider cars. If you cannot afford a new one, used ones are available in many price ranges. A very cheap used car may not have air conditioning, a radio, or power windows; the upholstery may be torn, the roof may leak, the windows may be broken and the paint peeling. But if it runs and carries you where you want to go, it is better than no transportation.

Here is the difference. While the government lets you buy an old jalopy, provided it's not dangerous, government regulators will prevent you from moving into an apartment unless it has heating, hot and cold water, electricity, etc. Landlords are not allowed to rent old apartments without such facilities, let alone build new ones. Sure, life without these conveniences is hard. But wouldn't you prefer an apartment without hot water to sleeping on the street? You would; but the government would not. Unless the apartment has the minimal conveniences the regulations require, you are not allowed to move in and the landlord is not allowed to rent it to you.

In the past, people who were down on their luck could spend the night in a flophouse, so called because it consisted simply of a big enclosure. No bedding; heat and water in some cases, but not in all. You just flopped down, protected from the elements. The price was very low. Not a comfortable overnight stay. Yet, wasn't it better than sleeping on the street, which not only lacks the same amenities but also may be wet, cold, windswept, dangerous, and without even a communal bathroom? A locker was usually provided in these flophouses, as were some other facilities, however minimal. They were privately owned and profit-making. The owners competed with one another to offer the most for the money, attract customers, and increase profits. Not least, private owners could get rid of disruptive customers. Public shelters cannot, or at least do not. They are very expensive for taxpayers, yet yield so little benefit to users that many homeless people prefer the street even in winter.

More amenities, above all privacy, were provided by cage hotels. These consisted of large rooms divided into cubicles by means of partial walls, and offered common washing facilities. Those who could afford a little more still relied on rooming houses, which were comparatively luxurious, or on boarding houses, which offered room and board cheaply. The latter two kinds of facilities often made use of old buildings, subdividing what had been spacious apartments.

All or Nothing

ALL OF THESE places have disappeared, not because they were no longer needed or had become unprofitable, but because the government made them unprofitable, when it did not actually demolish them, or prohibit them from offering shelter. Politicians, bureaucrats, and bleeding hearts waxed indignant about the deprivations people suffered in cheap lodgings which lacked minimal amenities. Their solution? Get rid of these cheap lodgings. The former customers, unable to afford more expensive lodging, now have to sleep on the street. In effect the government has decided that it is better for people to have no roof over their head than to live in places that do not have hot water. Yes indeed, the best can be the enemy of the better.

Common sense suggests that it is better to have transportation in a rundown jalopy, when that is all you can afford, than to have no transportation. Better to buy a second-hand jacket than to have none. And better to have some shelter, however bare, than to sleep on the street. But common sense ends where the government begins.

Nobody would be permitted to build a flophouse or an SRO, or even to modify an existing building for such use-- unless the facilities required by the government were installed. Which would drive the costs beyond the means of the prospective customers. In many cases the buildings are there, but cannot be utilized because they do not come up to government standards. Sure, the street doesn't either, but the government adamantly refuses to recognize that the street is the actual alternative. So do the many advocates for the homeless.

Whether automobiles or clothing, whatever in the normal course of events no longer satisfies the rich is utilized by the poor. They are and feel better off with second-hand things than they would without. Although there is increasingly a tendency for the government to get in the way, most second-hand markets are comparatively free and therefore efficient.