Create Americorps-Type Programs for the Trades
We need programs to help young people train in the trades while earning their way to home ownership
Assist young people in entering the understaffed construction, electrical, plumbing, and solar installation fields. Van Jones created a program called Green Jobs, not Jails! https://ces.williams.edu/log/van-jones-on-green-jobs-not-jails/
It is well documented that there is an exodus from the real world to the virtual world, as Jane McGonigal writes in her book “Reality is Broken” and in her Ted Talk about her work: https://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world She likens this to the fact that in games, players feel that they can make a difference, be creative, and matter. While in the real world, many people feel as though they can’t make an actual impact, no matter how hard they try.
At a moment when “The Great Resignation” is occurring and many people are finding the current circumstances of “work” as we know it undesirable, we need not only jobs but programs to help support workers within those jobs to see and experience personal growth in their skill set and find meaning. The truth is, when you make someone a home, you are doing a good thing. Clothing, food, and shelter matter to human happiness, and are central to life. Habitat for Humanity programs allows craftspeople to work alongside the people who will someday live in the homes being built. Perhaps we can create initiatives where young people work within the trades for a certain number of years, learning valuable skills, and “earn” their way into one of the homes they help build. Perhaps after three years of full time work, one earns a no or low interest loan. The “Hands to Home” program pays the down payment, allowing graduates to purchase their first home in an area of their choosing, or plot of land, using the remaining funds for construction, or a direct buy loan program so they can purchase one of the homes they helped construct. Ideas like “Farm to Table” are compelling for the intimacy they create between a person and the food they are consuming. “Hands to Home” is another way of helping people learn the skills needed to help in the process of construction, and can also lead to a starter home or condo.
Fix Design Flaws in NIMBYism and Building Oversight
There’s a design flaw in the current way community groups have a voice in development, as well as how municipalities address problems. Local town councils, supervisors, and legislators listen to the concerns of the community, as well they should. They represent us and our interests. That said, we may want to consider what our town council or presidential races might look like if we emboldened people to oppose candidates without forcing them to vote for any of the flawed human beings who have stepped forth to do the job. At present, NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) groups mobilize to block housing project after housing initiative and we give them the power to do so. If we treated giving people more options for housing like elections, and forced community groups to vote for something instead of just against whatever was put forth, we may not have the current housing shortage on our hands. I also want to mention that what is luxury housing today, in 30 years becomes moderate-income housing, and so on. So while we need to approve and vote for affordable and moderate-income housing first and foremost, opposing all luxury development is also not a feasible strategy. Another option might be to invite concerned or interested community members to vote for one of five housing development proposals or limit stalling and veto power to one development every five years.
The main avenue our local officials have for responding to concerns is to pass new ordinances, rules, regulations, and legislation. This, on the surface, seems harmless. What is less often talked about is that our current governance structure makes it much easier to pass a new law or ordinance than to remove or modify an existing law or ordinance.
In the case of housing in California, this list of regulations and rules continues to grow. This is a problem because it increases the cost to build and adds years to the permitting process. Extensive, costly regulations also prohibits many people living in substandard or unpermitted dwellings from beginning a transition to improved circumstances, as the climb is considered too steep. If we continue this way, people attempting to address the housing crisis by creating actual low and moderate-income housing will continue to be hamstrung between community groups that oppose them and cities, states, and counties that make it economically impossible to afford to build.
Unfortunately with any change, some folks are inconvenienced while others are helped. This is probably what Abe Lincoln was referring to when he famously said, “You can please all of the people some of the time, you can please some of the people all of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
Inconvenienced is a far cry from hurt. Ways people can be objectively hurt by development is through pollution or environmental racism. A small loss in housing value, having a bit more traffic or noise, these are undesirables, not abject harm. Poor city planning or insufficient infrastructure is certainly not what anyone hopes for. Also undesirable are the legions of homeless in tent camps, or the increasingly prevalent housing insecurity. Without building, the housing crisis will only get worse. One example of nimbyism with extraordinary power is https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/uc-berkeley-university-enrollment-nimby/622927/ Similar to the covid 19 crisis when circumstances reach emergency proportion, we must do something to mitigate the increasing crisis even if some portions of the population object.
Streamline Permitting ~ Establish a Pro-Housing Arm of HUD that works at the local level
This arm of HUD can work at the local level as code consultants and streamliners, establishing programs that make it easier for new units to be built.
As a local architect said, we have many departments set up to tell you what you can’t do. “It’s not their job to tell you what you can do.” If we set up a legion of locally level officials whose job it is to aid people attempting to build modest units, we may get be able to remedy the current shortage far faster. It can require a team of expert consultants to get through the permitting process. There are many ways this arm of HUD could function, from distributing free architectural plans to funding additional septic or green energy consultants, to establishing a greywater recycling arm. Their job would be to study and make recommendations on how we can remove obstacles, stumbling blocks, excess delays, and contradictory code as people on the front lines of helping homeowners through the process. We may even be able to take a programmatic approach and give this arm the power to greenlight projects so long as those projects are small scale, and fit within the preset limitations so that no harm is done to the environment or surrounding community. For example, with a programmatic approach, we may circumvent certain code requirements that are blanketed accross all residential construction. One might decide structural engineering is not needed for buildings under a certain height or dimension, or that fire sprinklers won’t be required in rural areas with low GPM wells, etc. We may also chose to allow alternative structures to be built and occupied, such as straw bail/cobb houses, or tiny homes.
This article is one of a series about the Housing Crisis. For more, see: What if we treated the housing crisis like a crisis?
