housing

A landlord in an upscale neighborhood in Washington state is out thousands of dollars as a result of a deadbeat tenant he can’t evict because of the county’s eviction backlog. Jaskaran Singh owns a rental property he bought two years ago in Woodridge, one of Bellevue, Washington’s most desirable neighborhoods. He thought Sang Kim, along with his wife and kids, were going to be ideal tenants, that is until the Kims allegedly started skipping out on rent. Singh told Discovery Institute’s Senior Fellow Jonathan Choe that Kim “…got a new car, he’s got (another) new car parked inside also.” He added, “He lied for everything. He’s simply exploiting the system.”   Singh attempted mediation through the city, and when that failed, began the eviction process, Read More ›

Perryton, a Texas panhandle city of 8,000, sits 17 miles south of the Oklahoma state line. Until June 15 it had almost zero homelessness, because two of the major causes of homelessness — overwhelming addiction and high housing prices — were not present. On June 15 a tornado wiped out 418 homes, more than ten percent of Perryton’s housing stock — and it still had no visible homelessness, as measured by people sleeping on the streets or in shelters. (There isn’t one in Perryton.) How can that be? I’ve just visited Perryton, so I’ll take a time-out from my California series to report on what happened and what hasn’t happened. I’ll come back to San Francisco and Orange County in Read More ›

Exclusive King County Executive Dow Constantine (@kcexec) says “I’m not familiar with the situation you’re talking about,” after I asked him why landlords were being turned away from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority’s (@kingcorha) highly touted incentive program to get people off the streets. It’s a story KVI Radio’s Ari Hoffman (@thehoffather) and I broke earlier this week. Either Constantine was giving me spin today, or his media handler Chase Gallagher did not brief him on the situation. Constantine is on the KCRHA Governing Committee, responsible for oversight and approving budgets. Either way, Constantine went on to say he believes they should be working with more landlords in the private sector and gave a vote of confidence to KCRHA. Read More ›

Up and Running The former Lacey Days Inn is now called Maple Court, the latest property converted into a homeless hotel to house people living along I-5 in #ThurstonCounty. Wednesday afternoon, Governor Jay Inslee (@GovInslee) and city leaders from #Olympia, #Lacey, and #Tumwater showed up for the ribbon cutting ceremony. So far, 16 men and women along with their pets are now in this temporary shelter. More homeless people from various encampments on WSDOT properties will be filling up this place in the coming weeks as part of the Right of Way Initiative. Up to 125 will be staying here. It will be run by the Low Income Housing Institute (@LIHIhousing,) known for it’s “tiny house” villages. This facility will Read More ›

Last October Howard Husock, a Manhattan Institute scholar, explained at the Center for Urban Renewal and Education why both government-owned housing and Section 8 government-subsidized private housing leave many poor people behind the 8-ball. He said both kinds have been “especially harmful to the interests of African Americans. They have lured Black households into dependency and long-term poverty, rewarded single-parenthood and led to the gnawing gap in home ownership and wealth between White and Black households.” He showed how federal and local governments in the 20th century destroyed in city after city black neighborhoods filled with black-owned businesses and homeowners but labeled as slums. Governments replaced them with public housing projects, set housing rules that punish increasing income and marriage, and Read More ›