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 ›