Daily News Takes Yet Another Snipe at Downtown

Good post. Yes the red haring of blame the developers is easy to see.

Most of the rental housing that is ripe for conversion is going to be a building that has bigger units and parking for each unit. Usually 2 parking spaces for each unit.

The people in those units are never thrown in the streets. Often given nice buyouts that pays for a move up for those renters. The housing units are then sold to new HOME OWNERS. Families and working folks happy to now get a mortgage that gives them the tax benefits and some equity growth. That is a Win Win Win in most ways. Even the city gets the windfall of better property tax revenues.

Condo conversion is not something that is bad for the city. Many now realize we need more density. Condos give us the “American dream” AND the higher density.

As you’ve posted before, this meme of “skid row housing being converted into condos” is A LIE! But, the idea has burrowed its way into the collective unconsciousness like a chigger, so there’s no way to get it out now.

The fact is that almost every conversion project in downtown involved empty buildings. Empty office buildings. Some were retail spaces or banks. NOT HOUSING! Let me run off a few names: The Brockman, The Hellman, The San Fernando, THe Continental, The Douglas, The Higgins, The Irvine-Byrne, The Pegasus, The Roosevelt, The Pacific Electric, The Santa Fe, Santee Village, The Eastern-Columbia, The Security, The Rowan. I could go on. NOBODY WAS LIVING IN ANY OF THESE BUILDINGS PRIOR TO CONVERSION.

The only instances of SRO “Skid Row” type housing going away I can think of are The Rosslyn Hotel, and the infamous instance of the hotel on Eighth Street near the Golden Gopher, which was what apparently inspired Jan Perry to moot this ordinance in the first place. Get it through your heads, media: we’re not tossing homeless people on the street here. We’re fixing up the neighborhood!

Scott is absolutely correct about the media myth that downtown residential development entails displacing the homeless and poor. This is the narrative which informs a lot of discussion about this issue. Yet, given that it is clearly untrue, except in the narrowest sense (e.g. the Golden Gopher building), why does this myth persist? Why would the various authorities (like the city council) enact legislation to address the ‘problem’? You’d think the truth-seeking media would happily dispel the myth.

I’d suggest the utility of this myth to the liberal elites who run our city is to allow them not to see the social and moral disaster their policies towards the homeless have created. Clearly, the policies which this city has implemented over the past generation have been a complete failure. A quick walk down Main or San Pedro puts the results of these policies on display for all to see. Open use and sale of illegal drugs. Prostitution. Public urination and defecation. Lawlessness. The breakdown of every social norm which governs civilized society. Essentially, the city practices a form of apartheid. Law and order is enforced selectively. In certain areas designated as servicing the homeless, anything goes.

Instead of facing the fact that the policies which the city and county enacted created Skid Row and keep it going, our civic leaders see themselves as the torchbearers for progressive ideals. Improving the lot of their fellow man surely being one of these. However, their high-minded ideals are completely contradicted by the outcome of their policies towards the homeless. Any one who cares to look can see their policies have failed miserably.

But, our progressive leaders don’t want to see the disaster they created. Instead, they speak of how more needs to be done; more resources need to be spent to address the problem. They will pass pointless ordinances which are meant to show their constituents they ‘care’ about the problem. Not that they’ll actually do anything to truly resolve the problem. These civic leaders actually have the audacity to think the long-term solution to the problem is to export it to more locations across the county!

As it stands now, caring about the homeless is akin to an article of faith. Allegiance to this faith requires one to ignore what one can plainly see and reaffirm this faith by continuing to advocate failed policies. This myth of the homeless and the poor being displaced by residential development simply allows them to avert their gaze a little longer and appear to be actually addressing the problem. One wonders how long this charade will continue, how many years will pass, and how many real human beings will be sacrificed to serve their faith?