My Corona Diary (Take XXXVI): Our County Feels Like A Giant Monopoly Board (Should We Move To Finland?)

<"Coming Soon...":

The Reckoner>

Wherever you lay your hats, you're home
Is that true?

Wherever you lay your hats, you're home
If that's true, why are so many people confused?

<Fun Boy Three, "Going Home">

<i.>

Not too long ago, the Squawker and myself had one of our periodic conversations about whether it's time to bid our current complex goodbye, and look at renting a house. Lots of positives, we figured, when we started discussing the issue again. 

A bigger area to roam around, without some nosy neighbor, nor their dog, shadowing your every move. A chance to strike a better deal for less than what we pay now ($900 a month, which includes $35 or so for water, sewer and trash). A single owner is more flexible (theoretically) than a management company, which typically charges the highest rents.

A shot at getting some decent garden space, which Squawker capitalized on last summer, when our church built a large wooden box for that purpose. The array of cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes and zucchini that we grew helped our food budget, and then some. Small steps like that make a big difference in helping you control your destiny.

So I delegated the Squawker to have a look at rents around here, and guess what? Our search gave us a severe case of sticker shock. It didn't take long to figure out that everything starts at $1,200 per month, and rapidly escalates from there. With one exception, that is: a neighboring town, 10 miles away, dominated by Seventh Day Adventists. Rents over there average $700 per month. Who knows? Maybe the David Koresh image keeps the landlords in check.

Complex or duplex, rental house or townhouse, it doesn't really matter. Across the board, you're looking at paying $1,200, and in some cases, $1,300, even $1,750 per month, in some cases. Just before I started on this point, I asked the Squawker to look once more, this time on craigslist. Maybe only greedy capitalists hung out at the likes of rental.com, or zillow.com, right?

"After all," Squawker told me, "we might as well try to be fair. Maybe we've overlooked something here."

"Maybe," I ventured. "Though it seems like we'd have run across the deal of the century already."

It didn't take long for the few photos we saw to dash our hopes. "Look at this house," Squawker said. "Three-bedroom, $1,250 per month, and all the fixtures look pretty old. They've got clawfoot bathtubs! I see so many of them." Squawker sucked in a breath. "Listen to this: 'Must have $4,000 income per month to qualify.'"

"Well, even at that price," I pointed out, "you're still coughing up a hefty chunk of that income to them. Hence, the condition. So much for that, I guess."

We agree to keep the door ajar, if only a crack, for the future. Still, the news is pretty unsettling, since I grew up around these parts. If I wanted to realize some nostalgic wish of coming back here, I'd need some awfully deep pockets, or I couldn't do it. Simple as that.

<"Coming Soon"/Take II:

The Reckoner>

Is this my home? This is my home
This is where I'm from
Is this home? This must be home
But is this where I belong?

Fun Boy Three, "Going Home"

<ii.>

Absurd as this whole situation sounds, I could console myself with certain bromides, like this old chestnut: As bad as you have it, there's always someone else worse off. Right? Fair enough, but that bromide only goes so far. If the best result in life is barely avoiding the race to the bottom, well...It's not a recipe for a rich and rewarding one, is it?

Or this one: Possession is nine-tenths of the law, as many of the unfortunates left destitute by COVID-19 have discovered, who made the mistake of counting on rent relief that took too long to arrive, never materialized, or simply didn't help them, because the landlords refused to accept it. If you don't own anything substantial, the law doesn't apply, so it doesn't help you, apparently. Simple as that.

Or look at the West Coast, whose manicured liberal facade hides some ghastly social ills underneath it all. In San Francisco, where studio apartments average $3,000 a month, the city is girding itself to sweep away the "anchor-outs," as they're derisively called -- residents living rent-free, if illegally, on the water -- by 2026. 

City officials tick off the usual abstract concerns -- aesthetic, environmental, and legal, not to mention grousing from deeper-pocketed residents -- as reason enough to finally force the issue, though how much success they'll have remains to be seen (see the link below). Left unsaid is where the "anchor-outs" go, once their boats end up crushed, or confiscated. No answer is coming, because city officials don't have one, or aren't interested, nor organized enough, to provide it.

Or you could try something bolder, as Finland has done, as Juha Kaakinen suggests in this commentary in the September 2016 commentary of the Guardian, which -- along with the bare fruits of our recent search -- inspired me to finish off this post. Kaakinen is the chief executive of the Y-Foundation, which aims to end homelessness in Finland "by increasing the amount of affordable rental housing made available to homeless people."

Now, there's a concept, right? Too simple by half, but one that often eludes urban planners, who often focus too closely on the nuts and bolts of their proposed solutions -- rather than what people need. Like housing, for instance. As you'll read in Kaakinen's commentary, Finland opted to buy flats and convert them into rental apartments for homeless people, as well as creating new housing for them.

For example, one of the key steps involved renovating and rehabbing a 250-bed hostel run by the Salvation Army into an 80-unit apartment building, with on-site staff. Such moves become their own building blocks, so to speak, of a long term, systematic approach, instead of the usual "catch as catch can" approach that planners often take, as Kaakinen writes:

"To get the most out of housing first in terms of social and economic benefits it needs to be mainstream homelessness policy, not just individual pilot projects. Housing first needs housing stock and there is no real homeless policy without the housing supply to implement it. The cornerstone of any decent housing policy is the sufficient supply of affordable social housing. 

"To say that the scarcity of funding in any western European country is the reason for lack of affordable social housing is either an understatement or a conscious misunderstanding. It is simply a question of political will."

A question of political will -- I couldn't have said it better. That's exactly what's lacking, especially in my neck of the woods, where the City Commission has focused on building condos and luxury housing developments for seasonal, summer and weekend residents who don't live here year round -- unlike the Squawker and myself. 

Yes, long term solutions to social ills like homelessness take money and time, not to mention setting aside the resources to tackle them. But Kaakinen's point is well taken. If you don't start, you'll never reach the finish line, let alone the 50-yard line.

It'll be interesting to see how Finland's homeless policy is faring now. Maybe I'll update that for a future post. Meanwhile, the Squawker and myself will keep the door open, if only a crack. And if the political will doesn't materialize? The answer is simple: move to Finland. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before They Buy Your Land From You)

The Guardian:
Lessons From Finland:
Helping Homeless People

Starts With Giving Them Homes:
https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/sep/14/lessons-from-finland-helping-homeless-housing-model-homes

The L.A. Times:
They Live Rent-Free On San Francisco Bay.

But Now Their "Floating Homeless Encampment" Faces Extinction:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-09/they-live-rent-free-on-san-francisco-bay-but-now-their-floating-homeless-encampment-faces-extinction

The Y-Foundation:

https://world-habitat.org/world-habitat-awards/winners-and-finalists/y-foundation/