NYT OPINION: The Problem With Everything-Bagel Liberalism
By Ezra Klein and Janet Delaney
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: April 2, 2023 at 03:00AM
Tahanan, at 833 Bryant Street in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco, is 145 studio units of permanent, supportive housing for the chronically homeless. It’s a cheerful, efficient building that bears the hopes and scars of the population it serves. The carefully curated murals and architectural flourishes give way to extensive water damage inflicted when a resident on an upper floor reportedly slept with the faucets running. Social workers walk purposefully through the halls, greeting residents, and well-loved dogs are being walked everywhere you turn.
But what makes Tahanan notable isn’t its aesthetic. It’s the way it was built. Tahanan went up in three years, for less than $400,000 per unit. Affordable housing projects in the Bay Area routinely take twice as long and cost almost twice as much. “Development timelines for affordable projects in San Francisco have typically stretched to six years or longer, and development costs have reached $600,000 to $700,000 per unit,” observes the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley. San Francisco cannot dent its housing crisis at the speed and cost at which it is building affordable units now. But if the pace and price of Tahanan were the norm, the outlook would brighten.
By Ezra Klein and Janet Delaney
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: April 2, 2023 at 03:00AM
Trouble comes when Democrats try to do everything everywhere all at once.
In February, I visited Tahanan, a building that might be the answer to San Francisco’s homelessness crisis. I left wishing that the answer had been other than what it was.Tahanan, at 833 Bryant Street in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco, is 145 studio units of permanent, supportive housing for the chronically homeless. It’s a cheerful, efficient building that bears the hopes and scars of the population it serves. The carefully curated murals and architectural flourishes give way to extensive water damage inflicted when a resident on an upper floor reportedly slept with the faucets running. Social workers walk purposefully through the halls, greeting residents, and well-loved dogs are being walked everywhere you turn.
But what makes Tahanan notable isn’t its aesthetic. It’s the way it was built. Tahanan went up in three years, for less than $400,000 per unit. Affordable housing projects in the Bay Area routinely take twice as long and cost almost twice as much. “Development timelines for affordable projects in San Francisco have typically stretched to six years or longer, and development costs have reached $600,000 to $700,000 per unit,” observes the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley. San Francisco cannot dent its housing crisis at the speed and cost at which it is building affordable units now. But if the pace and price of Tahanan were the norm, the outlook would brighten.
Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/02/opinion/democrats-liberalism.html
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