[Puffer Fish]

Here's an opinion article that the current ongoing migrant crisis is going to make the U.S. housing crisis worse.

There already is not enough affordable housing in big U.S. cities. These migrants are going to end up taking the scarce affordable housing which still exists, which is going to end up resulting in the poorest Americans being kicked out into the streets. Or maybe they will have to move far away from everything and everyone they have ever known.

Migrant surge makes U.S. housing crisis worse, Caitlin Owens, Axios, September 23, 2023

- Homelessness in the U.S. had a record spike from 2022 to 2023

- Now, state and local officials are also scrambling to house thousands of migrants arriving from the border.

Chicago homeless advocates estimate the city has more than 68,000 unhoused people, in addition to nearly 9,500 migrants.
City officials tell Axios they expect migrant support efforts to cost more than a quarter of a billion dollars this year. Local advocates say that's more than they've ever seen deployed toward the local homeless population.


related thread: Housing crisis and unaffordable rent costs in Ireland, caused by immigration?

[Steve_American]

@Puffer Fish, AFAIK, there are many empty commercial buildings all over America, Closed down shopping malls for example.

The Federal Gov. has the money to outfit them as housing. Start with the basics and floor by floor convert them to apts.

Are the real resources and labor around to do that nationally? That is the only question.

Of course, the Repuds would not let the Gov. do that.
.

[Puffer Fish]

As I explained in another thread, in economics, when the demand curve is steep enough at a certain point (or short interval), you don't get the normal tapering off of demand like is typically seen with a supply and demand curves. Instead you can get a shortage -- and I mean a real economic shortage. Where price is no longer the major factor in the allocation of scarce supply.

Basically you have a large number of people who all struggle to afford paying more than a certain price. So despite the excess of people relative to the supply, there is a limited ability for a segment of this group to be able to outbid the rest of the group. And when it comes to things like renting, tiny increases in price are less of a factor to the landlord than other factors, such as trustworthiness, knowing that the tenant won't cause damage to the property, credit-worthiness, knowing that the tenant is actually going to pay (considering that there exist various laws which may prevent and delay eviction). There can even be an element of randomness in rental allocation, first-come, first-served; if all the applicants are seen as nearly the same, the landlord may just find it easier to rent out to the first applicants that apply.

The "conventional" thought in economics is that shortages cannot truly exist in a free market, with supply and demand. But as I have just explained, that's not really always true.

[Politics_Observer]

@Puffer Fish

Bad economic and public policy, not immigrants or migrants, will make the U.S. housing crisis worse. It's actually good policy to allow immigrants to come here to the U.S. given that American women are having less children and we need people in order to have a strong economy. A strong economy is in everybody's best interest.

[Puffer Fish]

@Puffer Fish, AFAIK, there are many empty commercial buildings all over America, Closed down shopping malls for example.

I think it is a disturbing sign in the economy that there are more and more people, leading to shortages of housing, but at the same exact time many commercial buildings have become vacant.

It seems to suggest that there are more and more people, but those people have less money to be able to spend on businesses (at least brick-and-mortar businesses).

Intuitively, one would expect that with more houses, there would be demand for more commercial buildings. Or at least that the demand for commercial buildings would not go down. But that does not seem to be the case.

I think that this helps show and is a real-life example of how adding more people will not necessarily help cause the economy to grow.

[Puffer Fish]

Bad economic and public policy, not immigrants or migrants, will make the U.S. housing crisis worse.

And what exactly do you think are the bad public and economic policies that have made the U.S. housing crisis worse?

I think we have gone over some of this before. Some of those things I suspect you will suggest do not really logically bear out.

One of the main issues are that there is a shortage of available open space to build on in the desirable areas that are already filled up. It could be possible to squeeze more people in, but that would cause problems too, and eliminate the last remaining areas of open space, which would not be good for the people living there. Overcrowding is the problem. And despite what many people seem to think, it's too expensive and economically impractical to build upward. (You don't see the private sector using that strategy very often, unless it involves luxury condos)


If you think "economic policies" are the answer, how about implement those "economic policies" in other countries, so those migrants don't have to move?
If those policies won't work there, why do you think they would work here?