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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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SVB bailouts for everyone - except affordable housing projects

For the apologists, the SVB bailout was merely prudent: a bunch of innocent bystanders stood in harm’s way — from the rank-and-file employees at startups to the scholarship kids at elite private schools that trusted their endowment to Silicon Valley Bank — and so the government made an exception, improvising measures that made everyone whole without costing the public a dime. What’s not to like?

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/15/socialism-for-the-rich/#rugged-individualism-for-the-poor

But that account doesn’t hold up to even the most cursory scrutiny. Everything about it is untrue. Take the idea that this wasn’t a “bailout” because it was the depositors who got rescued, not the shareholders. That’s just factually untrue: guess where the shareholders kept their money? That’s right, SVB. The shareholders of SVB will get billions in public money thanks to the bailout. Billions:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/18/2-billion-here-2-billion-there/#socialism-for-the-rich

But is it really public money? After all, the FDIC payouts come from a pool of funds raised from all of America’s banks. The billions the public put into SVB will be recouped through hikes on the premiums paid by every bank. Well, sure — but who do you think the banks are going to gouge to cover those additional expenses? Hint: it’s not going to be the millionaires who get white-glove treatment and below-cost loans. It’ll be the working people whom the banks steal billions from every year in overdraft fees — 78% of these are paid by 9.2% of customers, the very poorest, and they amortize to a 3,500% loan:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#usurers

As Adam Levitin put it on Credit Slips:

They will pass those premiums through to customers because the market for banking services is less competitive than the market for capital. In particular, the higher costs for increased insurance premiums are likely to flow to the least price-sensitive and most “sticky” customers: less wealthy individuals. So average Joes are going to be facing things like higher account fees or lower APYs, without gaining any benefit. Instead, the benefit of removing the cap would flow entirely to wealthy individuals and businesses. This is one massive, regressive cross-subsidy. It’s not determinative of whether raising the cap is the right policy move in the end, but this is something that should be considered.

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2023/03/the-regressive-cross-subsidy-of-uncapping-deposit-insurance.html

The SVB apologists display the most curious and bizarre imaginative leaps…and imaginative failings. For them, imagining that regulators will just wing it to the tune of hundreds of billions in public money is simplicity itself. Meanwhile, imagining that those same regulators would say, “Not one penny unless every shareholder agrees to sign away their deposits” is literally impossible.

This bizarrely inconstant imagination carries over into all of the claims used to justify the SVB bailout — like, say, the claim that if SVB wasn’t bailed out, everyone would pile into too big to fail banks like Jpmorgan. This is undoubtably true — unless (and hear me out here!), regulators were to use this failure as a launchpad for public banks, and breakups of Jpmorgan, Wells Fargo, Citi, et al.

This is a very weird imaginative failure. America operated public banks. It had broken up too big to fail banks. These weren’t the deeds of a fallen civilization whose techniques were lost to the mists of time. There are literally people alive today who were around when America operated nationwide public banks — a practice that only ended in 1966! We’re not talking about recovering the lost praxis of the druids who built Stonehenge without power-tools, here.

The most telling imaginative failure of SVB apologists, though, is this: they think that people are angry that the government saved the janitors at startups and the scholarship kids at private schools, and can’t imagine that people are angry that America didn’t save anyone else. If you’re a low-income student at an elite private school, there’s billions on hand to save you — but not because the government gives a damn about you — saving you is a side effect of saving all the rich kids you go to school with.

Likewise, the startup janitors aren’t the target of the bailout — they’re overspill from the billions mobilized to rescue the personal fortunes of tech billionaires who supply VCs’ investment capital. If there was a way to bail out the startups without bailing out the janitors, that’s exactly what would happen.

How do I know this? Well, first of all, the “investors” who demanded — and received — a bailout are on record as hating workers and wanting to fire as many of them as possible. As one of the loudest voices for the bailout said of Twitter employees, in a private message to Elon Musk following the takeover: “Day zero: Sharpen your blades boys 🔪”:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/21/tech-workers/#sharpen-your-blades-boys

But there’s even better evidence that the bailout’s intended target was wealthy, powerful people, and every chance to carve out working people was seized upon. When regulators engineered the sale of SVB to First Citizens Bank, they did not require First Citizens to honor SVB’s community development obligations, killing thousands of affordable housing units that had been previously greenlit:

https://calreinvest.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Community-Benefits-Plan-SVB-CRC-GLI.pdf

Tens of thousands of people wrote to regulators, urging them to transfer SVB’s Community Benefits Plan obligation to First Citizens:

https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/petitions/sign-the-petition-save-affordable-housing-keep-the-promises-silicon-valley-bank-made

As did Rep Maxine Waters, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee:

https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/318_cwm_ltr_fdic.pdf

But First Citizens — a bank whose slot in America’s top-20 banks was secured through a string of exceptions, exemptions and waivers — was not required to take on SVB’s obligations to carry out loans to build thousands of affordable housing units in the Bay Area and Boston, including a 112-unit building for people with disabilities planned for a plum spot across from San Francisco City Hall:

https://www.levernews.com/regulators-stiffed-low-income-communities-in-silicon-valley-bank-bailout/

All those people who wanted SVB’s community development obligations to carry forward vastly outnumbered the people calling for billionaires portfolio companies to be saved — but they merely spoke on behalf of people who sought the most basic of human rights — shelter. No one listened to them. Instead, it was the hyperventilating all-caps “investors” who spent SVB’s no-good weekend shouting on Twitter about the fall of civilization who got what they wanted, with a bow on top, and a glass of publicly funded warm milk before bed.

The US finance sector is reckless to the point of being criminally negligent. It constitutes an existential risk to the nation. And yet, every time it gets into trouble, regulators are able to imagine anything and everything to shift their risks to the public’s shoulders.

Meanwhile, everyday people are frozen out. School lunches? Unaffordable. Student debt cancellation? Inconceivable. Help for the hundreds of thousands of NYC schoolchildren whose schools are facing a $469m hack-and-slash attack? That’s clearly impossible:

https://council.nyc.gov/joseph-borelli/2022/09/06/nyc-council-calls-for-mayor-adams-doe-to-fully-restore-469m-in-school-funding/

When it comes to helping everyday people, American elites and their captured champions in the US government have minds that are so rigid and inflexible that it’s a wonder they can even dress themselves. But when the fortunes and wellbeing of the wealthy and powerful are on the line, their minds are so open that some of their brains actually leak out of their ears and nostrils:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

Every bank merger is supposed to come with a “public interest analysis.” But these analyses are “perfunctory.” They needn’t be:

https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/8305/Kress_Article._Publication__1_.pdf

First Citizens got a hell of a bargain: it paid zero dollars for SVB’s assets, its deposits and its loans. Any losses it incurs from its commercial loans over the next five years will be paid by the FDIC, no questions asked. The inability of regulators to convince First Citizens to assume SVB’s community obligations along with those billions in public largesse speaks volumes.

Meanwhile, SVB’s shareholders continue to claim that their headquarters are a relatively unimportant office in Manhattan, and not their glittering, massive corporate offices in San Jose, as part of their bid to shift their bankruptcy proceeding to the Southern District of New York, where corporate criminals like the Sackler opioid family have found such a warm reception that they were able to escape “bankruptcy” with billions in the bank, while their victims were left in the cold:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/18/2-billion-here-2-billion-there/#socialism-for-the-rich

Contrary to what SVB’s apologists think, the case against them isn’t driven by spite — it’s driven by fury. America’s “socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor” has been with us for generations, but rarely is it so plain as it is in this case.

There’s only two days left in the Kickstarter campaign for the audiobook of my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

[Image ID: A glass-and-steel, high-tech office building. Atop it is a cartoon figure of Humpty Dumpty, whose fall has been arrested by masses of top-hatted financiers, who hold fast to a rope that keeps him in place. At the foot of the office tower is heaped rubble. On top of the rubble is another Humpty Dumpty figure, this one shattered and dripping yolk. Protruding from the rubble are modest multi-family housing units.]

Image:

Lydia (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vicroft_Court_Starley_Housing_Co-operative_%282996695836%29.jpg

Oatsy40 (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/oatsy40/21647688003

Håkan Dahlström (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/93755244@N00/4140459965

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #housing crisis #svb #silicon valley bank #plutocracy #bailouts #affording housing #socialism for the rich #rugged individualism for the poor #regional banking #community development banks #housing

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animentality · 2 months

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#twitter #housing #economy #housing market #affordable house

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inkskinned · 8 months

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the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

#writeblr #warm up #this is longer than i wanted i really considered removing that part about myself and what i went thru #but i think it really fucking bothers me that EVERY time i talk about being an artist #ppl assume i just like. had the skill and ability to drop everything and pay for grad school.#like sir i grew up poor. my house wasn't a safe space. i gave up a FREE RIDE TO LAW SCHOOL. for THIS. bc i chose it.#was it fucking hard? was i choosing the hard thing?? yes.#but we need to stop seeing artists as lazy layabouts that can ''afford'' to just ''sit around and create''#when MANY - if not MOST - of us are NOT like that. we have to work our fucking ASSES off. hard work. long and hard work #part of valuing artists is recognizing the amount we sacrifice to make our art. bc it doesn't just #like HAPPEN to us. also btw it rarely has anything to do with true talent.#speaking as someone with a chronic condition i hate when ppl are like u have it easy. like actively as i'm writing this my hands r #ACTIVELY hurting me. i haven't been posting bc my left hand was curled in a claw for the last week #this isn't fucking luck. after a certain point it's not even TALENT. it's dedication & sacrifice.#''u get to flounce around and do nothing with ur life'' is a narrative that is a direct result of capitalism #imagine if we said that about literally any other profession.#''oh so u give up 10 yrs of ur life to be a doctor? u sacrifice having a social life and u get SUPER in debt?#u need to work countless hours and it will often be thankless? well i wish i was that lucky''#we should be applying that logic to landlords ONLY #''oh ur mom and dad gave u the money to buy a house? and all u did was paint it white and rent it? huh.''

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biggest-gaudiest-patronuses · 1 year

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sick of rich people with boring homes. if you're going to set the standard for desirable lifestyles I will never afford, would you at least put some color into it dangnabit

#you could afford to put in a movie room but not to paint the walls anything but white beige and off-yellow?#it's so depressing you have a house i could never afford and it is hideous. and not even in an interesting way

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marzipanandminutiae · 7 months

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"we bought this Victorian house and opened up the interior, adding lots of overhead lights and pewter walls-"

biting you killing you biting you killing you biting you killing you

#JUST BUY A NEW HOUSE #THAT IS NOT MAKING IT LIVABLE WHICH I WOULD UNDERSTAND. THAT IS RUINING IT.#IF NOT WANT OLD HOUSE. DO NOT BUY OLD HOUSE #and don't come at me with 'well some people can't afford restoration so!'#if you can't afford restoration you can't afford to completely redo the interior. IKEAfication costs money too #it's not the poor doing this. it's rich assholes. sometimes just developers even who don't intend to live there

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liberalsarecool · 2 years

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Tenant control is a great idea.

#affordable housing #rent reform #tenant control

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dispatchesfromtheclasswar · 8 months

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#class war #class warfare #classism #suicide prevention #affordable housing #livable wages #universal healthcare

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hollowwish · 1 month

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You guys do realize a lot of watcher fans complaining about the six dollars don't just need to "cancel their disney+ or hulu subscriptions." They're the people who ALREADY can't afford streaming services. It's not that they should be supporting independent creators over big corporations, it's that they literally cannot afford to do either.

#Some people in this tag genuinely do not know how poverty works #Like. 6 dollars is A LOT by american standards right now #And that's not even counting countries with currency worth less #For some watcher fans this is literally '6 dollars towards content or 6 more dollars towards rent to keep my housing #Or food so I don't starve'#ren posting #watcher #watcher entertainment #Edit: there's also people like me who CAN AFFORD IT #But they have better things to put money towards. Like college and therapy and medications and a mortgage #So not every fan who can afford it will because there are simply more important things to pay for. Especially in this economy

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chimaeraonwards · 11 months

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no ai generated content will ever compare to the absolutely cartoonishly evil plot to cut down trees to prevent workers from striking to get livable wage.

#tree law #sag strike #wga strike #also also it can be hard to admit but the US does set some industry standards so although im on the other side of the world its concerning!!#if bigwigs at US companies are screwing out their own workers what would this mean for those producing content in other countries?#what about our own local production companies that model american production houses?#oh we cant pay you a living wage cause thats industry standard. dont believe me? here is what a writer at X USA company at X TV show earns #also if you “cant afford” to pay your creatives a living wage then maybe you shouldnt be in charge #so yeah #i think this whole strike thing will affect more than just the US #just fucking pay your creatives

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simminginstars · 6 months

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Chasin' fatter ass and fake connections Chasin' facades in all directions

#some melanin for your timelime :)#noee's besties #they went to lee's house party #bcos who can afford the club?#ts4 edit #sims 4 edit #sidestory #my edits

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allthecanadianpolitics · 4 months

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Newfoundland and Labrador's post-secondary institutions have teamed up with an organization that can find housing for students, while helping to curb loneliness of seniors with room to spare. SpacesShared, an online platform that helps pair seniors with empty rooms in their homes with students, has recently been launched in Newfoundland and Labrador. CEO Rylan Kinnon says the app uses an algorithm to match compatible students with older hosts interested in home sharing. "These are longer-term living relationships. We verify the host identity and their address. We verify the student's identity and that they are in fact enrolled at a post secondary institution," he said. "Once they've actually connected through the platform, we support them. We check in with them a week after the student moves in and every month and if we identify any issues through that survey, we follow up with a phone call."

Tagging @politicsofcanada

#cdnpoli #canada #canadian politics #canadian news #newfoundland and labrador #housing #student housing #affordable housing

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inkskinned · 9 months

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it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

#i can't believe i have to say this #the conservative party is legit like ''is it anything good? okay we hate it.''#''lets kill lgbt people and ummmmm school children shouldnt be able to read they should be at home watching jordan peterson :)"#the fact that it's like all related is. wild.#like it's wild bc if u start being like. actually making it impossible to afford housing is part of how they keep the nuclear family.....#it's just like lines connecting to lines. EXCEPT ITS OBVIOUS?#what's wild to me about most conspiracy theorists is that they're like . ohhhh the govt is hiding shit!!!!!!! they don't want u to know!!!#and im like. this old man literally got up on stage and said he hates public education and will let our kids die before taking away ak-47s #and ppl are like: lol thats just bob's sense of humor he didn't mean it literally uwu

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reasonsforhope · 5 months

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Paywall-free version

On the outskirts of Austin, Texas, what began as a fringe experiment has quickly become central to the city’s efforts to reduce homelessness. To Justin Tyler Jr., it is home.

Mr. Tyler, 41, lives in Community First! Village, which aims to be a model of permanent affordable housing for people who are chronically homeless. In the fall of 2022, he joined nearly 400 residents of the village, moving into one of its typical digs: a 200-square-foot, one-room tiny house furnished with a kitchenette, a bed and a recliner.

The village is a self-contained, 51-acre community in a sparsely populated area just outside Austin. Stepping onto its grounds feels like entering another realm.

Eclectic tiny homes are clustered around shared outdoor kitchens, and neat rows of recreational vehicles and manufactured homes line looping cul-de-sacs.

There are chicken coops, two vegetable gardens, a convenience store, art and jewelry studios, a medical clinic and a chapel.

Roads run throughout, but residents mainly get around on foot or on an eight-passenger golf cart that makes regular stops around the property.

Mr. Tyler chose a home with a cobalt-blue door and a small patio in the oldest part of the village, where residents’ cactus and rock gardens created a “funky, hippie vibe” that appealed to him. He arrived in rough shape, struggling with alcoholism, his feet inflamed by gout, with severe back pain from nearly 10 years of sleeping in public parks, in vehicles and on street benches.

At first, he kept to himself. He locked his door and slept. He visited the clinic and started taking medication. After a month or so, he ventured out to meet his neighbors.

“For a while there, I just didn’t want to be seen and known,” he said. “Now I prefer it.”

Between communal meals and movie screenings, Mr. Tyler also works at the village, preparing homes for the dozen or more people who move there each month.

In the next few years, Community First is poised to grow to nearly 2,000 homes across three locations, which would make it by far the nation’s largest project of this kind, big enough to permanently house about half of Austin’s chronically homeless population.

Tiny-home villages for people who have been homeless have existed on a small scale for several decades, but have recently become a popular approach to addressing surging homelessness. Since 2019, the number of these villages across the country has nearly quadrupled, to 124 from 34, with dozens more coming, according to a census by Yetimoni Kpeebi, a researcher at Missouri State University.

Mandy Chapman Semple, a consultant who has helped cities like Houston transform their homelessness systems, said the growth of these villages reflects a need to replace inexpensive housing that was once widely available in the form of mobile home parks and single room occupancy units, and is rapidly being lost. But she said they are a highly imperfect solution.

“I think where we’re challenged is that ‘tiny home’ has taken on a spectrum of definitions,” said Chapman Semple. Many of those definitions fall short of housing standards, often lacking basic amenities like heat and indoor plumbing, which she said limits their ability to meet the needs of the population they intend to serve.

But Community First is pushing the tiny home model to a much larger scale. While most of its homes lack bathrooms and kitchens, its leaders see that as a necessary trade-off to be able to creatively and affordably house the growing number of people living on Austin’s streets. And unlike most other villages, many of which provide temporary emergency shelter in structures that can resemble tool sheds, Community First has been thoughtfully designed with homey spaces where people with some of the highest needs can stay for good. No other tiny home village has attempted to permanently house as many people.

Austin’s homelessness rate has been rapidly worsening, and the city’s response has whipped back and forth... In October [2023], the official estimate put the number of people living without shelter at 5,530, a 125 percent increase from two years earlier. Some of that rise is the result of better outreach, but officials acknowledged that more people have become homeless. City leaders vowed to build more housing, but that effort has been slowed by construction delays and resistance from residents.

Meanwhile, outside the city limits, Community First has been building fast. [Note from below the read more: It's outside city limits because the lack of zoning laws keeps more well-off Austin residents from blocking the project, as they did earlier attempts to build inside the city.] In a mere eight years, this once-modest project has grown into a sprawling community that the city is turning to as a desperately needed source of affordable housing. The village has now drawn hundreds of millions of dollars from public and private sources and given rise to similar initiatives across the country.

This rapid growth has come despite significant challenges. And some question whether a community on the outskirts of town with relaxed housing standards is a suitable way to meet the needs of people coming out of chronic homelessness. The next few years will be a test of whether these issues will be addressed or amplified as the village expands to five times its current size.

-via New York Times, January 8, 2024. Article continues below (at length!)

The community versus Community First

For Alan Graham, the expansion of Community First is just the latest stage in a long-evolving project. In the late 1990s, Mr. Graham, then a real estate developer, attended a Catholic men’s retreat that deepened his faith and inspired him to get more involved with his church. Soon after, he began delivering meals as a church volunteer to people living on Austin’s streets.

In 1998, Mr. Graham, now 67, became a founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, a nonprofit that has since amassed a fleet of vehicles that make daily rounds to deliver food and clothing to Austin’s homeless...

Talking to people like Mr. Johnston [a homeless Austin resident who Graham had befriended], Mr. Graham came to feel that housing alone was not enough for people who had been chronically homeless, the official term for those who have been homeless for years or repeatedly and have physical or mental disabilities, including substance-use disorders. About a third of the homeless population fits this description, and they are often estranged from family and other networks.

In 2006, Mr. Graham pitched an idea to Austin’s mayor: Create an R.V. park for people coming out of chronic homelessness. It would have about 150 homes, supportive services and easy access to public transportation. Most importantly, it would help to replace the “profound, catastrophic loss of family” he believed was at the root of the problem with a close-knit and supportive community.

The City Council voted unanimously in 2008 to lease Mr. Graham a 17-acre plot of city-owned land to make his vision a reality. Getting the council members on board, he said, turned out to be the easy part.

When residents near the intended site learned of the plan, they were outraged. They feared the development would reduce their property values and invite crime. One meeting to discuss the plan with the neighborhood grew so heated that Mr. Graham was escorted to his car by the police. Not a single one of the 52 community members in attendance voted in favor of the project.

After plans for the city-owned lot fell apart and other proposed locations faced similar resistance, Mr. Graham gave up on trying to build the development within city limits.

In 2012, he instead acquired a plot of land in a part of Travis County just northeast of Austin. It was far from public transportation and other services, but it had one big advantage: The county’s lack of zoning laws limited the power of neighbors to stop it.

Mr. Graham raised $20 million and began to build. In late 2015, Mr. Johnston left the R.V. park he had been living in and became the second person to move into the new village. It grew rapidly. In just two years, Mr. Graham bought an adjacent property, nearly doubling the village’s size to 51 acres and making room for hundreds more residents.

And then in the fall of 2022, he broke ground on the largest expansion yet: Adding two more sites to the village, expanding it by 127 acres to include nearly 2,000 homes.

“No one ever really did what they first did, and no one’s ever done what they’re about to do,” said Mark Hilbelink, the director of Sunrise Navigation Center, Austin’s largest homeless-services provider. “So there’s a little bit of excitement but also probably a little bit of trepidation about, ‘How do we do this right?’”

What it takes to make a village

Since he moved into Community First eight years ago, Mr. Johnston has found the stability that eluded him for so long. Most mornings, he wakes up early in his R.V., feeds his scruffy adopted terrier, Amos, and walks a few minutes down a quiet road to the village garden, where neat rows of carrots, leeks, beets and arugula await his attention.

Mr. Johnston worked in fast-food restaurants for most of his life, but he learned how to garden at the village. He now works full time cultivating produce for a weekly market that is free to residents.

“Once I got here, I said, This is where I’m going to spend pretty much my entire life now,” Mr. Johnston said.

Everyone at the village pays rent, which averages about $385 a month. The tiny homes that make up two-thirds of the dwellings go for slightly lower, but have no indoor plumbing; their residents use communal bathhouses and kitchens. The rest of the units are R.V.s and manufactured homes with their own bathrooms and kitchens.

Like Mr. Johnston, many residents have jobs in the village, created to offer residents flexible opportunities to earn some income. Last year, they earned a combined $1.5 million working as gardeners, landscapers, custodians, artists, jewelry makers and more, paid out by Mobile Loaves and Fishes.

Ute Dittemer, 66, faced a daily struggle for survival during a decade on the streets before moving into Community First five years ago with her husband. Now she supports herself by painting and molding figures out of clay at the village art house, augmented by her husband’s $800 monthly retirement income. A few years ago, a clay chess set she made sold for $10,000 at an auction. She used the money to buy her first car.

“I’m glad that we are not in a low-income-housing apartment complex,” she said. “We’ve got all this green out here, air to breathe.”

A small number of residents have jobs off-site, and a city bus makes hourly stops at the village 13 times a day to help people commute into town.

But about four out of five residents live on government benefits like disability or Social Security. Their incomes average $900 a month, making even tiny homes impossible to afford without help, Mr. Graham said.

“Essentially 100 percent of the people that move into this village will have to be subsidized for the rest of their lives,” he said.

For about $25,000 a year, Mr. Graham’s organization subsidizes one person’s housing at the village. (Services like primary health care and addiction counseling are provided by other organizations.) So far, that has been paid for entirely by private donations and in small part from collecting rent.

This would not be possible, Mr. Graham said, without a highly successful fund-raising operation that taps big Austin philanthropists. To build the next two expansions, Mr. Graham set a $225 million fund-raising goal, about $150 million of which has already been obtained from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the founder of the Patrón Spirits Company, Hill Country Bible Church and others.

Support goes beyond monetary donations. A large land grant came from the philanthropic arm of Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and Alamo Drafthouse, an Austin-based cinema chain, donated an outdoor amphitheater for movie screenings. Top architectural firms competed for the chance to design energy-efficient tiny homes free of charge. And every week, hundreds of volunteers come to help with landscaping and gardening or to serve free meals.

Around 55 residents, including 15 children, live in the village as “missionals” — unpaid neighbors generally motivated by their Christian faith to be part of the community.

All missionals undergo a monthslong “discernment process” before they can move in. They pay to live in R.V.s and manufactured homes distinguished by an “M” in the front window. Their presence in the community is meant to guard against the pitfalls of concentrated poverty and trauma.

“Missionals are our guardian angels,” said Blair Racine, a 69-year-old resident with a white beard that hangs to his chest. “They’re people we can always call. They’re always there for us.”

After moving into the village in 2018, Mr. Racine spent two years isolated in his R.V. because of a painful eye condition. But after an effective treatment, he became so social that he was nicknamed the Mayor. Missional residents drive him to get his medication once a week, he said. To their children he is Uncle Blair.

Though the village is open to people of any religious background, it is run by Christians, and public spaces are adorned with paintings of Jesus on the cross and other biblical scenes. The application to live in the community outlines a set of “core values” that refer to God and the Bible. But Mr. Graham said there is no proselytizing and people do not have to be sober or seek treatment to live there.

Mr. Graham lives in a 399-square-foot manufactured home in the middle of the village with his wife, Tricia Graham, who works as the community’s “head of neighbor care.” He said they do not have any illusions about solving the underlying mental-health and substance-use problems many residents live with, and that is not their goal.

“This is absolutely not nirvana,” Mr. Graham said. “And we want people to understand the beauty and the complexity of what we do. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else on the face of the planet than right here in the middle of this, but you’re not fixing these things.” ...

From an experiment to a model

Community First has already inspired spinoffs, with some tweaks. In 2018, Nate Schlueter, who previously worked with the village’s jobs program, opened Eden Village in his hometown, Springfield, Mo. Unlike in Community First, every home in Eden Village is identical and has its own bathroom and kitchen. Mr. Schlueter’s model has spread to 12 different cities with every village limited to 50 homes or fewer.

“Not every city is Austin, Texas,” Mr. Schlueter said. “We don’t want to build a large-scale village. And if the root cause of homelessness is a loss of family, and community is something that can duplicate that safety net to some extent, to have smaller villages to me seemed like a stronger community safety net. Everybody would know each other.”

The rapid growth of Community First has challenged that ideal. In recent years, some of the original missional residents and staff members have left, finding it harder to support the number of people moving into the village. Steven Hebbard, who lived and worked at the village since its inception, left in 2019 when he said it shifted from a “tiny-town dynamic” where he knew everyone’s name to something that felt more like a city, straining the supportive culture that helped people succeed.

Mobile Loaves and Fishes said more staff members had recently been hired to help new residents adjust, but Mr. Graham noted that there was a limit to what any housing provider could do without violating people’s privacy and autonomy.

Despite these concerns, the organization, which had been run entirely on private money, has recently drawn public support. In January 2023, Travis County gave Mobile Loaves and Fishes $35 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to build 640 units as part of its expansion.

Then four months later came a significant surprise: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development approved the use of federal housing vouchers, which subsidize part or all of a low-income resident’s rent, for the village’s tiny homes. This will make running the village much more financially sustainable, Mr. Graham said, and may make it a more replicable blueprint for other places.

“That’s a big deal for us, and it’s a big deal on a national basis,” Mr. Graham said. “It’s a recognition that this model, managed the way that this model is, has a role in the system.”

Usually, the government considers homes without indoor plumbing to be substandard, but, in this case, it made an exception by applying the housing standards it uses for single-room-occupancy units. The village still did not meet the required ratio of bathrooms per person, but at the request of Travis County and the City of Austin’s housing officials, who cited Austin’s “severe lack of affordable housing” that made it impossible for some homeless people with vouchers to find anywhere else to live, HUD waived its usual requirements.

In the waiver, a HUD staffer wrote that Mr. Graham told HUD officials over the phone that the proportion of in-unit bathrooms “has not been an issue.” But in conversations with The Times, other homeless-service providers in Austin and some village residents said the lack of in-unit bathrooms is one of the biggest problems people have with living there. It also makes the villages less accessible to people with certain disabilities and health issues that are relatively common among the chronically homeless....

Mr. Graham said that with a doctor’s note, people could secure an R.V. or manufactured home at the village, although those are in short supply and have a long waiting list. He said the village’s use of tiny homes allowed them to build at a fraction of the usual cost when few other options existed, and helps ensure residents aren’t isolated in their units, reinforcing the village’s communal ethos.

“If somebody wants to live in a tiny home they ought to have the choice,” Mr. Graham said, “and if they are poor we ought to respect their civil right to live in that place and be subsidized to live there.” But he conceded that for some people, “this might not be the model.”

“Nobody can be everything for everyone,” he said.

By the spring of 2025, Mr. Graham hopes to begin moving people into the next phase of the village, across the street from the current property. The darker visions some once predicted of an impoverished community on the outskirts of town overtaken by drugs and violence have not come to pass. Instead, the village has permanently housed hundreds of people and earned the approval and financial backing of the city, the county and the federal government. But for the model to truly meet the scale of the challenge in Austin and beyond, Chapman Semple said, the compromises that led to Community First in its current incarnation will have to be reckoned with.

“We can build smaller villages that can be fully integrated into the community, that can have access to amenities within the community that we all need to live, including jobs and groceries,” Chapman Semple said. “If it’s a wonderful model then we should be embracing and fighting for its inclusion within our community.”

-via New York Times, January 8, 2024

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