Film Photograhy - One Year Later
Thoughts after a year and a half into restarting my film journey - Is it worth it? Why would I keep spending money to take photos? What kind of idiot would get into film photography? This one would.
About a year and a half ago, I wrote a post about getting “back into” film photography. This is to document my progress and thoughts after a straight year of shooting film.
Last I left off, I had a Canon AE-1 and an Olympus OM-1 and was living in Utah. The first change that happened? I moved my family to Southern California. I still have those cameras and use the Canon AE-1 wayyyy more frequently than the Olympus. The Olympus has a few quirks to it, and I love it to death, however, the cold shoe mount bugs the crap out of me. Always catching on my shirt or bag. I know this is a superficial problem, and I could just remove the cold shoe, but why? [ADHD procrastination at work here] Since that blog post, I have also picked up a Minolta X-700, an Asahi Pentax Spotmatic, a Topcon RE Super, an Asahi Pentax K1000, some other Pentax that I lent to a friend, a Minolta Autocord (medium format), an Asahi Pentax 6x7 (medium format), and my current workhorse - a Canon EOS 7s (the Japanese version of the EOS Elan 7n/7ne). I do not use all of these cameras, and am “planning” on selling four or five of them. I think I actually have another camera body in a box in my garage…
A few notes about using ancient cameras - you’ll spend a lot of time repairing them. As I write this, my Pentax 6x7 is in Tennessee getting a CLA because the shutter got stuck when I was trying to do a low-light photo and has not worked correctly since then. My Minolta Autocord was giving me super glowy negatives, I’ll attach an example below, and after consulting discord & reddit groups, I figured out how to disassemble the lenses and give them a good ole fashioned cleaning. It now works perfectly and my scans are coming back amazing.
The Canon EOS 7s is by far the youngest film camera I own and is probably the best 35mm I have. I started offering film portraits recently, and this camera has just blown me away. It’s great for photographing people. Fast, fast, and fast. The scans come back super clean, and since it accepts Canon EF lenses, the options for lenses seem never ending. Definitely hit up ebay for one if you’re looking for the best way to get into film photography.
For creative work and personal projects, I still can’t beat the Olympus OM-1 and Canon AE-1. I love the feel, the shutter clunk, the film advance, and the small form factor. I take the Canon out a little more than the Olympus, but that’s because I see the Canon as a little easier to replace if something happens? I know it sounds horrible, but it took me forever to find a good Olympus OM-1 and even then I had to take it apart to replace light seals and the prism. Because of that, I tend to baby the Olympus and only take her out for special occasions.
Now, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this post. What has changed besides cameras I own in the last 1.5yrs? Would I keep shooting film? What tips and tricks have I learned? Blah Bleh Bluh bleh?
I have stepped up my game considerably. It took me a few rolls before I became comfortable with shooting film again. My early photos were hit and miss. Too dark, too light, accidental light exposure (from opening the back of my camera), you know, regular rookie mistakes. I’ve gotten to the point where 30 out of 36 (or 10 out of 12 if I’m using my Minolta Autocord) exposures are great and portfolio-worthy. I bought a Sekonic light meter. I have a love-hate relationship with it. It’s definitely worth it if you are shooting indoors or in a studio, but since becoming comfortable with shooting again, I have subscribed to the Vuhlandes mindset - shoot with my gut and trust myself. I went through a period where I was metering everything and my photos felt too forced. I had to take a step back, get out of my head, and start trusting myself again. Since clearing my head of the clinicality of metering everything, my photos have felt more relaxed and my creativity has bloomed again.
Film prices have gone up considerably. I wasn’t shooting as much film in the fall of 2021 because of a lot of my daily work changes. Lots of stress, lots to do family wise, changes in pricing structures with my consulting business to account for slow periods, it was just a lot to handle all at once. So I stopped shooting as much film and started hoarding my exposed rolls until I could find some extra cash and do a bulk development order. Kodak came out and said there would be a 20% increase on prices in 2022. Everything was looking like I might have to give up my new/old hobby. Then I came across a local (to me) developer in Oceanside that was offering hi-res scans and developing for $10/roll. Shortly after finding Film 47, I somehow came across Film Supply Club, who offers an low-cost annual/monthly membership plan to receive bulk discounts on film. Everything was starting to look up! The Portra 400 Famine was coming to an end and I was able to snag several boxes before the price hikes. While there are still shortages on film stocks, you can usually find something to shoot, even if it’s not your typical film stock. We’ve seen some exciting new stocks released in 2022, and I was able to back the “kickstarter” for CineStill 400D and snag a few boxes of Kodak Gold 200 on 120mm.
I can’t tell you how many hours of youtube videos I have watched. I can’t even express how much Willem, Vuhlandes, Moment/Sunny Sixteen, Grainydays, and Sean Tucker have sparked my creativity and taught me small technical details. Please go give them a watch. I live in a nice, quiet valley that hosts a lot of weddings/engagements, it’s not hard to find photographers, but it’s so hard to find other film photographers. It really sucks feeling like you’re on an island, and most of the time, you just need to reach out. I started following more film photographers on Instagram, I’ll list some good ones below, and began posting more of my film scans to my profile. I started trying to join/build community. I attended a film photographer roundup in Joshua Tree that was hosted by The Darkroom Lab and Beers and Cameras where I learned the philosophy that you don’t stop shooting film because it’s expensive, you keep shooting it to document journeys, and you can’t really put a price on that. I joined discord and reddit communities and try to stay active on there once or twice a week. I comment on instagram posts, share others photos, and generally try to support other photographers because that’s what other photographers do for me. I joined several film clubs - Expired Film Club, Nice Film Lab (for developing - use code 7BBFDF for 1 free roll dev+scan), and Film Supply Club. I bought and completed several lessons from Moment. In short, I have reached out and that helped strengthen my affinity for film photography.
So, would/will I keep shooting film? Yes.
Go shoot some film today.
Current favorite film photographers on Instagram: @6.tiff, @gilbrtortiz, @erocksmith, @graincheque, @dylanwade, @fairyboifilms, @xochitlfilm
A few of the links in this post are affiliate links and I do receive a kickback. Most of them are just cause I genuinely like the channel/company/item.
film photography: trend or timeless?
I've always been interested in photography. However, while my other friends were taking photography classes in High School, I was doing college courses. I didn't have a need for a "fine arts" credit, so I never got around to it. I was pretty much always on a strict schedule of overachievement so that when the time came, I could be the first college graduate in my family. It was a conscious choice I made, and I don't regret it.
Fast forward to 2015/16 and I come across an instagram page called @Moment. They make removable lenses for mobile phones. I was excited that I wouldn't have to drop serious money on a camera, but at the time, I didn't have the money to drop on their system either. I casually followed them, but didn't really have an excuse to buy one of their lenses. As time went on, I subscribed to their youtube, learned to take better mobile photos, downloaded their manual photography app, etc. I basically learned how to be a photographer without having a full frame camera. I started following other photographers on instagram (Chris Burkard, Alex Strohl, Keith Ladzinski, Michael Shainblum, Chris Poplawski, etc.) and absorbing their material. I bought myself a Joby tripod and a Jelly fish phone mount. I got some pretty awesome time lapses, took family photos, took a million photos of my daughter, and basically just practiced photography with my iphone.
As time went on, I transitioned from a full-time office job to a full-time self-employment job at home. Making a lot more money if I'm being honest. This gave me some play money, and I started buying small things from Moment to improve my photography game. Still didn't have a reason to splurge on lenses yet. I started with a thinner phone case that would allow me to attach their lenses someday. And then the unthinkable happened. My wife decided to open her own hair salon in our house. This meant she needed to be cranking out content on her social media channels. I saw my opportunity and seized it. I bought Moment's wide lens and telephoto lens. As we kept going, I got their anamorphic lens for videos, a DJI gimbal to steady the shot, a better tripod from Peak Design, a setup that allowed me to attach a light and mic to my phone, lens filters for buttery footage, and a macro lens for fun. I went full Moment.
During all of this, I noticed a trend on social media. Film was coming back. Subtle things that friends would post suggested they were getting into film photography. Having grown up in the Great Transition (as I like to call it), I grew up with my parents having a film camera and film video cameras, and I watched everything transition to digital. So film canisters littered my closet, mainly being used for my ridiculous coin collection. I pushed the thought of getting into it aside, as my mobile photography hobby was getting worked on and if I was going to get a full frame camera, it was going to be a digital one.
Still, more and more film camera related things were popping up on my feeds. It wasn't until Moment announced they were selling instant photo cameras that I decided to look into film. I must have flipped a switch because film related content was rushing in everywhere. I spent hours pouring over the best types of all manual film cameras. I watched countless youtube videos. I took a look on ebay and realized that the prices have skyrocketed on all the cameras I was looking at. The market always compensates for demand. By any means, I decided to place a few bids and offers.
I didn't think I'd win any, but here I sit with two Canon ae-1 and two olympus OM-1 cameras. I resold one of the Olympus cameras after refurbishing it (courtesy of youtube videos), and ended up making more than what I bought it for. I'm not saying this is a good business model, but if your parents or grandparents have one laying around, beg for it. I then delved into lenses for these old cameras. As some of you may know, old lenses tend to have scratches, mold, dust, or fungus in them. I did a lot of research, read through countless lens histories and reviews and was able to get pretty good deals on decent lenses for my cameras.
So now I have two film cameras and a new hobby. I enjoy the simplicity of no electronics. Of focusing a lens. Of advancing the film. It's simple. Everything else I have going on is difficult. Film just feels like an escape. I can see the appeal. I also appreciate the wait. I have to use a whole roll before I can see the images. We've grown accustomed to instant gratification.
I recently came across an article about how Kodak has quadrupled their film output since 2016. Some celebrity made a post about a film camera and Kodak's sales exploded. I hopped on board because of an instagram page talking about film cameras. I thoroughly enjoy it and plan on shooting film until my cameras die. But how many people will put it to the side in a few years? And that begs the question. Is film here to stay?
Combating Homelessness in Metro California
Research sent to Los Angeles County on the Homelessness Crisis
Introduction
Homelessness affects countless individuals and families with growing numbers. While homeless people are generally seen as drug addicts or physically handicapped persons, the term applies to a much larger group. A small family who has fallen on hard times and must forfeit their current housing and live with relatives is considered homeless. People who live in their cars or in shelters are homeless. We are seeing an increasing population of homeless students as well. We see families who have jobs, but they cannot afford to live anywhere. Homelessness can be defined as any individual or family that is at risk of losing a fixed residence or any person who currently does not have a fixed residence. The reason homelessness becomes a public issue is because the public spends money on taking care of the homeless. The causes of homelessness are extensive. I will analyze and attempt to measure the effects and magnitude of homelessness, specifically in the state of California.
The California government has countless resources, reports, and articles dedicated to the study of the effects of homelessness and how they are currently trying to combat this massive problem. I also pulled information from the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), which is a great asset in accurate numbers on this problem. My other sources include local newspapers in California, as they are closest to the issues. I tried to stay away from very biased sources, but obviously, some of these newspapers do have bias, which is why I veered away from articles that mentioned current political administrations, and instead focused on the issue at hand.
How to Measure Homelessness
In the article, The Methodology of Counting the Homeless, the authors explain that the best way for us to determine how many homeless individuals there are is to perform a technique called Indirect Estimation (Cowan, 1988). This method of measure is by far the most economical, however, it also leads to largely inflated rates. Another method is screening for homelessness in census questions. This method of measure only happens once every ten years, so we have to estimate the rates between the census dates. Random telephone surveys are another method used frequently to count the homeless, even though not all homeless people will have a phone. The most used way is by counting the number of shelter inhabitants, how many the shelters must turn away, and how many people contact the state department of housing. We then inflate those numbers by 10% to give a rough estimate of how many people are currently in categories of homelessness one and two.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has four categories to determine the level of homelessness an individual or family is experiencing. Homeless can range from someone attempting to leave a domestic violence situation with nowhere else to go and no funds to live elsewhere, to individuals and families that lack a “fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence” (HUD, 2012). By looking at the report just cited, we can separate and better define homelessness. Category One refers to all persons who are “Literally Homeless”, we see these people the most often. They are the ones on the side of the road, under overpasses, in shelters. Category Two are all those who are in imminent risk of homelessness. This category includes everyone who will lose their residence within 14 days and have nowhere else to go. Category Three is reserved for youth under the age of 25 who have no stable residence, meaning they have moved at least twice within the last 60 days and are expected to remain in that state. Category Four is for all those who are attempting to flee or who have fled domestic violence and do not have anywhere to go or the funds to leave their situation.
If we look at the 10 States with the highest counts of homelessness, we can see that California eclipses other states by a large margin.
Figure 1. Ten States with Highest Homeless Counts/Rates, 2018 (NAEH, 2018)
Causes of Homelessness
The leading causes of homelessness are insufficient income and lack of affordable housing. Smaller causes include mental illness and substance abuse. The cost of housing is out of reach for many families and individuals in California (LAFH, 2019). While this may be due to cities and counties charging fees sometimes up to 18% of the total sale price for new home construction (Dillon, 2019), the main cause of high housing costs was the business boom California experienced in the 1980s (Lindsey, 1981). The high emigration rates to California from Asia led to an influx of Asian money. This drove real estate prices up and through the roof. Housing costs have been increasing ever since, only having a slight downturn during the Great Recession). The average rent in California is also 50% higher than the rest of the country. Affordable housing has become increasingly difficult to find and isn’t at all affordable to develop.
California has also had a lot of pushback for upwards expansion. Southern California especially, is full of single-family residential homes. Many citizens do not want to see high-rise apartment buildings in their city, and do not want to live in one. Developers could not keep up with the demand for homes, causing a massive shortage, increasing prices. While many residents of California earn higher incomes than other states, the cost of housing is keeping them from being able to buy or rent a home. California State Housing Department estimates that 180,000 new homes are needed per year in order to stabilize the housing market, and numbers show that the average is less than half of that per year (Levin, 2018).
The Problem
California has one of the largest homeless populations, accounting for over 23.55% of all homeless persons in the nation (USICH, 2018). While homeless populations across the United States of America are decreasing steadily, California’s continues to increase. Much of this is due to rising housing costs, with the average California home costing $440,000, more than double the average cost of a U.S. home ($180,000) (Alamo, Uhler, & O'Malley, 2015). The average rent in California is also 50% higher than the rest of the country. Affordable housing has become increasingly difficult to find and isn’t at all affordable to develop. The California Senate knows this is an issue in their state and has been trying to implement policy to increase the construction of affordable housing units (2018). In California, we see the need to create both supportive housing and affordable housing to not only reduce the population of the homeless, but to also reduce spending on public services. Health care costs could decrease by millions of dollars (RAND Corporation, 2018).
Homelessness puts a strain on public services and spending, which then takes funds away from other important policies, some of which could be used to proactively reduce homelessness, rather than creating reactive policies. Many Americans focus on how much it will cost. We don’t like seeing homeless people on the street, most of us probably feel bad for them, but we don’t know how to help, and while we might understand the importance of higher taxes for the government to intervene, we don’t like seeing more money coming out of our paychecks. While some may argue that we should be doing more as a society to fix homelessness, our hands are tied in how much we can afford to help. Therefore, government intervention is now required. I cannot think of an argument for private intervention only that, when given the issues and causes of homelessness, could still stand on solid ground.
California has one of the largest homeless populations, accounting for over 23.55% of all homeless persons in the nation (USICH, 2018). Much of this is due to rising housing costs, with the average California home costing $440,000, more than double the average cost of a U.S. home ($180,000) (Alamo, Uhler, & O'Malley, 2015). While homeless populations across the United States of America are decreasing steadily, California’s continues to increase (Cowan, 2019). Last year’s count of the homeless population revealed an increase to over 130,000. This means that per 10,000 people, 33 of them are homeless. California accounts for 25% of our nation’s total literal homeless population (Mejia, 2019). If we look at a map of where the homeless population of California is located, we can see that the highest concentrations of homeless people reside in the most metropolitan areas where housing is most expensive.
Figure 2. Homelessness by County (HUD, 2017)
These numbers might continue to increase as they are based on a fragile balance of economy and wages in California. “Our state has more than 1.7 million low-income households spending more than half their income in housing costs,” said Ben Metcalf, the director of the state Department of Housing and Community Development. “When you’re paying that much for housing, with so little left over, even a minor shock can start a cycle of homelessness.” (Cabales, 2019). California is seeing a deficit between what they can afford to give and what they cannot. They cannot keep building more shelters and funding them. Providing shelters doesn’t fix the problem, it just helps to keep people out of parks and the streets.
While we generally saw a decrease in the homeless population of the nation over the last decades, there has been an uptick in homelessness more recently across all states (Routhier, 2018), and we can see the national numbers in Figure 2.
Figure 3 California Homelessness Statistics (NATEH, 2019)
Still, throughout the last decade, we have been steadily decreasing homelessness. New programs are going in to help reduce that number, and we will see whether they are effective.
Policy Option 1: Increase Supportive and Transitional Housing
California currently has several plans in place to mitigate the homeless crisis, with the largest one being the CalWORKs Housing Support Program. This was established by SB 855 in 2014 to “assist homeless families in quickly obtaining permanent housing.” (CalWORKs, 2014) The budget of the CalWORKs HSP was expanded in 2016-2017 to bring total funding to $47 million (CWDA, 2016), with another expansion in 2018-2019, raising the total to $71.2 million (HSP, 2019). This program finds eligible families or persons who lack a fixed nighttime residence, have resided in a public or private place not designed for sleeping accommodation for human beings, or any person who has been evicted. (CalWORKs, 2019) In their yearly report published in January 2019, the HSP declared they housed over 14,500 families since inception, received over 46,000 requests for assistance from eligible families, and has grown their budget with the latest proposal to $95 million (HSP, 2019). In June 2019, the state of California agreed to allocate $650 million in one-time funding to support local governments to address homelessness by building supportive and affordable housing (LAHSA, 2019).
Supportive housing can be defined as affordable housing for which government provides a long-term, fixed interest loan to the recipient. This helps secure housing for those who cannot afford housing. This policy needs to include transitional housing to support 67% of those who are sleeping outside on the streets affected by mental illness, substance abuse, poor health, or a physical disability (Smith, 2019). Los Angeles County has housed “more people than ever”, but they have seen a 16% increase in homelessness just in Los Angeles City, with a 12% increase over the entire county (LAHSA, 2019). Los Angeles is mainly using supportive housing to combat homelessness, and it does not seem to be doing a great job. This policy alternative is a good idea to fix a problem that has stopped spreading, however, this problem continues to spread with no real decrease in the major, metropolitan areas of California. The state has yet to receive a substantial amount of funds from the Federal government, and I do not believe they will receive those funds until they do more to combat the underlying issues creating more homelessness. This policy overall uses a lot of funds to produce little results. The only way to make this policy work is to combine it with other policy to combat lack of affordable housing and the cost of living associated with living in California. This depends solely on the cities, counties, and state of California to combat. Homeless rates across the nation have been decreasing since 2007 while California’s are increasing (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2018). The Federal government will be able to provide help once the situation can be controlled.
This policy alternative has a low to medium efficiency rating. It would be somewhat cost effective, could be run very optimally, but overall would not fix the problem entirely. Political effectiveness would be very low as it would not solve the homelessness crisis but would assist in getting people off of the streets. Political equity is medium as it takes care of all those who end up on the streets but does not affect those currently at risk of homelessness. Political Feasibility would be rather high as California is a very progressive state and this policy would help cleanup cities.
Policy Option 2: Build More Affordable Housing by Incentivizing Developers
In October of 2019, the State of California Treasurer’s office allocated $1.8 billion bonding authority and $88.2 million in federal tax credit to build affordable housing in California (Ma, 2019). The point of affordable housing is to keep rent prices down as well as decrease the risk of homelessness (Wiblin, 2019). California has seen the advantage of building affordable housing to combat homelessness and climate change and has used the revenue from the state’s cap-and-trade program to fund housing closer to jobs in Sacramento (Garber, 2019). Los Angeles estimates that it needs 516,946 new affordable housing units to meet the needs of lower income renters but needs more funding to produce those homes (LAHSA, 2019).
For many years, California has seen a huge deficit in housing supply and demand due to outdated policy and zoning laws (Buyahar, 2019). This caused extreme housing prices, making living in California nearly impossible without a large salary. Because of lost revenue on property taxes, California increases any and all other taxes they can to account for the deficit (Buyahar, 2019). This means cost of living is high because of the government. Now we are at a breaking point in California where the government cannot send enough money to cover the need for affordable housing. This has led tech giants like Facebook and Google to contribute $1 billion each to help solve the housing crisis (Rodrigo, 2019). Apple has also decided to pledge $2.5 billion to help address affordable housing shortages, but their fund will be managed by themselves, with $1 billion going towards affordable housing investments, $1 billion going into a first-time homebuyer mortgage assistance fund, $300 million towards donating Apple-owned and available land for affordable housing, $150 million for Bay Area housing fund, and $50 million to address the homeless population in Silicon Valley (Apple, 2019).
The issue has gotten bad enough that corporations have gotten involved in fixing a state’s problem. I believe this is an all-hands on deck approach. By activating local, county, state, federal, and private sector funds, more housing can be built more quickly to deal with the housing shortage and drive costs down. The goal and theory of this policy options is that by building more housing, specifically affordable housing, rent prices will lower (supply & demand principles). This will then decrease the risk of homelessness as a lower percentage of income will be spent on housing. The best plan would be to use the aforementioned funds to offer development loans as well as tax credits to developers who focus on affordable housing.
The efficiency of this policy option should be medium to high as it can be very efficient in getting more affordable housing built as long as there is sufficient oversight. The political effectiveness would be quite high as it attacks the root problem and would spark economic development. The equity on this option would be medium as it helps solve the root issue of why citizens become homeless but would not have an effect on those currently on the street who need supportive housing. However, the political feasibility would be high as California, again, is a very progressive state, but this would be a bi-partisan issue as it helps stimulate the economy while helping to solve a crisis.
Policy Option 3: Raise Minimum Wage, Introduce Rent Control, Cut Property Tax
This approach is more radical than the others, but it does have a chance to pass in California. The first part of this policy would be to raise minimum wage across the state according to the cost of living in your county. This would increase the amount of money that could come back into the county and state as tax revenue. This causes a greater strain on business and could hurt the economy.
The second part of this policy would be to introduce rent control. California has already passed a rent control law which caps rent hikes at 5% each year plus inflation and bans landlords from evicting tenants for no reason to raise the rent for a new tenant (AP, 2019). This is a good program, however, per a study by Zillow done in 2017, a 5% increase in rent prices would push 2,000 more residents into homelessness in Los Angeles County (Holland, 2017). The only way to combat this rent hike would be to make the rent control cap at the nationwide inflation rate. This would require more policy and a department being assigned to manage the percentage each year, which in turn would increase oversight costs.
The final part of this policy would be to repeal Prop 13 which created an incentive to build commercial development over residential construction (Buhayar, 2019), while also increasing developer fees of up to 18% of the home’s value (Dillon, 2019). “While fees offer a flexible way to finance necessary infrastructure, overly burdensome fee programs can limit growth by impeding or disincentivizing new residential development, facilitate exclusion (gentrification), and increase housing costs across the state.” (Raetz, 2019). Proposition 13, implemented in 1978, also included a measure with limited property-tax increases on homes until they are sold. This means that long-term homeowners are selling their houses to new buyers who have to subsidize their low property tax by paying an enormous increase at time of purchase. (Buhayar, 2019). By repealing this proposition, California would raise up to $11 billion annually for schools and local government (Garofoli, 2019). The local cost of staffing for the increased workload would only amount to $470 million (Garofoli, 2019).
This third and final policy requires only state and local government intervention, however, it would include a dramatic overreach of current powers. This option would have low efficiency however, as it is not the most optimal way to take care of the homeless crisis. Political effectiveness would be medium as it helps to eliminate certain aspects of the root causes of homelessness. The equity of this policy is high as it provides even footing across the board for all residents of California. The political feasibility however is quite low. Even in a progressive state like California, this policy is radical. Only certain key points would pass, and my short analysis would indicate that only eliminating Proposition 13 would pass.
Conclusion
Homelessness is currently a crisis in California. The numbers continue to increase. California needs to not only remove residents from the streets and get them into supportive housing, but also remove the key factors of homelessness, the main one being providing more affordable housing. Providing supportive and transitional housing would get people off the streets and into programs to allow them to get back to normalcy. Incentivizing affordable housing development would reduce the risk of homelessness and allow lower income families to afford housing.
State, county, and local government will need to take the biggest hand in addressing this crisis. The Federal Government would have to step in and manages this crisis if California cannot control this, however, California is currently enacting huge chunks of legislation to reduce their homeless population. Currently, the goal is to control the rise of homelessness, and then to work on eliminating it. Private companies are also funding construction to build affordable housing because they have realized they might have caused part of the increased housing costs.
By implementing my first two policy options, increasing supportive and transitional housing as well as increasing the incentives towards affordable housing developers, we could see a large decrease in the homeless population. These two options would lower the risk of homelessness as well as remove people from the streets and getting them the help, they need. The government needs to act as this crisis was started by poor legislation planning and high regulation. This would require bi-partisan support and should not have a problem achieving it as these options help to stimulate the economy and lower government public expenditures on caring for the homeless.
By implementing the last portion of my third policy option, which is repealing proposition 13. This measure is already gaining momentum and will most likely pass within this next year. This allows for homebuyers to have a more accurate foresight of costs of homeownership and would allow the state to collect more revenue on currently undervalued properties. Repealing this proposition would also reduce residential developer fees and increase developments.
By taking a no-action alternative, we can assume homelessness rates would continue to rise and public costs in taking care of those who are homeless would also continue to rise. We could assume a drop in tourism if tent cities continue to increase. We could also assume that there would be a high political turnover if no action was taken. Many residents/citizens are already frustrated with the problem of homelessness and lack of affordable housing.
In conclusion, government needs to step in and fix this issue. They can no longer just increase shelters but start to address the underlying problems as well. If left unchecked, homelessness in California will continue to grow.
References
(2018, September 29). SB-3 Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2018. Retrieved from http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB3
Alamo, C., & Uhler, B. (2015, March 17). California’s High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences. Retrieved from https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/housing-costs/housing-costs.aspx
Apple. (2019, November 12). Apple commits $2.5 billion to combat housing crisis in California. Retrieved from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/11/apple-commits-two-point-five-billion-to-combat-housing-crisis-in-california/.
Associated Press. (2019, October 9). California governor signs statewide rent-control law. Retrieved from https://www.marketwatch.com/story/california-governor-signs-statewide-rent-control-law-2019-10-08.
Buhayar, N., & Cannon, C. (2019, November 6). How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-california-housing-crisis/.
Cabales, V. (2019, July 17). What the data reveals about the homeless in California. Retrieved from https://calmatters.org/housing/2018/06/homeless-in-california-what-the-data-reveals/.
California Legislature (2018, September 29). SB-3 Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2018. Retrieved from http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB3
CalWORKs. (2014). CDSS Programs. Retrieved November 12, 2019, from https://www.cdss.ca.gov/inforesources/CDSS-Programs/Housing-Programs/CalWORKs-Homeless-Assistance.
Cowan, C. D., Breakey, W. R., & Fischer, P. J. (1988, January 1). The Methodology of Counting the Homeless. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218229/.
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