{"id":2190,"date":"2025-11-26T08:17:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T08:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/?p=2190"},"modified":"2026-03-11T16:06:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T16:06:54","slug":"cure-homelessness-with-more-housing-not-more-subsidies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/index.php\/2025\/11\/26\/cure-homelessness-with-more-housing-not-more-subsidies\/","title":{"rendered":"Cure homelessness with more housing, not more subsidies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Original article by Mark Miller<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This Thanksgiving, millions of Americans will gather around tables filled with food, but millions of\u00a0others will have no table at all. Homelessness has surged in many major American cities, even in a\u00a0nation overflowing with wealth and land. The problem is not that we have run out of space,\u00a0materials, or compassion. It is that we have surrounded the simple act of building homes with walls\u00a0of red tape.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The homelessness crisis is, above all, a housing policy crisis. Across the country, local zoning\u00a0rules, environmental reviews, and various development fees have created an artificial scarcity of\u00a0housing, driving up costs and, in turn, leaving many people without shelter.\u00a0We often hear that homelessness is caused mainly by drug abuse or mental illness. To be sure,\u00a0those struggles are real and deserve compassion, but they do not explain the pattern we see. If\u00a0addiction or mental illness were the main cause, homelessness would be evenly distributed\u00a0nationwide. Instead, it is concentrated in places with the most restrictive land-use laws, the very\u00a0jurisdictions where it is hardest to build. The data tell a simple story: when government throttles\u00a0housing supply, homelessness follows. We\u2019re often told that correlation isn\u2019t causation, but when\u00a0the data fit the logic of cause and effect, it\u2019s no longer just correlation.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Association of Home Builders estimates that local rules and fees now account for\u00a0nearly a quarter of the price of new housing, and for an eye-popping 40.6% of total development\u00a0costs of multifamily housing (read: apartments). When a builder elects to bear these costs in the\u00a0short run and build (as opposed to refraining from the effort because of the high cost), the builder\u00a0ultimately must pass the costs on to renters and first-time buyers to recoup her investment. Those\u00a0extra, unnecessary, regulation-generated costs that are baked into the price of a home price out\u00a0the families most in need of affordable housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A major culprit is exclusionary zoning, the local ordinances that dictate what kinds of homes can be\u00a0built and where they can be built. These laws often ban multi-family units or impose large minimum\u00a0lot sizes that make affordable homes effectively illegal in large portions of our cities and towns.\u00a0What began as an effort to protect neighborhood character has too often become a means to keep\u00a0working families from accessing opportunities.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is a man-made famine of shelter in a land of abundance. America remains rich in talent,\u00a0land, and enterprise, yet we have fenced off housing prosperity behind government permission\u00a0structures that stack the deck against new, affordable housing.\u00a0The Gospel\u2019s account of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes offers a better model. In that\u00a0moment of scarcity, a small offering multiplied to feed a multitude because it was shared freely.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our economy works the same way. When people are free to build, innovate, and exchange,\u00a0prosperity expands. But when we bind enterprise in red and green tape, red for bureaucracy and\u00a0green for regulation, we stop the miracle before it can begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans and Democrats alike understand the need for more housing. Republicans have long\u00a0advocated for more free-market solutions that would allow builders less regulation in building\u00a0projects. And in 2024, then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris unveiled a plan to build more than\u00a03 million housing units.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution to homelessness is not another task force or more subsidies; it can instead be found\u00a0in the freedom to build. A new brief by the Pacific Legal Foundation offers several concrete\u00a0recommendations to help keep housing costs down, including streamlining environmental reviews\u00a0to prevent projects from being delayed for years. Repeal exclusionary zoning that walls off\u00a0opportunity. Cut the fees that make modest homes unaffordable before construction starts. Allow\u00a0the market to do what it does best: multiply human ingenuity into shared prosperity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do that, and abundance will grow again, not by miracle, but by the freedom that allows creativity to\u00a0flourish.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time of year is about gratitude, and it is also about trust: trust that the gifts we share, as the\u00a0pilgrims did, will multiply for the good of others. America\u2019s prosperity has always rested on that\u00a0faith. When people are free to use their talents in service to one another, including to build, there\u00a0will be enough for all. By applying the spirit of Thanksgiving to our housing policy all year round, we\u00a0can solve the homeless crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Miller is the director of environment and natural resources litigation at Pacific Legal\u00a0Foundation\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Original article by Mark Miller This Thanksgiving, millions of Americans will gather around tables filled with food, but millions of\u00a0others will have no table at all. Homelessness has surged in many major American cities, even in a\u00a0nation overflowing with wealth and land. The problem is not that we have run out of space,\u00a0materials, or compassion.… Cure homelessness with more housing, not more subsidies<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-housing-crisis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2192,"href":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions\/2192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmpa.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}