There should be an avenue to provide relief to those unduly burdened by the tax hikes. The specifics I don't know off the bat. I don't, for example, know what proportion of people who own these abandoned houses are still living, how many of the houses are owned by private individuals versus commercial entities, how many are a first investment home versus a 20th, etc. I'm also aware that a lot of people own these junk houses and keep them around as depreciating properties for income tax purposes. That just seems broken. Also, Baltimore, like a lot of American cities, has a huge homelessness problem.
This dovetails with everything I know about homelessness. What's worse is that I see super young kids taking to panhandling. Maybe at that point in their lives they're not suffering from mental illness per se (not going to get into what's lacking at home that compels a young kid to panhandle) but the life of homelessness is so rough that it surely precipitates terrible consequences for mental health, physical health, esteem, direction, etc. But homelessness is a distinct though tangentially related issue to vacant housing. They both indict a broken system, broken in ways that people argue about to this day. I'm not sure by which mechanism you refer to the real estate market being hurt by. Again, I don't think the solution to homelessness is giving away keys to empty houses (many of which in Baltimore are condemnable). Do you mean the real estate market would be hurt because no one wants to live near mentally ill people? Because mentally ill people don't take care of their property and so values go down?I thought I heard (though I can't remember where I heard it) that homelessness is mostly a matter of mental illness and drug addiction more than poverty.
Also, wouldn't giving away empty houses hurt the real estate market even more, leading to more unsellable, and soon-to-be-empty-in-the-future houses?
I think lack of market liquidity would be one problem. If you give houses to the homeless they can't afford maintenance and can't afford to sell and leave. This in turn result in house in said neighborhood degrading furtger and people with the means to fix them being unable to buy and fix because the current resident won't leave.I'm not sure by which mechanism you refer to the real estate market being hurt by. Again, I don't the solution to homelessness is giving away keys to empty houses (many of which in Baltimore are condemnable). Do you mean the real estate market would be hurt because no one wants to live near mentally ill people? Because mentally ill people don't take care of their property and so values go down?
These people have that opportunity right now. They just aren't taking advantage. Detroit currently has programs to sell houses for $1 if someone promises to move in and pay a pittance in taxes for a few years before reselling. Baltimore has done this in the past, its current iteration of the program being a "Vacants to Value" subsidy. They want for these people the means to fix them.and people with the means to fix them being unable to buy and fix because the current resident won't leave.
In my highly sleep deprived state this morning it occurred to me that one reason such programs are not super effective is because there is not enough initial momentum. I won't want to put effort into a blighted house if it was the only house being remodeled on the block but if I knew that the entire block was sold to people doing the same thing that would be a big difference. The city should run the sales like a kick starter where everyone needs to put 10-20k into a remodel account but the transaction doesn't occur till all the houses on the block are sold. Additionally the permits need to be streamlined to only the bare essentials, if that means going back to 1970-1980 building code then so be it. 80s construction was safe enough
Coordination is surely an issue. No one wants to make the first move because it's so risky. But surely the goal is dense, vibrant, dynamic neighborhoods. Being the first to move into a neighborhood or city that's blighted or vacant means a several year to lifelong commitment. That's a huge investment for an unassured thing. But one would have to conclude that it's absolutely necessary. That's why I light up at new experiments like these. Create some data. Start a discussion. Unfortunately, I know nothing about city building codes and what stands in the way as especially onerous regulation, so I can't speak to your point about construction in the 80s. That does sound like just a convenient cutoff point--as far back as we can go before we start insulating with asbestos. The 1980s don't strike me as an especially innovative time RE construction, but again, not my area of expertise.