Reply to New Ward 3 Homeless Families Shelter Site

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]BTW you keep asking for evidence of things - how about some evidence that a shelter drags down property values?

I just skimmed a bunch of articles exploring what brings down property values and found not a single one that referenced homeless shelters - lousy schools, vacant properties, too many rentals, crime and even strip clubs show up on the lists but I didn't find a single one that included a homeless shelter.

So the burden is on you at this point - your being fearful of something is not reason enough to oppose it.[/quote]

No burden on me.  You're the one who offered sources, and your own sources suggest that the shelter will drag down property values.  So my supporting evidence is the report you yourself posted.[/quote]

Except the report I linked to and you now cite is, as you pointed out 20 years old.  And as I pointed out is about Denver which is a very different jurisdiction and the evidence in that report wasn't very compelling.

I'll also point out you ignored the more recent and analogous Furman report.

You are the one in opposition here - do you have anything more than fear to site?

And even granting the old Denver report is right is it then your position that only less wealthy neighborhoods should house shelters because property values might drop?  I'm curious if you'd own that position?[/quote]

It's pretty obvious - and funny - that you're now running away from the Denver report you yourself cited.  The Furman report doesn't disaggregate its results according to the property values in the different neighborhoods, so it's not clear from Furman how much that difference affects things.  But the Furman report also has lots of language emphasizing that its findings of no-decreased-value are likely related to the fact that NYC sited its shelters in dilapidated micro-zones that are surrounded by low-income neighborhoods, so it makes perfect sense that the shelter would increase the value of the dilapidated property it replaced.  But that's very different from the Ward 3 situation where a shelter is being jammed into an affluent area.  For better or worse, there aren't many studies of that situation.  Indeed, one of the Denver reports suggests that Denver might have been one of the only places where that could be studied, because Denver had an ordinance that required placement of some shelters in affluent areas (something most cities don't do).

In short, you sound silly when you try to argue that erecting a shelter in the Ward 3 location won't negatively impact property values around it.  If presented with a choice between two equal houses - one within a block of a shelter, and the other not - which would most people choose?  Maybe you're among the tiny minority of people who will claim you'd actively seek out the shelter-adjacent house, but surely even you will admit you're part of a tiny minority.  From there, it's simply supply-and-demand that causes property values to decline.

There's no question the shelter will have a negative impact.  The key question is how that negative impact can be reduced.  I'd like to think that strong Good Neighbor agreements could help a lot, but only if DC is willing to enforce them.[/quote]

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