Reply to New Ward 3 Homeless Families Shelter Site

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's stupid for the City to pay inflated Ward 3 prices (or inflated prices in other Wards) for homeless shelters.  Better to locate those shelters in less expensive neighborhoods where the space is cheaper, and collect tax dollars from whatever businesses or people will pay to be in the more expensive Wards.  To make matters worse, the City is now paying extra to build this new shelter in Ward 3.

The only reason we're dealing with this mess is because Bowser wants to score political points by "spreading the homeless" across all Wards.  That's a really dumb basis for public policy decisions.[/quote]

The city owns the land where the Ward 3 shelter is being built so they didn't pay inflated prices for it.

Nice try though.[/quote]

First, the City is paying lots to build shelters at that site and others in expensive Wards.  Second, if the City weren't using that land to build a brand new shelter, they could sell it for lots of money to some developer, and also collect annual property taxes on the value of whatever is build there.  So instead of a substantial economic benefit for the City, that site is a huge expense to build a shelter that none of the neighbors want.  Poor planning.  The shelter doesn't even need to be there; the only reason it's being built there is so Bowser can score political points.  Is that really how our City should spend its limited resources?

I wonder if anyone did a CBO-style cost-benefit analysis on that Ward 3 site.  I'm betting that for the cost of that one Ward 3 shelter (value of land + potential property taxes + construction costs for shelter), the City could afford to renovate and maintain at least two equivalent shelters in less expensive parts of the City.  So we're choosing to house only 50 homeless families when we could otherwise afford to house 100 families if we just made wiser choices.  But we're making the more expensive choice to help fewer people because it scores political points for Bowser.  Dumb.[/quote]

Well at least you've boiled this down to the typical NIMBY arguments - shelters are good!  Just not near me!

And the rest of your post is purely speculative.

The neighbors (or neighbor) posting about this are so insufferable I'm starting to hope that their property values actually do go down.  For most of these folks it would be the first time in their life they've ever suffered or sacrificed something.[/quote]

What a terrible thing to say. Do you really think suffering has zip codes? Why not reboot for the new year and be a little more compassionate/less judgmental.[/quote]

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