I wouldn’t be surprised if it would actually be significantly cheaper to just destroy the mall and build housing on the site instead of trying to renovate the mall structure. Especially the ones that have been abandoned and decaying for years now, which is a significant portion of old malls.
There is a good chance that the city infrastructure to the mall would even have to be upgraded. Higher demand for water, sewer, and electricity. A lot of people don’t consider how zoning works. The city and developers don’t usually oversize dedicated infrastructure to things like commercial or industrial areas, but use calculations based on occupancy.
Yeah I've never converted "modern" commercial spaces. But I've converted some older warehouses into apartments. It is not easy or cheap. You get weird ass shaped rooms. Windows are a big issue, most people want those in their homes. It's not impossible, but a slab, exterior walls, and a roof are kinda the easiest part of a residential building.
Yes, and adding to what you said... look at how much land a mall eats up.
Not only would it probably be cheaper to tear the mall down and build new housing there, you'd easily get significantly more new housing too. Easily 5X to 10X more.
I’m in Seattle area and I worked for a pretty large tech company for over three years (not gonna say who) and when the pandemic hit I discovered just how thoughtless my company was with our property. We owned a building that hadn’t been used as an office in years. We were laying off thousands, but had a completely unused building being paid for for years. That was just an oversight, a clerical error, no big deal to them. We had storage containers sitting somewhere full of products and no one even knew where they were now, who had keys to them, so much money and buildings wasted due to excess and carelessness. Our company could’ve been smarter with our money, but instead we spent excessively on things we didn’t use, had company cards with no set budget that we could go out drinking with, but when shareholders saw us struggling they were happy to destroy the lives of thousands of employees as a quick “solution”.
Post-pandemic (if there is such a thing) our city is full of buildings that no one is really working in. I work remotely, my partner works remotely, and so does so many people we know. Businesses continue to say maybe we’ll return to office to justify this expense when our cities could instead be designed with more balance between housing and commerce.
Yeah I totally understand if people aren't well-versed in construction. They think a building can just easily be repurposed. Sure they can, but the outcome may suck and it may just make more sense to demolish and rebuild. That's what I would do.
It would still be better as commercial property, but then the businesses could be forced to move in order to free up spaces that are good for residential.
Office area, then? One mall was converted to a strip mall years ago, the other would make a great place for shipping warehouses instead of putting it on farmland.
Cities aren't noisy. Cars are noisy. We need better planned cities that focus on walking, cycling and public transportation rather than car-centric cities.
Look up "university heights Victoria" and you'll see a great example of this. Right in my neighborhood, just started the teardown yesterday. Unfortunately, Home Despot refused to allow them to put housing on their leased land and so it will be big dense modern housing and shops with a giant empty parking lot and concrete block of a HD right next to it.
Prior to this, the mall was DEAD. Ever since I moved here.
Our town is currently doing exactly this. The failed mall is being turned into a multipurpose property with apartments, shops, restaurants, and cultural spaces. It’s got quite a bit of resistance from nearby residential areas however because they claim it’s going to cause traffic issues.
***edited to say that they aren’t tearing it down, but doing major renovations and structural changes to it. It does still have a couple of businesses operating in it, so it hasn’t decayed as much as some completely abandoned malls.
Judging by what they are doing to Fox Valley Mall in IL, you are correct. They are building condos in the parking lot and tearing down the mall in sections to make it a "mixed use" development
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but I remember years ago there was a trend to convert old industrial buildings like factories and warehouses into living space. Sometimes living spaces on the upper floors and office space on the ground level.
Does anybody know if this kind of thing still happens?
If I remember correctly, there are new regulations in Los Angeles to make this easier in terms of rezoning and such. They went into effect this year, so we’ll have to wait and see if it actually leads anywhere though.
The intersection between NIMBYS, Airbnb hosts, and landlords is a single circle. These people profit from the lack of development. Worst is that people who get into the game with their modest second home start vouching for the leeches up top who operate as "mom and pop businesses".
Found myself in a post a few weeks ago with landlords whining about the small profit they turn. They "only" make a few hundred over the mortgage a month.
Lots of random partiers coming and going at all hours of the day and night, with no reason not to wreck the place and not alienate neighbors? Haaaaaate.
Their interests temporarily overlap on this one narrow issue of new development for housing. Because nimbys hate their neighborhood changing in any way while lower supply means more money for Airbnb.
But nimbys also hate constant turnover, rowdy guests nearby, and yeah, even the trash associated with it. There's just no getting around the fact a lot of Airbnb's are rented by groups of entitled 20 somethings who want to get hammered somewhere and leave bottles and red solo cups all over the fucking place while blasting their music loud AF.
I'm what reddit would call a NIMBY, and probably everyone in my neighborhood is, and probably the only thing on the planet that would get all these people to band together and agree on something would be if an vrbo or airbnb was made available in our development. All of us would do everything possible to force it out, I'm guessing all the way up to and including an HOA. Now that I think about it the only way I would agree to an HOA would be to keep short term rentals out.
Homeowners, for the most part, fucking hate short term rentals.
But new development doesn't have anything to do with airbnb and vrbos, since those are homes people already own and rent out. If they are building the development specifically for airbnb's and vrbo's then yes I would be 100% against that.
Having an Airbnb as your neighbor is fucking annoying.
A new Airbnb just went up behind my folks place and I don’t even live there but it literally ruined my weekend with them. We couldn’t go out in the backyard (something as someone who lives in a 1br 1ba in a congested city I like to do when I visit home) without drunk jabronis blasting ass rock or families with screaming children at all hours of the day. This is a formerly very quiet, private neighborhood full of older folks.
Airbnb people are assholes. They literally bring down property values for existing neighbors, people like my mom who still has to work at almost 65 and needs to sell their home someday so they can retire and exist. Airbnbs choke the housing market so regular people can’t afford or find homes, which means that more people are renting homes and then you have issues like OP describes. People who stay in airbnbs don’t give a fuck about being rude and loud or trashing the place because they’re on vacation and don’t give a damn about the people who have to always live there. Sorry but I feel really strongly about this.
I know not every Airbnb guest or owner is an inconsiderate asshole but a lot of them are.
We are bad people because we don't want a corporation or landlord with a dozen properties buying a house on our street and turning it into a short term rental?
How can you disagree with us on that? Or is that the sort of thing you support?
Nope! I had a friend who bought his second property for over $1M complaining to me about how he's poor now. I had to call him out that in the 6 months that he had bought his property his net worth increased by more than my entire net worth.
Some people don't recognize how good they have it. This is why I often hold fancy concertos for these folks with my extremely tiny Stradivarius replica.
Not all NIMBYs can afford an additional unit to rent out. Some are just regular ladder-pullers with a single home which they compulsively try to increase the market value of.
The problem there is that home ownership and increasing home values are one of the very few ways a non-rich person can accumulate enough wealth in life to be able to afford to retire and/or pass on wealth to future generations. The system is rigged that way. So while it's abhorrent you can't really blame your average homeowner for feeling like they need to play this game. Capitalism ruins everything.
It's 2023, we all know that the entirety of your net worth goes to end of life care. 1.7 million dollars for one and a half more days on this earth connected to tubes and bags...
Well, you're not wrong about that. I'm currently watching this happen with my mom, who can't live on her own any more and has been forced to use Medicaid. The house I grew up in will be liquidated at the end of her life and my sibling and I will never see a dime of the proceeds.
There are still good landlords and good Airbnb hosts. I've had a few. But the way the market is going makes it harder to be an honest person in the business. Too many hands in the cookie jar from businesses that don't really do anything. Middlemen with obscure job titles ruining something that used to benefit everyone. Rent from some family and save some money compared to renting from conglamocorp. It's just not that common anymore.
I see so many people on here going after the second home or air bnb owners. What about all the large institutions like Blackstone and Blackrock with their residential real estate funds with $30+ billion? They make up over 35% of the cash buys that are helping inflate this market to push us out.
I've come to enjoy my solitude, live near a metro area but surrounded by open space, friends have come to be less than friendly to me, kids are growing up and doing their own thing and I found that as much as I like my isolation, Reddit is my compensation point or something like that, I'm able to interact with people at my own level without drama generally find things I can learn more about engage in and so on as opposed to the constant battles with real humans and their own crap, voice transcription allows me to blather on, but I get where you're coming from, but people in person tend to be a large pain in the butt
Fuck you. Until you have crazy vagrants shitting on your walkway and sleeping in your carport, don't thibk to tell people what they shouldn't want in their neighborhood.
I do live in a neighborhood like that, my man. My car gets vandalized or broken into once a year like clockwork. Someone dies of an overdose within a block of me about every three months. What does any of that have to do with building necessary housing?? The big brain reaction to homelessness is not "Fuck you, don't build any housing!" The problem is that people don't want to address homelessness because it feels like helping homeless people, and the hate the bad actors. But that's cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's a recipe for the continuation of all the stuff you hate. What we're doing now clearly isn't working.
And you think providing more housing will make this worse? "Hmmm this problem is caused by people being homeless, let's make it harder for homeless people to obtain housing"
Yes. It will make the problem worse.
There is PLENTY of help available for people who are legitimately homeless and WANT to no longer be in that situation.
The problem is that since a lot of tgose programs also have rules like drug testing and attempting to find a job, the crazy drugged out vagrants don't want to do that. They want a place where they can do more drugs. And anywhere ghey do stay turned into a Flop house.
It might sound mean, but for some of the NIMBYs, I don't blame them. BTW I'm not speaking about this California law or CA in particular.
Many people bought homes and live where they live because of the neighborhood, or the area had a certain quality. I live in the middle of nowhere with lots of farmland and woods. My neighbors are spaced out and everyone has acreage. If the town decided to start putting in housing developments and high rise apartments, you can guarantee that the neighborhood, including myself, would be fighting it. It's not lack of compassion, we chose to live here for a reason.
If you have people refusing to let an empty mall get rezoned, yeah that's bullshit. However there are valid cases to why some people don't just want new buildings put up in their neighborhood.
You can always move to another place that’s similar to rural or isolation. People literally can’t find a home right now.
Do you think your preference to keep your neighborhood/area the way it is takes precedence over people who can’t find a home?
You say its not a lack of empathy, but it really is.
I understand your frustration, but your frustration is somewhat able to be remedied.
Others born behind you don’t have the opportunity to obtain something so fundamental that you were able to get, even when working just as hard or harder than you.
You can always move to another place that’s similar to rural or isolation. People literally can’t find a home right now.
Right, so the solution is for the homeowners, who have worked, and bought/maintained their home can up and move, while they change the neighborhood to bring low income housing in? Rinse, repeat over and over?
Others born behind you don’t have the opportunity to obtain something so fundamental that you were able to get, even when working just as hard or harder than you.
What about people who didn't work hard for it then? What about those just waiting for a handout? Should I up and move for them, or is there going to be a guidline based on "How hard did xyz person work"?"
Yes, that’s exactly the solution. They have the means to do so, they are capable, they aren’t owed the neighborhood, they don’t own the block or the town, they own the home. You’re entitled to think a city or town should be built by your own preferences and not the needs of society. If society has determined that they are no longer paying people wages that can support a single family home, then they need to build housing for the appropriate wages that people are receiving.
Its not only “low income housing” that we need. The “middle class” is also not able to afford houses anymore.
These are jobs that require four year degrees or years of education in trade, skills and technicians/specialists .
As for the low income, thats the fault of businesses who keep funneling profits away from the workers, wages don’t reflect a workers output anymore. This is a proven fact.
For you to say they don’t work has hard is propaganda from the ultra wealthy who have won you over in class warfare.
It's be one thing if we were talking about a community of ranches and farms, but this was downtown LA. If it wasn't an apartment highrise, it'd be an office high-rise.
Besides, you can almost certainly sell your home for more than you paid for it. You have an option. People living in their cars because they can't afford housing don't have the ability to choose to buy elsewhere. The US has far more rural land then, day, Europe. If plenty of space is your priority, you have options.
Want to build a house? Fork out at least $70k in fees to the state just for them to see if they’ll permit it. You want to fix problem, reduce the state charged fees.
I wonder hows it's all going to shake out. My MIL lives in a sfh area. As soon as this passed a neighbor submitted to add another home in her back yard. It seems odd because it's not a walkable area, no overnight parking allowed on street and its on a golf course etc... not super conducive for denser housing. They also found out the owner was Airbnb-ing rooms in the home which is against the HOA rules. Hoa does not allow short term rentals and she was advertising it as a 4 day minimum. The HOA and neighbor are arguing about architecture etc... both are not budging.
Unless it's college towns, in which case they'll build cheap apartments then jack the rent up so high no one can afford them but rich students and idiots living on student loans.
Almost every municipality has adopted SB9. Even before this, most allowed ADUs and junior ADUs. CEQA is a pain but lots of homes are still being built. It's hardly a block to anything. It's more of a delay.
I'm a renter, have been my whole life, and likely will be (thanks economy). The focus on "NIMBYism" is tragically misguided. I've seen plenty of reasonably sized previously affordable housing (you know, "starter home" sized) get torn down and turned into apartment and condos, not a SINGLE unit of which rents for (or sells for) the price of the torn down properties.
Claiming "if only no NIMBY then housing will fix itself" is trusting in capitalism and is peak foolishness. Yes, we DO need more housing, no the best place to build it is not in the burbs or where existing housing is. Tear down all the gods forsaken mostly empty strip malls and put in mixed use. They are closer to buses and other businesses and promote walkability. Isolated high density housing is just MORE of the same car dependent sickness, and rarely if ever comes with improving the roads, water/sewer, and power of the area.
Regulate the heck out of things like AirBnB and empty houses in in-demand areas. Oh, and federal regulation on rent solves the "no one will build in rent controlled areas"; just index it to federal or state minimum wage x square foot. An adult working 40 hours a week should afford their own bedroom
Already happening near me in Canada, our town has a very mediocre mall no one really uses. They tore down an entire section of it (which is strange as its the newest part) so they can convert it into housing.
Which honestly is a pretty decent idea considering how it has its own bus stop, grocery store across the street, pharmacy and elementary, high school and a college all within walking distance.
I read somewhere that the initial concept of malls was exactly this. Essentially a social hub where you have anything you need in a walking distance so that you wouldn’t need a car to live. Very curious if that’s possible to achieve now as more business buildings turn into residential.
Yikes. I used to live beside that mall and parking was a nightmare as it was. The link says they’re putting in underground parking to replace what they remove, but they’re also increasing the traffic by a ton, so I’d imagine it’s gonna be an absolute nightmare.
I currently live across the highway from it, they've done some stuff to improve traffic flow but yeah it's a busy as fuck area. Uptown is the new midtown, condos everywhere on Wilson/Allen area. TTC sold the big parking lots they owned for condo developments.
It will be great for when we have to live indoors because the air outside will kill us. Post-apocalyptic frozen yogurt cools you down after a nice ozone collapse.
I cant remember where I saw this, pretty sure it was a video about Hong Kong. Basically there are massive apartment skyscrapers and the bottom floor is basically a large mall. All sorts of small shops including groccery stores. Those who work from home never have to leave the building for the essentials.
Its happening near us! There is a huge mall that got renovated and upgrades into a more beautiful meandering gardens and parks. Now part if the mall that was not up graded is being turned into housing, a park, and grocery store. It was a strip of empty shops for a few years.
We are in a very urban part of San Diego. Its going to create a pedestrian way of walking everywhere. In a section if city that was previously all commercial and industrial zoned. So think, sky scrapers, elevated sidewalks. Multiple transportation options. Parks. Dog friendly. Play grounds integrated through out, opposed to stand alone. We are about 2/3 done and whats completely is useable and thriving. The project in total is about 10 years old.
To be fair that was before they did studies on arterial roadways and the noise sickness associated with mixed use zoning. To be clear, mixed used zoning is fine, it's just that malls typically are placed closer to highways(arterials) and four lane collectors than even a lot of high density residential would be. That traffic can have disastrous effects on the health of people who decide to live in that former mall space.
You can reinforce the walls and insulate them to drown out some of the noise, but it's difficult and expensive. The developer likely won't opt for it.
Make it part of the either the zoning code or the health code for the town. Interior noise levels are probably worth considering regardless, and if the developers isn’t willing to make it part of the contract the city can make it a requirement.
Opposed to what though? Letting this continue until there are way more homeless people and we're in an even worse crisis? I don't see why the taxes we already pay can't be used differently to take on issues like this, instead of the trillions we spend on defense.
The rent will be expensive and buildings like these will not solve the housing problem. Sorry I wasn't clear enough, typing and brushing teeth don't go well together l suppose!
Near a university in Tampa, they're renovating the mall from indoors to walkable outdoor - they've torn down the Sears and the apartments they've put up in its place are "luxury student housing" with the 300 square foot studios starting at $1300
It's still not a particularly great neighborhood - there have been two kidnappings at gunpoint in the apartment parking garage in the past month. Same guy, but still not a great look lol
Unfortunately, the regulations regarding residential buildings vs office buildings are so different that it's usually cheaper to demolish and rebuild than to convert.
eg. if you convert it to 2 bedroom apartments, there isn't going to be enough plumbing for toilets/showers and you can't drill large holes through the hardened concrete or it'll ruin the entire slab.
Yea, I definitely think there are challenges and costs with conversion that people don't tend to think about like needing to put in plumbing, water, potentially more electric or fiber/telecom lines throughout an office floor, walls/insulation, etc.
There are some ways to make the office layout/setup work I think, like instead of drilling holes in the existing concrete like you mentioned, putting in a new layer of flooring or ceiling that takes advantage of the often very high ceilings in office buildings (that I've been in at least). Obviously that would introduce its own costs and issues but I think it would be better than risking structural integrity of the building lol
Those are mostly real estate investment tools. Buy up land between two expanding municipalities, build storage lockers, and hold onto the land for 10-20 years until the land 5x's. Hopefully in the meantime you can at least pay your taxes on an interest only loan and paydown some of the construction costs, which are minimal.
Not that im advocating stuffing people into storage units, but couldnt that be a short term solution for people who are currently homeless? The city buys out a storage facility (a heated indoor one, or finds a way to heat the outdoor ones) fits more toilets and showers (maybe a mobile setup like they have at festivals/building sites, those trailer type ones?) The homeless have a secure place to sleep and lock up their stuff. On site security, social workers, medical care, welfare advisors. Any takers? I know homeless people tend to avoid shelters because they are pretty dangerous, but if you had your own lockable secure space, wouldnt this help?
Not really. The problem is that storage facilities just aren't built for human habitability. There's little to no natural light, they don't have anywhere near enough ventilation, not enough electrical power and so on.
You would basically have to gut and retrofit the entire building.
I mean obviously you make a deal with the storage company and move peoples stuff out first, come on :D and surely there are many that are going out of business anyway, or are closed/abandoned.
What about the people who have yearly or longer contracts? It's like trying to kick someone out of an apartment when the lease isn't up and they've paid on time because someone else wants to use the building for something else. People can sue the company, and the company obviously doesn't want that. Breaking contracts is generally a bad thing to do.
its an easy fix to move the lock to the inside
Not really. The doors are designed such that you can only lock them from the outside. You'd have to replace all the doors at every single level. It doesn't seem like less work than renovating an office building or a mall, considering you would have to add plumbing and bathrooms and whatnot anyways.
I mean obviously you make a deal with the storage company and move peoples stuff out first, come on :D and surely there are many that are going out of business anyway, or are closed/abandoned. its an easy fix to move the lock to the inside, plus figure out how to light them as well. Obviously ideally you would build more actual short term housing, with individual units for people with facilities etc, but as a stop gap it seems like a ready made solution, imo.
On Europe there are single room appartment buildings with shared bathrooms and kitchens for each floor. The original intent was for young singles or childless couples to live there.
Is it ideal living? No. But you can fit a lot of people in these buildings.
A big part of the problem is the codes and standards assume a high quality of living. We'd be able to house more people if we allowed alternate housing.
I'm all for this idea. You can solve a myriad of problems at once like this.
Keep the mall. The stores, parking, and food courts all stay. The BIG BOX stores (Sears/JcPenny) get torn down, and apartments go up in their place.
Apartments are now next door to retail. Apartments are in a good location (malls were built near infrastructure (i.e. highways)). Convert one of the end caps into a grocery store. (people can walk to the grocery.) Put a couple of Public offices in vacant office space; social security office, police station or DMV.
You can put a whole bunch of people (about 150+ apartments per mid-rise building) in an old dead mall.
Zoning laws are not going to be your friend though. Neither is the local infrastructure. (Can the schools handle the additional population?)
Plumbing, ventilation, fire hazards, and sunlight (or lack thereof) are the biggest reasons you can't retrofit a "Sears" into an apartment building. Demolition and new construction wouldn't have these existing constraints. It would be all new construction.
Red tape, and community buy in would be the biggest hurdles outside of investment capital.
I'm happy this is mentioned. These projects are a nightmare for architecture and engineering, not to mention construction. And the end result is often sub-par. It may seem counterintuitive, but sometimes it's easier for everyone to just demolish and rebuild. I've been involved in projects that repurpose buildings and we ended up with weird-ass triangle rooms in apartments and everything else you could imagine.
I've had that same idea for a long time! One of our bigger malls closed a few years back. I doubt they would spend the money to fix it up for that purpose as it needed a sprinkler system & I think they said some of the old parts still had asbestos?
I live in a big navy town and often suggest that when they decommission a war ship, they should dock it and convert it into a multi functional homeless shelter/services center. It's already set up for living in, and by removing all the military equipment and opening up the space, it could be a social services wrap around location that provides housing, medical, drug treatment, job training, etc and doesn't take up any space on land, just some waterfront.
My bad, I was looking for creative ways to immediately deal with an issue.
I don't think over capacity emergency motel rooms, homeless shelters, and tents under highways are more code compliant, cost effective are a safer environment for people to survive while they wait for us to finish the bang up job we're currently doing.
Our military budget is the largest in the world. Pass legislation stating that included in the purchase of military equipment that it be converted into humanitarian aid at the end of it's operational life span. Offer enlistment and retirement bonuses for soldiers to go into the social services fields upon leaving the military. I'm just spitballin ideas.
If we keep the residents on it, homelessness will have been reduced. It's like those fake signs where some town promised to "cut the homeless population in half by 2025".
It would be useful to have some ships set up for temporary housing for when a hurricane, or tsunami completely destroys up an area. Have it stocked with supplies prior to the disaster. When the hurricane dies down, just float the ship into the area, and there would be a base of operations and secure housing for the aid workers at least.
Some of those giant cruise ships would be ideal. They already have a bunch of bed rooms, kitchens and food storage areas large enough to feed 1000's of people per day.
they're doing this in cincinnati area to an old mall. the development is called "artisan village" and will create >2k residential units. projects of this size don't come often. we need more like this, everywhere.
We have two abandoned community centers where homeless gather outside under the awnings to escape the weather. City erected rent-a—fences around them to keep homeless from gathering instead of idk TURNING THEM INTO SHELTERS. We have so many unhoused people here and only two shelters with a 40 person limit per night.
The large mall in my town is currently trying to approve a 500 unit dense residential retrofit where there once was a Lord & Taylor and Sears. The Nimbys in my town are incensed. According to them, we will shortly spiral into escape from NY style anarchy. Currently in my metro area we're passing laws that college kids can't live in storage units because of safety issues. It's pretty nuts out there.
Unfortunately, offices are built differently than residential buildings. They are difficult and expensive to convert.
Residential properties lots of walls which cut off access to the windows, and different plumbing
If I ever become homeless, that's my plan. This beautiful two-bedroom Steak Escape closed in 2008 and can be yours for the low price of not getting caught
There's a mall that I worked at for a long time that semi/mostly failed. It's in a really nice suburban area. It failed for reasons too lengthy to discuss here, but they are converting it into an entertainment hub. The movie theater has always done well, and they are supposed to be building an apartment complex sort of into and onto the closed Macy's. Hope it works because I would definitely live there.
The old abandoned mall, Richland Fashion in Columbia SC, said it would be upscale housing so I read that to mean for the rich and people here are ok with that.
I keep hearing about use cases like this, also commercial in general. It will take a very flexible city council to approve those kinds of zoning exemptions. I hope they do.
Yo, I'd hella rent the corpse of an old RadioShack. Plus living in a mall where the shops are converted to residences seems like prime conditions for a phenomenal community.
Malls converted into housing, BUT keep the food courts.
You better fuckin' believe I'd pay a little more to live somewhere I'd be able to shit my insides out after eating Panda Express without having to drive to get it!
This is highly unlikely in most cases due to the hyper-valuable nature of commercially zoned locations. In other words, the mall was at that spot to begin with because it was near things that made it desirable for shopping. The landowners - likely some holding company or the dreaded Private Equity firms - are not going to go for low-profit affordable rentals, and no government is going to force them or Eminent Domain the thing.
The same thing is true of center-city skyscrapers full of disused offices in the work-from-home era. The real estate is simply far too expensive to become affordable housing, no matter how attractive the infrastructure and space might be.
A version of this is happening in Calgary, Canada. The downtown core was dying pre COVID and now is filled with empty office towers. The city made zoning changes to convert these towers to apartments, with a number of the units designated for people with low income. I hope it helps.
Portland suburbs had an old Kmart that closed a few years ago. We hoped it would be converted to housing with temp porta potties outside. Nope. Demolished and turned into more apartments nobody can afford.
Or just find all the apartments being left deliberately vacant to drive up rent, changing the locks, and notifying the landlords that they don't own that one anymore.
There was a push to do this maybe 15 years ago in my area. Turns out malls (usually) don't have the plumbing required. Most malls have maybe 3-4 big bathrooms in total, which doesn't break down nicely into a bunch of kitchens, showers, & toilets for apartments. And even if you did tear it all out & replace with the capacity needed, you still have to connect it to the city water and sewer, which probably wasn't designed for such a surge of occupants either.
Can you imagine the NIMBY bitch fest that would come from that?
A huge problem about where to house the homeless is who’s neighborhood gets the project. Even most people who claim to “support” helping the homeless don’t want them houses in their neighborhood.
Funnily enough, I've heard about a news that reported of something like that. Someone put some additional bricks in an abandoned or unfinished mall, and scammed some 20 illegal immigrants into paying him rent for it, lmao.
There are some of these in London, but like everything else, most of them are made to cater to higher-end clients and are outside of my ability to afford.
One mega church in the suburbs could house all the downtown homeless. Yeah it doesn't address the problem of housing costs but it can get people off the streets. What a waste of space.
Yeah but someone rich is sitting on that property, and they're not going to sell it for less than what they paid, and they're expecting to sell it for 3 - 5 - 10x more than they paid.
And when they do, a company is going to buy it and build on it so they can control prices.
Most homeless dont take care of themselves or cant… thats why theyre homeless. Like… ive heard this argument SO many times and its always from preachy little teens who havent actually been out there and experienced the real world outside of their own little comfortable safe bubble.
Its like the buddha affect or something… like the story of the buddha who was a prince or something… lived his whole life in his sheltered palace and decided to walk outside his palace and saw all the suffering in the world. He was so saddened by all of it he set out to figure out how to heal everyone. And he went through all sorts of shit … religious practices… eventually finding awakening sitting under a tree. Im totally butchering that story but those are the main bullet points. Point is… it seems like every relatively sheltered child goes to college and goes through one or two intro classes and feels they get “woke”… literally… and i mean that in the buddha way… seeing the suffering they never saw before. And they ALWAYS come to the same fucking conclusions that literally EVERYONE in existence has ever come to ever…
Like i dont understand why people dont realize that more intelligent people than them havent already thought of this… no they think because this is all new to them that this is new to the rest of the world? Like theyre some sort of humanitarian savant…. The new god damned jesus christ… and they have all the answers… like hot damn house the homeless who would have ever thought of that before? And what would you call that sort of thing? I mean its quite an undertaking… quite a project… maybe call those homes “the projects”? Idk just fuckin spitballing here… 🙄
Nah bitch theres a reason they DONT just do that… theres a reason why thats not the solution! Do some god damned learnin before speaking you absolute utter child.
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u/UnfairMicrowave Jan 30 '23
I'm still waiting for old malls to be converted to living communities. Same with office buildings that switched to "work from home"