A report from the Idaho Press. “Idaho’s housing market is largely stuck in an expensive place, as is the nationwide market, with high interest rates keeping many people from buying and selling. ‘We’re all just kind of sitting here frozen in place, waiting for this thing to unthaw,’ Idaho Department of Labor Economist Sam Wolkenhauer said. Housing prices have skyrocketed in the U.S. and Idaho, with the median listing price of a single-family home in the state sitting at just over $500,000, which is above the national median of around $430,000. Idaho’s average income is lower than the national average. Idaho’s median household income was $72,785 in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The ratio of housing prices to income in Idaho is about 7 to 1, he said. The typical goal to have affordable homes is to have a ratio of around 3 to 1, he said.”
“While the country is experiencing a rapid increase of prices at a similar pace to the run-up preceding the financial crisis of 2008, the conditions now are different. Unlike today, in 2006 and 2007, there was a lot of buying activity, especially with people taking out mortgages they couldn’t afford. ‘It had a lot of kinetic energy that was driving prices up,’ Wolkenhauer said. ‘Today we have a supply constraint. … In essence, the market is, once you look past the veneer of high prices, the market is sort of the literal opposite of what you had in 2007.’”
ABC Action News in Florida. “Since he moved to Indian Rocks Beach in 2016, Jorge Blassino has seen his community change. Dozens of homes have become short-term rentals, vacation homes available for rent on sites like AirBNB and VRBO. ‘It’s almost like you close your eyes, and as soon as you open them, almost, you know, half of the neighborhood became AirBNB,’ Blassino said. ‘It seemed to happen overnight. It was very, very quick.’”
KSTP in Minnesota. “St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter met with residents Monday evening who live in apartments at the Lowry Building to witness for himself the conditions. ‘The living conditions that Madison Equities has their tenants living in is one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen in my entire life,’ Carter said. Carter said when he walked through the building he saw trash, flies, insect infestations, rodents and feces on the floor. Tenant Daryll Sims said the residents are struggling trying to see what will happen to their homes. ‘They are taking the rent money and they are not fixing the units. We’ve got holes, rats, roaches,’ Sims said. A lawyer representing Lowry Building LLC, blamed crime in the surrounding area for the building’s condition: ‘Unfortunately, crime is out of control in downtown St. Paul where the Lowry Building is located.’”
From Boston.com. “Nestled at the center of 43 Hutchings St., one old Victorian home is pitting Roxbury neighbors and residents against each other. Transitional housing — temporary housing for vulnerable populations — has become a point of contention as neighborhood residents claim that Roxbury and Dorchester are being targeted with zoning changes, resulting in a disproportionate number of transitional housing units in the area. With seven transitional homes and counting within a three-block radius of Hutchings Street, many residents are concerned about the zoning changes. Sober homes are not required to be certified in Massachusetts. Mayowa Osinubi said she plans to continue to fight against the influx of transitional housing because she sees a ‘pattern, predominantly in Black and brown neighborhoods’ of being ‘targeted with zoning changes.’ ‘It’s almost like Roxbury is the dumping ground,’ she said. ‘They don’t involve the community and our voices get silenced and ignored.’”
KXTV in California. “Dozens of people who lived at a self-governing homeless encampment in Sacramento known as Camp Resolution are displaced after the city shut the camp down. A lease between nonprofit Safe Ground Sacramento and the city allowed it to operate, but problems with the site and disagreements between groups led to the termination of the agreement earlier this summer. People who live nearby say the camp closing has been a long time coming. ‘It’s disgusting and I’m always afraid. My grandkids won’t even come over, so I wish they were gone now,’ said Michelle Daniel, who lives nearby.”
From KTLA TV. “Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order allowing state and local officials to dismantle homeless encampments has drawn mixed reactions from homelessness experts within California. ‘We’re not going to arrest our way out of homelessness, but we do need the tools and ability to address situations where public health is compromised. I don’t think it should be OK to smoke fentanyl at 2 p.m. on the sidewalk outside of Target. I think there needs to be order and just laws that protect our communities and establish a healthy moral standard for the community. I also believe that, in many cases, this will help people consider their lives and their trajectory and engage in services,’ Jeff Levine, the chaplain and executive director of Long Beach Rescue Mission told KTLA.”
Silicon Valley in California. “The site for a residential tower that could have become an eye-catching addition to the skyline of downtown Oakland is now in loan default, raising questions about the project’s future. The current proposal for the property envisions a 39-story housing high-rise at 2044 Franklin Street. The project would have produced 425 residential units. But these plans now appear to have landed in limbo because the loan for the property is in default. Waves of foreclosures, record-high vacancy rates and slumping rents haunt existing Bay Area office buildings and have stymied plans for new office projects throughout the nine-county region.”
NBC Bay Area in California. “Fear of being robbed is leading some homeowners to turn their homes’ online profile into a blur. Specifically on Google Maps where, thanks to easy-to-use tools, you can blur your home online so it can’t be seen or analyzed by would-be robbers. Robbers who, according to cyber security executive Kristy Edwards, might be house-hunting online. ‘So you might think of nice neighborhoods, you might look for nice cars parked outside, but why do you have to drive around and case the joint yourself if you can do it from the comfort of your own home?’ she said.”
From City AM. “The future of a homeless housing investment firm set up in the mould of scandal-hit Home REIT and backed by Phoenix Group is hanging in the balance after a slew of its tenants went bankrupt or stopped paying rent, City A.M. can reveal. Domus Social Housing, owned by Canadian investment behemoth Fiera Capital and backed by a £62.9m loan from Phoenix, the UK’s biggest pension firm, saw its rental take evaporate last year after two of its biggest tenants went under, another stopped paying rent and a fourth fell under investigation from the charities regulator, City A.M. has learned.”
“Like the now-failed fund Home REIT, Domus touted itself as a company working to alleviate homelessness in the UK by buying property and leasing it to social housing providers. The structure of the firm saw Fiera’s infrastructure arm, which manages about $3bn in assets, provide funding, while Manchester-based property group HSPG supported the ‘acquisition, management and expansion’ of the company, according to a press release announcing its launch in 2021. Investors have poured money into the space on the promise of easing the UK’s homelessness crisis while earning a steady index-linked rental income. Such funds were seen as a prime ESG opportunity by City financiers. However, both Domus and Home REIT have seen their rental income dry up as the charities leasing the properties either collapsed or withheld payments. Home REIT itself has been mired in scandal since late 2022 when short seller Viceroy Research sounded the alarm on the quality of its tenants.”
The Scotsman. “This week’s drug-related death figures for Scotland revealed that tragically, figures are once again on the rise, showing 1,172 people lost their lives last year. Synthetic drugs, notably potent opioids such as nitazenes, are on the rise and appearing in the drug supply in several places across the UK. Last month, I visited Vancouver – one of the epi-centres of the drugs crisis. Around 5,000 people who use drugs reside in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a ten-block corridor that runs through the heart of the city. Walking the half-mile stretch is profoundly shocking. Fentanyl has fuelled the crisis and bodies lie scattered on the tree-lined streets, some barely breathing. Discarded needles are everywhere, as are makeshift encampments – tents, cardboard, and sleeping bags.”
Global News in Canada. “When Insite first opened its doors in 2003 in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside it was the first sanctioned supervised drug consumption site in North America. However, public pressure is pushing changes to harm reduction strategies across the country. On Monday, the Ontario government passed a law banning sites within 200 metres of a school or child-care facility.”
Vancouver Island Free Daily in Canada. “Since the state of public health emergency was first declared in April 2016, at least 14,400 people in the province have lost their lives to toxic drugs. Among them are David Jean’s friends, family members, loved ones, and acquaintances. ‘It’s mind-numbing to think of how many friends I’ve lost,’ said the man who has been living on the street for the past two decades. ‘I don’t think that any generation before me has had to deal with that much loss except for wartime.’”
“For many, International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD), celebrated annually on Aug. 31, serves as a moment to remember those who have died and acknowledge the grief of the family and friends left behind. Initiated in Australia in 2001, the campaign spread globally, with over 1,000 events supporting the end of preventable overdoses. For Julian Daly, CEO of Our Place Society, a non-profit offering a multitude of services to the region’s population dealing with homelessness, substance use and mental health challenges, this date holds great significance.”
“With 17 years of experience in the non-profit sector, Daly noted that overdoses, once considered to be ‘deeply shocking’ events, have become a normalized daily occurrence – a testament, he said, to how quickly things have deteriorated. ‘I used to do this work in Edmonton and I remember when someone overdosed back then it was a massive event in the organization and everyone was talking about it,’ Daly recalled. ‘Now, no one even bothers to tell me if someone’s overdosed, I get told if someone dies. A few years ago if someone was on the pavement, passed out, people would be around them trying to get them help. Now, we just go and check if they are alive. If they’re breathing and they’re not turning blue, we just walk on and keep going about our business.’”
The Globe and Mail in Canada. “A store can tell the story of a city. Dressew is a beloved, independent and unique fixture on the edge of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside: a two-storey explosion of fabric, sewing notions, patterns and Halloween costumes. The store has been around since 1961, and in its current location since 1981. Over the weekend, Dressew posted on social media that it would be selling the building where the business resides. And that the shop’s future was uncertain. ‘We are heartbroken, angry, and just numb that it has come to this,’ the posting read. What, exactly, was ‘it’?”
“As the delightful emporium opened Tuesday morning, proprietor David McKie told me that the decision had, in fact, ‘very little’ to do with its location. But if it does reopen elsewhere – and he hopes it can – it won’t be downtown. ‘Many of you have called for the [City of Vancouver] to help or blamed them in part,’ the Dressew account wrote in a follow-up social-media post. ‘They cannot help us. The vandalism, graffiti, crime and our neighbourhood falling apart around us are a reason we won’t relocate in downtown Vancouver, but not the reason we are closing.’”
“He says the issues facing the Downtown Eastside are not limited to one neighbourhood or city – and he’s right. In Los Angeles, the owner of the famous Langer’s deli is considering closing in MacArthur Park, described by a local neighbourhood association official as being plagued with drugged people ‘walking around like zombies.’ In tonier Santa Monica, Calif., frustrated business owners hung a banner declaring the area unsafe and calling it an ‘outdoor mental asylum.’ There was a famous case in Phoenix, where the owners of a sandwich shop shared their plight as a homeless encampment grew around them.”
“Businesses open and close. It’s the cycle of urban life. But what is being allowed to happen is deadly. Unregulated drug toxicity is the leading cause of death in B.C. for people aged 10 to 59, the B.C. Coroners Service says. Since April, 2016, more than 14,948 people in the province had died from this. (Of course, this problem persists not just in the Downtown Eastside.) Forget scared shoppers; this is a life-and-death failure.”
“The vacant lot next to the building is fenced off, but filled with garbage. On the same block, the front window of a cannabis store has been penetrated by some sort of projectile. Across the street, the glass door of another fabric store has been fixed with duct tape. But around the same block, steps away, you can buy boots for almost $1,000 or a pair of jeans for $700. How can a city where people can afford such riches also be a city that lets human beings live like this? People witness this daily and maybe feel bad for a moment on their way to pick up a flat white and perhaps a new purse.”