Tag: general

Housing needs and prices vary

The US Census has a new look. The site has improved tremendously. This might be old news, but it’s news to me. It’s worth checking out if you haven’t been there in a while. I particularly like the profile pages, like this one.

Take note of the breakdown of housing units and households. There are approximately 5.7% more housing units than households in the state. You need some vacancies as there are units under renovation or being held while a family relocates from one living situation to another. Is 5.7% in the comfortable range? It’s hard to know. Still– comparing the spread between households and units is a measure to determine how many extra spaces, if any, there are for families to live.

The county-level profiles are great too and come in several formats. Here are three to compare.

Each county has a different spread between the number of housing units and the number of households. The range is from 7% vacancy in the agricultural area of Blue Earth to a low of 1.8% in the most densely populated Hennepin County to a generous 16% in the northern lakes area of Mille Lacs County. Hennepin County is the only place we can say with certainty that there is a clear need for more housing.

Counties are large. There may be vacant structures in rural Blue Earth county while the demand for places to live is in Mankato, a nice-sized town of forty-five thousand. For that reason, it’s great that the Census even zooms into the city level.

Here’s a snapshot of Perham, a small but humming town about an hour SE of Fargo.

The point here is that housing is local. When people observe that the price of housing did not come down when new units were added, the follow-up question should be, what type of housing and where?

Will signs work?

I say no.

The City of St. Paul is looking to curb panhandling in busy intersections. It’s looking to encourage people to donate money to organizations that help those who are unhoused instead of handing out cash. FOX 9

City leaders say they’re doing it for public safety reasons. It’s putting signs up at intersections to bring awareness to drivers on how to help those who are unhoused. 

This is so Minnesotan. If we simply ask nicely, the good people of St. Paul will listen and do as we say! Let’s ignore incentives and inclinations.

There are two groups and two forces at work. The well enough to do in their cars are compelled at the sight of the need to fulfill an urge to act. Their instincts are crying to lend a helping hand. This is so easily accomplished by reaching into a wallet for a few dollars and rolling down a window. Searching for a reputable organization to direct funds to is tedious and not very rewarding. When you send in a check, you just get a thank you but no human touch.

Incentives for Group 1: Sign 0 Direct Give 1

The second group is the panhandlers. They have a need and are working to externalize cash from motorists’ desire for mutual aid. Although public policy types may rationalize that these folks really need this, and really need that, and it’s all because of X, does not eliminate the clear immediate need for cash. That’s their mission. The solution in the sign does not meet this need.

Incentives for Group 2: Sign 0 Direct Give 1

The sign idea does not work. If vouchers were given to motorists who want to reach out and touch someone to make a difference, and the panhandler could take said voucher to the organization for cash, among other things, then you would meet the incentives for both Groups 1 and 2. The organizations would also have a shot at ‘selling’ the panhandlers on their other services. If successful, the panhandlers would no longer need to hit the curbs with their stools and cardboard signs.

Five Minute Real Estate

In this five minute video clip, Frederick Melo with the St. Paul Pioneer Press refers to a number of important real estate outcomes. He was invited to the weekly PBS show, Almanac, due to a recent announcement that a portfolio of commercial buildings, including the iconic First National Bank Building, is being listed for sale.

The collection of buildings are owned Madison Equities. Long time real estate developer, Jim Crockarell died in January and his heirs are not interested in being landlords. Building owners can gain emotional attachment to their properties as appears to be the case here. Some of them were half empty and some completely empty. Significant vacancies do not happen on the turn of a dime. Commercial leases are multi-year and companies have an investmest in their locations. So this recent announcement reflects activity which has been brewing for a while.

Well known architectural firm, TKDA, is also moving. They are relocating to Bloomington to keep workers happy. After 100 years, the downtown devotees are succumbing to practical desires for free parking. An added feature is scenic vistas over the Minnesota River. To attract workers back into the built environment, they are seeking out new surroundings in the third largest city in the state.

US Bank is also stepping away from downtown yet still staying in St. Paul. Workers here also say no to the densest part of the city. Melo reports that the building has had ghost leases for years. While technically under contract, the one-employee-per-floor occupancy has been a long-time indicator of what the future held.

What to do with all these vancant buildings is the question of the day. The solution under proposal is converting the office space to living space. But conversions are very expensive and the demand for residential in the capital city is not as strong as next door neighbor in her sister city. It’s a tough place to live.

Grants and tax increment financing are being proposed as public interventions. Is this a good idea? I’m not so sure. The mayor is quiet letting a non-profit alliance offer investment strategies. Their approach is to focus on one street at a time. One street a downtown does not make.

Cathy Wurzer brings in the ringer of a topic just at the end. Crime and personal safety. These are real issues that have been muted in the last four years. People don’t want to have to worry about being carjacked at knife-point when they’ve got a head full of kid’s programming and an armful of work manuals. Proximity to violence is a deal breaker for many people.

I had not heard of the study the Downtown Alliance had done around the DT Greeters pre and post pandemic. Within a district where a tax was collected to support the greeter program, quality of life crimes decreased by 40%. Whereas in the adjacent Lowertown area (where the St. Paul Saints stadium is located) crimes increased by 20%. Jim Crockarell, the real estate developer, opposed the district. This is speculation, but I’m guessing he thought greeting people and being busy maintainers of sidewalk safety was meant to be organic. It was the civic thing to do. Yet here is concrete data that an organized effort to deter crime, a significant motivator, was successful with subsidized labor.

In review, we were told about multiple exits to the city core. Be careful to note this was not a sudden occurance. We heard about emotional attachments beyond the pull of financial prudence. We heard about consumer driven needs for parking and easy access. We heard about the impracticality of retrofitting the built environment (file under why so many old buildings come down). We heard about public subsidies that will fall woefully short of the task. We heard about the big driver, safety, which is often kept on the QT so as not to implicate an area.

That’s a lot in five minutes