Long Beach should institute a vacancy tax on vacant housing, in order to increase affordable housing options for people experiencing homelessness.

In March, Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted an executive order, pushing funds aimed at housing homeless people across the state with a rather novel idea, using hotels. In fact, it’s just got an injection of $62 million to keep it afloat. 

It’s called Project Roomkey, a collaborative effort to get vulnerable people off the streets.  Vulnerable people include folks over 65 years old and people with compromised immune systems. They will get case management and help develop an exit plan with the goal of transitioning into permanent housing. 

An article by CBS Sacramento points out that the project will be winding down in the coming months, which will leave many of those in temporary housing back on the street. And while it’s nice to get the homeless off the street during the pandemic, it’s no long term solution, it’s a bandaid that allows us to feel like we solved the problem. 

The focus should be shifted on permanent secure housing. 

According to data from Bay Area programs, only 16% of the people put up in the hotels found permanent secure housing. 

Many organizations point to the lack of affordable housing. The Californian Housing Markets are some of the largest in the country, with the reputation to match. Most poor residents of the state spend 2/3rds of their income on rent. 

If not for the moral good of getting the vulnerable off the street, then the more cynical reason of cost. It reduces cost on the city to house them, it reduces the need for emergency services like ER and police contact. And for those who are on the edge of homelessness, it provides a safety net. 

Homelessness in California is particularly rampant. We as a state hold 26% of the total homeless population of the country while we as a state only hold 12% of the U.S population. The raw number varies depending on the stats being used, but it sits roughly around 150,000 individuals. 

A part of the solution is increased funding for permanent affordable housing, as a result building safer communities, and happier communities through trimming operating budgets for cities across California. 

We can get this funding through a “Vacancy Tax.” Which would tie taxes to the wealth-creating machine that is the housing market. A Vacancy Task is basically what it sounds like, a tax aimed at absentee landlords and housing companies. 

Vancouver has tried it, and made nearly $28.8 million in 2018 and $88 million in 2019 off the new tax, which would go a long way to paying for an expansion of the affordable housing supply. A forecast by the Canadian Bank shows a downward turn of housing prices, coming from an expansion of owners renting their units instead of just sitting on them, driving down prices.

But even as the article points out, lower income landowners and the disabled should be exempt because of the concept of wealth mobility and protecting the vulnerable. The article pointed out that the tax applied to the disabled and low income or new homeowners. Owning a home of your own gives a stake in not just the city but arguably the whole country. 

This way, we don’t stifle wealth mobility for new homeowners and renters. We should target large rental companies and folks with more than two land holdings. These groups sit on vacant housing who both have a vested interest in inflating the housing prices throughout price inflation and scarcity. 

Right now, the state has 1.2 million vacant homes. Not all of which are suitable for housing, as some are bought and unoccupied and others are rentals with no renters. 

However, many of these homes could provide sources of revenue for an expansion of affordable housing.