THE HOMELESS are not being helped by the wave of ADU construction (Shutterstock).
There’s an accessory dwelling unit – commonly known as an “ADU” – going up in our neighborhood. Frankly, they are going up all over the place, but this is the one we pass every day.
Now, I’m not one of those who sees denser housing as a sign of the apocalypse. That trend has been going on in Orange County for decades as land and construction costs rise and demand grows.
The house I grew up in was on a lot that was nearly a half-acre; our current abode’s size is about a fifth of that. The day of the sprawling ranch house is over. If they ever did a remake of “Bonanza,” Hoss, Little Joe, Adam and Ben would probably live in a three-story condo with electric motorcycles in their underground garage instead of horses in a barn.
It’s bad enough that absentee owners now living in Wyoming rent single-family houses to six rowdy college students or eight men who may or may not have reason to evade a parole officer or a Border Patrol agent. Now there’s more folks crowding into new construction.
My complaint rests with the result, or lack of it. The idea behind ADUs, JDUs, lot splits and similar (relatively) good intentions are efforts to alleviate the state’s housing shortage, which feeds – so to speak – the homeless crisis.
While there are many people who struggle to pay today’s high rents or qualify to purchase a home in California, they are not – I believe – those who are walking around shirtless or talking to themselves in the cool of freeway overpasses, huddled with a less-than-clean blanket.
Drug abuse, alcoholism, mental and emotional problems are why many of the most “hard-core” homeless are not simply a few bucks short of first-and-last month’s rent.
Where is the evidence that all the housing edicts from Sacramento are having any appreciable effect on helping people off the streets?
What’s being done in terms of navigation centers, “street medicine,” mobile mental health vans and permanent supportive housing is praiseworthy and on-target.
But squeezing two or three residences onto a lot – and infrastructure – designed for one has not and will not make much of a dent in the problem, while creating others.
Help the homeless. Don’t hobble the rest of us.