I appreciate the analogies and am looking forward to the follow on articles. Still, what the average person sees in Santa Fe, are not the ‘five families left out bc there are only 95 homes.’ What we see are largely single people, with obvious mental health challenges, and the crime is undisputed. I hope you will be addressing the reports that many of our homeless do not want to be housed — is that accurate? I think we have two, nearly distinct populations to address: those with drug addiction and mental health issues, and those who are the poor working families. One solution will not fit both of those groups. And, I do believe people deserve to enjoy public spaces, especially parks, without undue harassment. Capitalism is the main problem IMO, and that’s one big nut to crack! We must keep trying. That also means holding people accountable for criminal behavior. Obviously not all poor people break windows and defecate in public. I worry it is such an intractable problem that frustrations build and then the housed wreak havoc on the unhoused. And permitting for housing definitely needs more flexibility. Again, thanks for your reporting.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful response—your tone and curiosity are very welcome. I know this is a complicated and often emotional issue.
You’re absolutely right that the visible crisis in Santa Fe often involves people with severe mental illness or substance-use issues, and I completely agree: everyone deserves to feel safe in public spaces. Where we maybe differ is in how we trace the roots of that crisis.
It’s true that some people reject shelter, but usually not because they were born wanting to live outside. After months or years of unsheltered life, people often lose trust, stability, and even basic coping ability—especially when substances like methamphetamine and opioids are involved. The Least of Us by Sam Quinones is excellent on this. That’s why I argued for earlier intervention: many people who now seem unreachable were once just broke and sleeping in a car or on a friend’s couch. Or, they were a traumatized kid who was once reachable, but nobody ever reached them. They look like two different groups to you but people don't start off that way. They're the same people—just further downstream. I'd like to recommend Chrystal Wilson's excellent piece on shelter and what that means to people: https://substack.com/home/post/p-163861269
As for capitalism: cities like San Francisco and Santa Fe are not more capitalist than places like Houston, Salt Lake City, or Phoenix—yet they have far worse homelessness. Why? Because SF and Santa Fe block housing, and Houston builds it. Capitalism isn’t the differentiator here—local land-use policy is.
Thanks again for reading. I really appreciate your openness to the conversation!
Thanks for replying, Stephanie. I am not saying it is all or even primarily capitalism, but $$ plays a big role in NIMBY mindset and property values, not to mention (!!!) the hedge funds that are buying up homes and apartments and renting them at high rates all across the country, including here in SF. One friend was trying to rent an apt, and the monthly rate kept shifting within a few weeks time based on supply and demand, just like playing the stock market.
I did include the very PITA building permit precesses and regulations here in SF.
As an example, I have an empty 40’ container I want to convert to an ADU. It would be perfect out here on my 6 acres in the county. But nope! ADU must match the look and feel of the main house, a regulation which restricts all kinds of affordable housing types.
To your point about the lineage, I do completely agree on the process. And yet, it’s most helpful in my experience to meet people where they are at. So functionally, and as far as helpful solutions, there are distinct groups of unhoused people IMO.
The core issue isn’t capitalism, but rather how the housing market has been distorted by policies that prevent it from functioning like a true market. If this were a simple market of home buyers and builders, then supply would rise to meet demand, and prices would stabilize at an affordable level. But there’s a third, powerful player in the mix—existing homeowners who twist the market.
Unlike most markets, housing is deeply entangled with local politics. Homeowners—who often hold the most political influence—benefit when housing becomes scarce and expensive. They have every incentive to oppose new development—especially affordable or multifamily housing—and they often succeed by pushing zoning restrictions, permit delays, environmental reviews, and other regulatory tools that limit what can be built and where.
That's protectionism, not capitalism. Those who already “got theirs” get to pull up the ladder behind them, leaving younger generations, working families, and those struggling with mental health and addiction with less chance at the same opportunity they had. We absolutely need nuanced solutions for the different populations experiencing homelessness, but if we really want to fix things, we need to confront the policy decisions that are keeping supply artificially low and prices painfully high.
I saw this problem very dramatically in New Orleans with "historic districts" used as cudgels to prevent businesses from operating or housing being built. I think you are absolutely right to call the homeowners out for this, and the rest of us need to stop letting them get away with made up feel-good excuses like 'protecting the character of a neighborhood.'
I see what you're saying about the profit motive. But normally, supply and demand balance out if a market is healthy; here, it isn't. So it's distorted because special interests have captured government regulations intended to protect neighborhoods from things like Robert Moses' destruction. I think that capture of well-intended regulations is a distinction that's important; it's a nuance that's beyond "capitalism."
Capitalism is about voluntary exchange in open markets. People compete to create value by innovating, taking risks, and working hard in response to demand. Protectionism is when certain groups use policy or political power to shield themselves from that competition typically at the expense of others.
The problem isn’t that builders want to make a profit. Profit drives innovation, efficiency, and supply in almost every sector. The problem is when homeowners and local governments block that process. They benefit from housing scarcity because it raises their property values, and they use zoning laws, permitting restrictions, and public input processes to prevent new homes from being built. That’s not capitalism, but protectionism disguised as public interest.
Profit motive taking priority isn’t inherently bad. It what motivates people build things people need like whatever technology you're reading this on. When the system rewards preventing others from participating in the market, that’s when things break down. Rather than blaming capitalism, we should focus on creating a fair and open market where builders can meet demand, families can find homes, and success doesn’t depend on whether you bought your house before 1990.
So the problem is people want to live someplace that they account afford? The solution is to do away with regulations governing development so that the altruistic developers can give these individuals their due? How about the development of transit systems that allow people to work/play in desirable areas whilst living in affordable places. Seems most of the arguments raised by the yimby crew parrot the development/contruction lobby.
What do you think about the fact that building housing results in fewer homeless people, which Houston demonstrated? Is your antipathy toward the people who build homes so strong you're willing to see folks go without housing to prove an ideological point? How do you feel about the people who create other necessary goods, like food and clothing? That's pretty much all for-profit, right? Do you think regulations that create scarcities of goods people need make people better off?
So, is your fawning over the developer class such as to obscure your objectivity…just to make an ideological point? Now that we have the pithiness out of the way. Personally I kinda like the regulations that limit food and beverage production but keep pathogens out. I benefit from the regulations that keep bad players out of the financial markets.
Perhaps you didn’t notice but the current crop of self proclaimed experts calling for the slashing of those big bad regulations tend to be beneficiaries of those changes. A degree of skepticism is called for. Also, if the argument is that giving people a house changes their status from homeless. Sure, I buy that.
You’ve got a point about the value of transit and accessibility, but isn’t it strange that we need elaborate transit systems just so people can reach the neighborhoods that require their services, but ban them from living there?
The problem isn’t that developers want to build homes — it’s that the system is rigged against them, and by extension, against anyone trying to climb the economic ladder. The folks with the most housing security — typically wealthier, older homeowners — get to freeze cities through restrictive zoning and permitting. They contribute no new value to the economy, but benefit enormously as prices go up, while families who actually keep those cities running are pushed farther out and stuck with the long commutes.
It’s not about letting “altruistic” developers run wild. It’s about un-rigging the game so that shelter isn’t treated as a luxury good hoarded by the landed gentry. Everyone should have the chance to live close to where they work and contribute, not just those who bought in decades ago and now guard the gates.
This discussion seems similar to the waste and fraud argument in government that gets trotted out every couple of years. Allegorical evidence to support removal of previously implemented rules. There are no bans on people living in areas that have high housing costs, mass transit functions quite well when implemented correctly and the cost is not prohibitive, developers are not lacking in their legal or lobbying support, there is no inherent right to shelter within a 10 minute walk of your job. I took the 4:40 am train into Manhattan each day for three years as a renter and then got my commute down to 1 hour by buying a house closer to the city. Would have loved to live in Manhattan but wouldn’t expect Central Park to be turned into low income housing.
Just to clarify, I’m not arguing that all regulation is bad. We regulate food to keep it safe, financial markets to prevent fraud, and housing to ensure it meets health and safety codes. That's good! That's not the kind of regulation I’m talking about. I’m talking about rules that intentionally limit the supply of homes—like banning duplexes, requiring huge minimum lot sizes, mandating expensive parking, or giving neighbors unlimited veto power over new housing. These aren’t about protecting people from harm! They’re about preserving exclusion. The first zoning laws were enacted to exclude Chinese immigrants from certain neighborhoods. I am not making it up when I say zoning was always intended to be exclusionary, it's pretty well understood. President Biden understood it, too: https://better-cities.org/community-growth-housing/bidens-plan-to-tackle-zoning-and-affordable-housing/
Also, it’s worth pointing out that the benefits of rolling back snob zoning on housing aren’t hypothetical—they’re empirically measurable. Houston built more housing and saw homelessness drop 29%. Dallas didn’t, and theirs rose 35%. Minneapolis legalized more housing types, and rents flatlined for eight years. Similar story in Austin. These are real-world outcomes backed by housing researchers, economists, and policy analysts across the spectrum.
And you’re absolutely right—there’s no law against commuting. But when commutes are long and housing costs are high, it’s worth asking: Why are we designing our cities to make life harder for so many working people? Why are we okay with a system that pushes people farther and farther from opportunity, safety, and stability?
You took a 4:40 a.m. train for years—that’s admirable. But maybe the goal shouldn’t be to make everyone suffer heroically? Maybe it should be to make it easier for more people to live closer to work, family, schools, and community. If that means removing barriers that make housing artificially scarce, I think that’s worth considering.
Individuals that are capable of purchasing a new home are generally not the ones that are homeless I would assume. Perhaps rather than attempting to create an overabundance of residential real estate in order to drive rents down a realistic minimum wage, a health care system that doesn't strain individuals finances, and affordable child care would resolve these issues.
I watched and participated in these issues in the Seattle area for years before I went overseas now I’m in Santa Fe and watching them in the local context and trying to put it all together as a student of history. To borrow some words from Jane Jacobs as a foundation for rhetoric and regulation, “get out there and look around.” It’s easy to blame the Santa Fe style but let’s look and go forward holistically. https://resurgencejourney.substack.com/p/leveraging-place-in-santa-fe
Hi Chuck—welcome to New Mexico. I appreciate that you’re taking the time to try to understand Santa Fe. It’s a place with so many layers, and it’s good to see newcomers engaging with that complexity rather than skimming the surface.
I've been in northern NM my whole life (outside a few brief stints elsewhere, mainly overseas), and I’ve been reporting on the area for many years. One of the things I've written about and thought about is the experience of people whose families have been here for generations but are now being priced out. So when you talk about “leveraging place,” I’m listening for how that concept grapples with what’s happening to the people who ARE the place.
I saw in the piece you linked that you referenced Chris Wilson’s The Myth of Santa Fe. I hope you saw his Homewise talk? It seems like it overlaps with your interests.
Your note was intriguing but a little cryptic—I’d love to hear more about how you see your work connecting to the current housing crisis and what you took from Wilson’s analysis. How do you see preservation, place identity, and housing equity fitting together in Santa Fe right now?
Thank you for good and not unexpected comments from a long time resident. I have been here longer than you might think and I’m fairly familiar with the area and Chris is a friend. Given the audience for the talk I gave today. I recognize that I might have seemed cryptic as you point out. To answer your question I believe there is a ton of work needed and it will take far more than the city to effectively blend and resolve these issues as best as can be done as noted. I’ve worked on these things before in the Seattle area and would be happy to talk more about them off-line.
The historic character excuse is lame. When a modern employer like LANL creates jobs it needs to insist that the city benefited allow more housing in proportion to the jobs created.
My understanding is that LANL tried to work with the local government to get housing lined up with jobs but the Council at the time just fought them on it at every turn - the line was, "If you want more housing, then you need to transfer a bunch of DOE land for single-family housing that won't alter anyone's neighborhood character and upset our current constituents" and that was a nonstarter.
Thats just wrong, given the homeless problem there.... If you are concerned about urbanism and housing, you might be interested in Klein and Thompson's Abundance. I think its a very solid book and actually both pragmatic and hopeful. And also Matthew Iglesias substack Slow Boring!
Oh yes, I have read the book! I bought a bunch of copies of it to hand out to our county council. (Which I will do one of these days when I get a free Tuesday evening.) About half the "engagement" I have right now on Substack is from people who hate Klein with a white-hot passion and, because he's not going to listen to them, they're off keyword-searching "abundance" and yelling at everyone they CAN reach. Including me. Lucky me.
I don't get the hate for Klein either. I think a fair amount of lefties think he's a sellout neoliberal...and also, I think some progressives dislike his focus on cities. But fine, I think he makes the point about cities being centers of prosperity and economic advancement. So of course the books vision is urban centric. And also probably some of his critics are old school lefties that enacted or enabled a lot of the "vetocracy"😎
We moved to SF from the DC suburbs where we rarely encountered many unhoused people.
Looking back, I’m guessing it was because there was more money available in the area for support, interventions and affordable housing programs.
Even though Santa Fe is a small town, it has money. Enough money to build affordable housing.
I live outside of the downtown area and there is plenty of space out here for more housing, although I’m assuming that the water supply issue needs to be addressed too, but that issue isn’t stopping apartment buildings from going up out this way. And, to my knowledge, none of them offer any kind of assistance, accommodations, etc. for the unhoused.
We strongly support Housing First initiatives. We are lucky to own our home and would gladly pay more taxes to pay for a housing first program in Santa Fe.
I know many homeless people have addiction issues, etc, but if we want to start addressing the homeless issue, we should start with the “home” part.
I am one of the thousands of homeless folks that live in their vehicles. I have not yet found any city that has made inroads on the chronic lack of affordable housing. There are a few simple solutions that are stop gap measures.
Most of us are elderly, many of us die each year from heat or cold. We need safe, secure and legal parking in cities. A few churches provide this. Charlotte, NC (one example) has brick and mortar public restrooms, cleaned three times a day and locked at night.
Some of us have jobs and desperately need showers to keep those jobs. Quartzsite, AZ has a laundry that added 10 shower rooms. Cities need to provide grants to businesses that want to add showers.
I have traveled in Nicaragua, Thailand and Bali. Vast areas of those nations have no building codes. People are free to build their own shelter.
In the USA, this is a horrifying thought, isn't it? Property value is more important than lives.
The fastest growing segment of the homeless population are our elders. We have worked all of our lives, we do not have addiction or mental health challenges, we are simply priced out of the housing market.
Thank you so much for sharing your story, Kris. I want you to know I hear you, and I so respect your strength and clarity in describing a situation that too many people dismiss or misunderstand. You’re right: safe, legal parking with basic amenities can be a lifeline for people living in vehicles—especially for elders, who are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population.
In my reporting across northern New Mexico, I’ve spoken with others in your exact situation—elders sleeping in cars in Los Alamos, people quietly living in the forest, folks holding on by a thread in a mold-filled apartment that harms their health, or trapped in unsafe relationships. Many don’t have mental health or substnce use issues, and honestly, who is to judge if they do? Senior scientists and rich kids driving their daddy's Tesla have mental health and substance-use issues, too. What matters is these elderly folks are just priced out of housing.
Your point about prioritizing property values over lives is unfortunately real. It's too easy for people to avoid seeing the connection. We’ve created a system where people are criminalized for surviving in the only ways left to them. That’s why the simplest stopgap measures—like church-based safe parking programs—are so important, and why your advocacy matters.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
Churches and nonprofits in Colorado (like Boulder Shelter for the Homeless and the Colorado Safe Parking Initiative) have created successful safe parking programs. They provide screened participants with overnight parking, sanitation access, and case management.
These programs help churches navigate liability concerns—one of the main barriers—through insurance guidance, legal waivers, and partnerships with nonprofits who manage day-to-day logistics.
Participants agree to basic rules (no drugs, quiet hours, etc.), which reassures neighbors and hosts alike. Cities like Boulder, Denver, and Jefferson County have supported these programs.
Even portable showers and toilets make a huge difference. One laundromat in Quartzsite, AZ, as you mentioned, added showers with local support. Cities could easily fund these basic services, but too often, they don’t.
In Los Alamos, the interfaith coalition is exploring something similar. I believe these smaller, immediate steps are more feasible and quicker to implement than building shelters from scratch. The need is now, and your voice helps shine a light on the reality for decision-makers and the broader public.
Thank you again for speaking up. You shouldn’t have to—after a lifetime of work, you should have a place to rest. But because you did, I hope others will listen. I’ll keep doing my part to share stories like yours and push for the policies and compassion our region so clearly needs.
FWIW, in the Boston area the call for more affordable housing is answered by the removal of zoning restrictions, carveouts for developers, etc and yet the vast majority of new housing stock is luxury condominiums.
Some of them advertise units available for years after completion suggesting the owners would prefer empty units over lowering rents in order to justify whatever valuation was slapped on the project to justify its bank loans. Just like the moribund commercial real estate market.
Similarly, ignore the move of PE into the rental market after 2008 and the impact it had on rents at your peril. Reporting also suggests price fixing and collusion in local markets via entities like RealPage and like entities.
I get the suspicion—“We’re building all this housing, but prices still climb and units sit empty!” It feels like it’s not helping. But the problem isn’t that we’re building too much, it’s that we’re not building enough, especially at the right price points.
Greater Boston has been underproducing housing since at least the 1991 recession, and it never caught up. Between 2010 and 2020, households grew by 10.7% but housing units grew by only 7.9%. And from 2002 to 2022, the region added 3.3 jobs for every housing permit issued—more than double what experts recommend. The cost to build a starter home in Massachusetts is well above the national average, and land-use rules generally mandate huge lots and excessive parking requirements. That drives up costs and chokes off more affordable options like townhouses, duplexes, or apartments.
As for vacancy, I looked it up and Greater Boston’s vacancy rate as of early 2025 was just 0.75%, which is well below the 5-10% typically seen in a healthy rental market. (The higher the vacancy, the more power tenants have because they have choices.) In the City of Boston itself, it’s even lower at 0.69%. That’s tighter than many major U.S. cities and indicates severe undersupply.
And yes, we should be angry about rent-gouging and speculation—but those behaviors thrive in scarcity. They don’t go away without more homes. That said, not all housing problems are supply problems. What RealPage did isn’t a housing market glitch, it’s a textbook case of price fixing, and it’s now the subject of a federal antitrust lawsuit brought by the DOJ and multiple states. This is why I prefer the term "regulatory reform" rather than “deregulation”—because some housing problems are about removing barriers to entry, and others require legal action to enforce the rules of a fair market. We need both.
“Building at the right price point” largely ignores the marginal cost difference between building for affordable housing vs. building luxury condominiums vs. income stream from either. Local builders are voting with their wallets.
In my town, the only affordable housing getting built at scale is done by dedicated organizations in conjunction with city government or local universities. My city government is also re-upping expiring affordable housing agreements with current owners.
I reckon the cost to build a home in MA is largely driven by two factors: the cost of the land and the cost of the labor, neither of which can be eliminated by scale, etc. though some developers have had success with modular construction methods to ease the latter issue.
Long term, it’s likely that better public transportation options are the only viable solution to increase the available land area within a given radius of jobs that people are flocking to. That continues to be a vexing issue in MA.
Here is a thought provoking, seemingly-well-researched piece on the housing crisis in DFW, which has no zoning / land issues like the greater Boston area.
I appreciate the analogies and am looking forward to the follow on articles. Still, what the average person sees in Santa Fe, are not the ‘five families left out bc there are only 95 homes.’ What we see are largely single people, with obvious mental health challenges, and the crime is undisputed. I hope you will be addressing the reports that many of our homeless do not want to be housed — is that accurate? I think we have two, nearly distinct populations to address: those with drug addiction and mental health issues, and those who are the poor working families. One solution will not fit both of those groups. And, I do believe people deserve to enjoy public spaces, especially parks, without undue harassment. Capitalism is the main problem IMO, and that’s one big nut to crack! We must keep trying. That also means holding people accountable for criminal behavior. Obviously not all poor people break windows and defecate in public. I worry it is such an intractable problem that frustrations build and then the housed wreak havoc on the unhoused. And permitting for housing definitely needs more flexibility. Again, thanks for your reporting.
Hi Roxanne,
Thank you so much for this thoughtful response—your tone and curiosity are very welcome. I know this is a complicated and often emotional issue.
You’re absolutely right that the visible crisis in Santa Fe often involves people with severe mental illness or substance-use issues, and I completely agree: everyone deserves to feel safe in public spaces. Where we maybe differ is in how we trace the roots of that crisis.
It’s true that some people reject shelter, but usually not because they were born wanting to live outside. After months or years of unsheltered life, people often lose trust, stability, and even basic coping ability—especially when substances like methamphetamine and opioids are involved. The Least of Us by Sam Quinones is excellent on this. That’s why I argued for earlier intervention: many people who now seem unreachable were once just broke and sleeping in a car or on a friend’s couch. Or, they were a traumatized kid who was once reachable, but nobody ever reached them. They look like two different groups to you but people don't start off that way. They're the same people—just further downstream. I'd like to recommend Chrystal Wilson's excellent piece on shelter and what that means to people: https://substack.com/home/post/p-163861269
As for capitalism: cities like San Francisco and Santa Fe are not more capitalist than places like Houston, Salt Lake City, or Phoenix—yet they have far worse homelessness. Why? Because SF and Santa Fe block housing, and Houston builds it. Capitalism isn’t the differentiator here—local land-use policy is.
Thanks again for reading. I really appreciate your openness to the conversation!
Thanks for replying, Stephanie. I am not saying it is all or even primarily capitalism, but $$ plays a big role in NIMBY mindset and property values, not to mention (!!!) the hedge funds that are buying up homes and apartments and renting them at high rates all across the country, including here in SF. One friend was trying to rent an apt, and the monthly rate kept shifting within a few weeks time based on supply and demand, just like playing the stock market.
I did include the very PITA building permit precesses and regulations here in SF.
As an example, I have an empty 40’ container I want to convert to an ADU. It would be perfect out here on my 6 acres in the county. But nope! ADU must match the look and feel of the main house, a regulation which restricts all kinds of affordable housing types.
To your point about the lineage, I do completely agree on the process. And yet, it’s most helpful in my experience to meet people where they are at. So functionally, and as far as helpful solutions, there are distinct groups of unhoused people IMO.
Cover that container in faux-dobe and some fake vigas like McDonald's and you should be good to go.
I mean, it’s not a terrible idea but does render not so mobile in the future!
At some point I may delete this comment for the lurking… 🤣
The core issue isn’t capitalism, but rather how the housing market has been distorted by policies that prevent it from functioning like a true market. If this were a simple market of home buyers and builders, then supply would rise to meet demand, and prices would stabilize at an affordable level. But there’s a third, powerful player in the mix—existing homeowners who twist the market.
Unlike most markets, housing is deeply entangled with local politics. Homeowners—who often hold the most political influence—benefit when housing becomes scarce and expensive. They have every incentive to oppose new development—especially affordable or multifamily housing—and they often succeed by pushing zoning restrictions, permit delays, environmental reviews, and other regulatory tools that limit what can be built and where.
That's protectionism, not capitalism. Those who already “got theirs” get to pull up the ladder behind them, leaving younger generations, working families, and those struggling with mental health and addiction with less chance at the same opportunity they had. We absolutely need nuanced solutions for the different populations experiencing homelessness, but if we really want to fix things, we need to confront the policy decisions that are keeping supply artificially low and prices painfully high.
I saw this problem very dramatically in New Orleans with "historic districts" used as cudgels to prevent businesses from operating or housing being built. I think you are absolutely right to call the homeowners out for this, and the rest of us need to stop letting them get away with made up feel-good excuses like 'protecting the character of a neighborhood.'
Protectionism or Capitalism = different words yet both are about the profit motive taking priority, IMO.
I see what you're saying about the profit motive. But normally, supply and demand balance out if a market is healthy; here, it isn't. So it's distorted because special interests have captured government regulations intended to protect neighborhoods from things like Robert Moses' destruction. I think that capture of well-intended regulations is a distinction that's important; it's a nuance that's beyond "capitalism."
Agreed, so I think this is less an “either or” situation and more of a “both and” situation.
Capitalism is about voluntary exchange in open markets. People compete to create value by innovating, taking risks, and working hard in response to demand. Protectionism is when certain groups use policy or political power to shield themselves from that competition typically at the expense of others.
The problem isn’t that builders want to make a profit. Profit drives innovation, efficiency, and supply in almost every sector. The problem is when homeowners and local governments block that process. They benefit from housing scarcity because it raises their property values, and they use zoning laws, permitting restrictions, and public input processes to prevent new homes from being built. That’s not capitalism, but protectionism disguised as public interest.
Profit motive taking priority isn’t inherently bad. It what motivates people build things people need like whatever technology you're reading this on. When the system rewards preventing others from participating in the market, that’s when things break down. Rather than blaming capitalism, we should focus on creating a fair and open market where builders can meet demand, families can find homes, and success doesn’t depend on whether you bought your house before 1990.
So the problem is people want to live someplace that they account afford? The solution is to do away with regulations governing development so that the altruistic developers can give these individuals their due? How about the development of transit systems that allow people to work/play in desirable areas whilst living in affordable places. Seems most of the arguments raised by the yimby crew parrot the development/contruction lobby.
What do you think about the fact that building housing results in fewer homeless people, which Houston demonstrated? Is your antipathy toward the people who build homes so strong you're willing to see folks go without housing to prove an ideological point? How do you feel about the people who create other necessary goods, like food and clothing? That's pretty much all for-profit, right? Do you think regulations that create scarcities of goods people need make people better off?
So, is your fawning over the developer class such as to obscure your objectivity…just to make an ideological point? Now that we have the pithiness out of the way. Personally I kinda like the regulations that limit food and beverage production but keep pathogens out. I benefit from the regulations that keep bad players out of the financial markets.
Perhaps you didn’t notice but the current crop of self proclaimed experts calling for the slashing of those big bad regulations tend to be beneficiaries of those changes. A degree of skepticism is called for. Also, if the argument is that giving people a house changes their status from homeless. Sure, I buy that.
You’ve got a point about the value of transit and accessibility, but isn’t it strange that we need elaborate transit systems just so people can reach the neighborhoods that require their services, but ban them from living there?
The problem isn’t that developers want to build homes — it’s that the system is rigged against them, and by extension, against anyone trying to climb the economic ladder. The folks with the most housing security — typically wealthier, older homeowners — get to freeze cities through restrictive zoning and permitting. They contribute no new value to the economy, but benefit enormously as prices go up, while families who actually keep those cities running are pushed farther out and stuck with the long commutes.
It’s not about letting “altruistic” developers run wild. It’s about un-rigging the game so that shelter isn’t treated as a luxury good hoarded by the landed gentry. Everyone should have the chance to live close to where they work and contribute, not just those who bought in decades ago and now guard the gates.
This discussion seems similar to the waste and fraud argument in government that gets trotted out every couple of years. Allegorical evidence to support removal of previously implemented rules. There are no bans on people living in areas that have high housing costs, mass transit functions quite well when implemented correctly and the cost is not prohibitive, developers are not lacking in their legal or lobbying support, there is no inherent right to shelter within a 10 minute walk of your job. I took the 4:40 am train into Manhattan each day for three years as a renter and then got my commute down to 1 hour by buying a house closer to the city. Would have loved to live in Manhattan but wouldn’t expect Central Park to be turned into low income housing.
Just to clarify, I’m not arguing that all regulation is bad. We regulate food to keep it safe, financial markets to prevent fraud, and housing to ensure it meets health and safety codes. That's good! That's not the kind of regulation I’m talking about. I’m talking about rules that intentionally limit the supply of homes—like banning duplexes, requiring huge minimum lot sizes, mandating expensive parking, or giving neighbors unlimited veto power over new housing. These aren’t about protecting people from harm! They’re about preserving exclusion. The first zoning laws were enacted to exclude Chinese immigrants from certain neighborhoods. I am not making it up when I say zoning was always intended to be exclusionary, it's pretty well understood. President Biden understood it, too: https://better-cities.org/community-growth-housing/bidens-plan-to-tackle-zoning-and-affordable-housing/
Also, it’s worth pointing out that the benefits of rolling back snob zoning on housing aren’t hypothetical—they’re empirically measurable. Houston built more housing and saw homelessness drop 29%. Dallas didn’t, and theirs rose 35%. Minneapolis legalized more housing types, and rents flatlined for eight years. Similar story in Austin. These are real-world outcomes backed by housing researchers, economists, and policy analysts across the spectrum.
And you’re absolutely right—there’s no law against commuting. But when commutes are long and housing costs are high, it’s worth asking: Why are we designing our cities to make life harder for so many working people? Why are we okay with a system that pushes people farther and farther from opportunity, safety, and stability?
You took a 4:40 a.m. train for years—that’s admirable. But maybe the goal shouldn’t be to make everyone suffer heroically? Maybe it should be to make it easier for more people to live closer to work, family, schools, and community. If that means removing barriers that make housing artificially scarce, I think that’s worth considering.
Alternatives to the reducing regulation and allow new construction narrative.
https://www.governing.com/housing/how-houston-cut-its-homeless-population-by-nearly-two-thirds
https://homelesslaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Homeless_Stats_Fact_Sheet.pdf
Individuals that are capable of purchasing a new home are generally not the ones that are homeless I would assume. Perhaps rather than attempting to create an overabundance of residential real estate in order to drive rents down a realistic minimum wage, a health care system that doesn't strain individuals finances, and affordable child care would resolve these issues.
I watched and participated in these issues in the Seattle area for years before I went overseas now I’m in Santa Fe and watching them in the local context and trying to put it all together as a student of history. To borrow some words from Jane Jacobs as a foundation for rhetoric and regulation, “get out there and look around.” It’s easy to blame the Santa Fe style but let’s look and go forward holistically. https://resurgencejourney.substack.com/p/leveraging-place-in-santa-fe
Hi Chuck—welcome to New Mexico. I appreciate that you’re taking the time to try to understand Santa Fe. It’s a place with so many layers, and it’s good to see newcomers engaging with that complexity rather than skimming the surface.
I've been in northern NM my whole life (outside a few brief stints elsewhere, mainly overseas), and I’ve been reporting on the area for many years. One of the things I've written about and thought about is the experience of people whose families have been here for generations but are now being priced out. So when you talk about “leveraging place,” I’m listening for how that concept grapples with what’s happening to the people who ARE the place.
I saw in the piece you linked that you referenced Chris Wilson’s The Myth of Santa Fe. I hope you saw his Homewise talk? It seems like it overlaps with your interests.
Your note was intriguing but a little cryptic—I’d love to hear more about how you see your work connecting to the current housing crisis and what you took from Wilson’s analysis. How do you see preservation, place identity, and housing equity fitting together in Santa Fe right now?
Thank you for good and not unexpected comments from a long time resident. I have been here longer than you might think and I’m fairly familiar with the area and Chris is a friend. Given the audience for the talk I gave today. I recognize that I might have seemed cryptic as you point out. To answer your question I believe there is a ton of work needed and it will take far more than the city to effectively blend and resolve these issues as best as can be done as noted. I’ve worked on these things before in the Seattle area and would be happy to talk more about them off-line.
I am going to gently ask if we can please focus on the behavior that is illegal, unhealthy and frightening with out using the word "homeless".
Being homeless is not a crime.
By using a phrases like homeless addicts, we make it difficult for cities, communities, organizations to want to help.
The historic character excuse is lame. When a modern employer like LANL creates jobs it needs to insist that the city benefited allow more housing in proportion to the jobs created.
My understanding is that LANL tried to work with the local government to get housing lined up with jobs but the Council at the time just fought them on it at every turn - the line was, "If you want more housing, then you need to transfer a bunch of DOE land for single-family housing that won't alter anyone's neighborhood character and upset our current constituents" and that was a nonstarter.
Thats just wrong, given the homeless problem there.... If you are concerned about urbanism and housing, you might be interested in Klein and Thompson's Abundance. I think its a very solid book and actually both pragmatic and hopeful. And also Matthew Iglesias substack Slow Boring!
Oh yes, I have read the book! I bought a bunch of copies of it to hand out to our county council. (Which I will do one of these days when I get a free Tuesday evening.) About half the "engagement" I have right now on Substack is from people who hate Klein with a white-hot passion and, because he's not going to listen to them, they're off keyword-searching "abundance" and yelling at everyone they CAN reach. Including me. Lucky me.
I don't get the hate for Klein either. I think a fair amount of lefties think he's a sellout neoliberal...and also, I think some progressives dislike his focus on cities. But fine, I think he makes the point about cities being centers of prosperity and economic advancement. So of course the books vision is urban centric. And also probably some of his critics are old school lefties that enacted or enabled a lot of the "vetocracy"😎
My compliments Stephanie. This is insightful ... as is all your reporting. I'm looking forward to the follow-on articles.
Kind regards, Bruce Held
Thanks very much, Bruce! (And Charlie says to say hi 🙂)
Thank you for your wonderful article.
We moved to SF from the DC suburbs where we rarely encountered many unhoused people.
Looking back, I’m guessing it was because there was more money available in the area for support, interventions and affordable housing programs.
Even though Santa Fe is a small town, it has money. Enough money to build affordable housing.
I live outside of the downtown area and there is plenty of space out here for more housing, although I’m assuming that the water supply issue needs to be addressed too, but that issue isn’t stopping apartment buildings from going up out this way. And, to my knowledge, none of them offer any kind of assistance, accommodations, etc. for the unhoused.
We strongly support Housing First initiatives. We are lucky to own our home and would gladly pay more taxes to pay for a housing first program in Santa Fe.
I know many homeless people have addiction issues, etc, but if we want to start addressing the homeless issue, we should start with the “home” part.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jdieu7466r9hdv38/p/preview-a-mistake-of-matter?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5odzap
Thank you for sharing that!
Appreciated.
But the thanks needed in response to planetary, generational extortion by way of capitalism is to stop it.
Not directed at you but huemanity does WAY to much virtue signaling.
I am one of the thousands of homeless folks that live in their vehicles. I have not yet found any city that has made inroads on the chronic lack of affordable housing. There are a few simple solutions that are stop gap measures.
Most of us are elderly, many of us die each year from heat or cold. We need safe, secure and legal parking in cities. A few churches provide this. Charlotte, NC (one example) has brick and mortar public restrooms, cleaned three times a day and locked at night.
Some of us have jobs and desperately need showers to keep those jobs. Quartzsite, AZ has a laundry that added 10 shower rooms. Cities need to provide grants to businesses that want to add showers.
I have traveled in Nicaragua, Thailand and Bali. Vast areas of those nations have no building codes. People are free to build their own shelter.
In the USA, this is a horrifying thought, isn't it? Property value is more important than lives.
The fastest growing segment of the homeless population are our elders. We have worked all of our lives, we do not have addiction or mental health challenges, we are simply priced out of the housing market.
Thank you so much for sharing your story, Kris. I want you to know I hear you, and I so respect your strength and clarity in describing a situation that too many people dismiss or misunderstand. You’re right: safe, legal parking with basic amenities can be a lifeline for people living in vehicles—especially for elders, who are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population.
In my reporting across northern New Mexico, I’ve spoken with others in your exact situation—elders sleeping in cars in Los Alamos, people quietly living in the forest, folks holding on by a thread in a mold-filled apartment that harms their health, or trapped in unsafe relationships. Many don’t have mental health or substnce use issues, and honestly, who is to judge if they do? Senior scientists and rich kids driving their daddy's Tesla have mental health and substance-use issues, too. What matters is these elderly folks are just priced out of housing.
Your point about prioritizing property values over lives is unfortunately real. It's too easy for people to avoid seeing the connection. We’ve created a system where people are criminalized for surviving in the only ways left to them. That’s why the simplest stopgap measures—like church-based safe parking programs—are so important, and why your advocacy matters.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
Churches and nonprofits in Colorado (like Boulder Shelter for the Homeless and the Colorado Safe Parking Initiative) have created successful safe parking programs. They provide screened participants with overnight parking, sanitation access, and case management.
These programs help churches navigate liability concerns—one of the main barriers—through insurance guidance, legal waivers, and partnerships with nonprofits who manage day-to-day logistics.
Participants agree to basic rules (no drugs, quiet hours, etc.), which reassures neighbors and hosts alike. Cities like Boulder, Denver, and Jefferson County have supported these programs.
Even portable showers and toilets make a huge difference. One laundromat in Quartzsite, AZ, as you mentioned, added showers with local support. Cities could easily fund these basic services, but too often, they don’t.
In Los Alamos, the interfaith coalition is exploring something similar. I believe these smaller, immediate steps are more feasible and quicker to implement than building shelters from scratch. The need is now, and your voice helps shine a light on the reality for decision-makers and the broader public.
Thank you again for speaking up. You shouldn’t have to—after a lifetime of work, you should have a place to rest. But because you did, I hope others will listen. I’ll keep doing my part to share stories like yours and push for the policies and compassion our region so clearly needs.
Are you familiar with the programs in Las Cruces? They check a lot of boxes.
Daily cash pay for supervised municipal work
Storage lockers, emptied daily, for personal belongings.
On site clinic, laundry, showers
GED and ESL programs
Partnership with a bike repair shop up the road, repair bikes to earn a bike.
So much more.
It's been two years since I toured there.
I've heard good things about a Tucumcari shelter program, I have not visited that one.
That's great to know, thank you! I will check it out!
FWIW, in the Boston area the call for more affordable housing is answered by the removal of zoning restrictions, carveouts for developers, etc and yet the vast majority of new housing stock is luxury condominiums.
Some of them advertise units available for years after completion suggesting the owners would prefer empty units over lowering rents in order to justify whatever valuation was slapped on the project to justify its bank loans. Just like the moribund commercial real estate market.
Similarly, ignore the move of PE into the rental market after 2008 and the impact it had on rents at your peril. Reporting also suggests price fixing and collusion in local markets via entities like RealPage and like entities.
https://www.realtor.com/advice/rent/realpage-lawsuit-renters/
I get the suspicion—“We’re building all this housing, but prices still climb and units sit empty!” It feels like it’s not helping. But the problem isn’t that we’re building too much, it’s that we’re not building enough, especially at the right price points.
Greater Boston has been underproducing housing since at least the 1991 recession, and it never caught up. Between 2010 and 2020, households grew by 10.7% but housing units grew by only 7.9%. And from 2002 to 2022, the region added 3.3 jobs for every housing permit issued—more than double what experts recommend. The cost to build a starter home in Massachusetts is well above the national average, and land-use rules generally mandate huge lots and excessive parking requirements. That drives up costs and chokes off more affordable options like townhouses, duplexes, or apartments.
As for vacancy, I looked it up and Greater Boston’s vacancy rate as of early 2025 was just 0.75%, which is well below the 5-10% typically seen in a healthy rental market. (The higher the vacancy, the more power tenants have because they have choices.) In the City of Boston itself, it’s even lower at 0.69%. That’s tighter than many major U.S. cities and indicates severe undersupply.
And yes, we should be angry about rent-gouging and speculation—but those behaviors thrive in scarcity. They don’t go away without more homes. That said, not all housing problems are supply problems. What RealPage did isn’t a housing market glitch, it’s a textbook case of price fixing, and it’s now the subject of a federal antitrust lawsuit brought by the DOJ and multiple states. This is why I prefer the term "regulatory reform" rather than “deregulation”—because some housing problems are about removing barriers to entry, and others require legal action to enforce the rules of a fair market. We need both.
“Building at the right price point” largely ignores the marginal cost difference between building for affordable housing vs. building luxury condominiums vs. income stream from either. Local builders are voting with their wallets.
In my town, the only affordable housing getting built at scale is done by dedicated organizations in conjunction with city government or local universities. My city government is also re-upping expiring affordable housing agreements with current owners.
I reckon the cost to build a home in MA is largely driven by two factors: the cost of the land and the cost of the labor, neither of which can be eliminated by scale, etc. though some developers have had success with modular construction methods to ease the latter issue.
Long term, it’s likely that better public transportation options are the only viable solution to increase the available land area within a given radius of jobs that people are flocking to. That continues to be a vexing issue in MA.
Here is a thought provoking, seemingly-well-researched piece on the housing crisis in DFW, which has no zoning / land issues like the greater Boston area.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/messing-with-texas-how-big-homebuilders