[ozone]

Look I'm not a heart-less conservative by any means and I do think making sure that all socio economic classes can afford to live in the central city is both healthy and economically sensible. I have worked at homeless shelters and missions before so I know first hand the problems. I also know that many of the advocates of the poor and the politicians cannot be trusted to come up with a solution because they never have to worry about living among the poverty-stricken and distressed individuals they claim to represent, from the comfort of their landscaped suburban neighborhoods or downtown condos.

The cumulative impacts of concentrating poverty contribute to the decline of the social, environmental and economic health of downtown. K Street Mall is where most outsiders get their negative impressions of downtown Sacramento from. The problem is that these poorly maintained properties impact the value of surrounding ones and are having a damaging effect on drawing people to existing businesses or to open a new business. Many of these slum lords own mutliple properties, have significant capital, and make a great deal of profit from renting substandard rooms.

Do we have any means to compel the owner to repair/improve their building and perhaps provide upgraded units to second tier incomes? Could we use a tougher building maintenance code as a weapon? We could require a permit for all apartment/res. hotel buildings in a designated zone that requires the owner to post a bond for the general maintenance of the structure. If they don't comply, then the city uses the bond to fix the nuisance/health hazard problem or put the costs on their property taxes as a tax lien. We could do the same thing we've done with resturants and have a inspection ordinance and slap a PASS, FIX or CLOSE sticker on the outside.

I think a program to rigorously enforce reasonable 'quality standards' in downtown housing could drive up the cost of providing low-cost housing to the point that the property owners will be forced to pass the costs on to the renters (The slum landlords will not want to reduce their profit margin) and since people who are not rock-bottom poor, socially retarted, or do not have a 'poverty consciousness' tend to require some minimum living standards these landlords will have to upgrade their properties to attract a different clientale.

I'm all for the city supporting low-income transitional housing and programs to assist people move from shelters into a more independent living situations but the present policy just is not working for the city. The reason many cities and whole countries (like Singapore) built or invested in public housing for poor people is because the free market did not always generate housing outcomes that were acceptable to society. Could the city partner with private developers to build SRO housing to replace the sub-standard housing that is on or near K Street now somewhere else? Maybe we could create tiered low-income housing to deal with the various issues the people have to deal with? They could be located throughout the central city with a requirement that they be a certian distance from another SRO.

PS: I love the idea Tower District.