The sociological issue examined within this document is the dearth of affordable housing. This phenomenon is adequately deconstructed in an article in USA Today entitled “The ‘affordable housing’ fraud”. The premise of this article is that affordable housing does not exist. The use case on which this article relies is the San Francisco Bay Area. The Bay Area’s dearth of affordable housing is characterized by astronomically high rental rates, steep prices for homes, and small spaces for these costly prices (Sowell). It is worth noting that although this phenomenon is examined in the Bay Area, it is a national social problem particularly prominent in places such as New York and Miami. Thus, there are many concepts in Mooney’s Understanding Social Problems which are applicable to it.
The structural-functionalist perspective would analyze this problem from a granular level. This perspective is predicated on the notion that society is formed from a montage of different cogs, each of which is assigned a particular social function (Mooney et al 8). From this perspective, there appears to be a granular issue with the way society is functioning. A basic social function is to provide housing for people at the civic level. If the average one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco costs upwards of $3,000 to rent (Sowell), then the housing function in this city is not properly operating because that amount is much too exorbitant. Specific parts that are failing in this instance include politicians for allowing developers to enrich themselves at the expense of their social duty, developers for doing the same thing, and aspects of the economy which are not creating situations in which average working people can afford housing.
Another important concept...
Works Cited
Mooney, Linda., Knox, David., Schacht, Caroline. Understanding Social Problems. Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Sowell, Thomas. “The ‘affordable housing’ shortage.” www.usatoday.com 2015. Web. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/10/03/affordable-housing-fraud-sowell/72994670/
For example, any controls or regulations that are not unreasonable and bear some relationship to the general welfare of the community are permissible unless proscribed by preemptive state or federal laws or by the federal or state constitutions. Legal scholars have stated that inherent in the police power, is the power to exclude or condition development along with the power to mandate inclusion of development with particular characteristics that
Through the examination of land use in a given area, local government can locate areas of large urban cities where homelessness and poverty are high, and can thus develop assistance programs in areas that require such assistance (Ahn, 6). For example, areas that have high populations but little affordable housing can be identified, in order for funds to be appropriated to those areas, as needed. Impact of Racism on Housing
Housing and Homelessness in Canada In Canada, there is a problem with homelessness. While that is certainly not unique to the country, it is a significant issue which has to be addressed in order to facilitate changes that can lower the number of homeless people in the country. The majority of these people live in the larger cities and do have some access to resources, but the problems with homelessness have
Even Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be made totally independent from the government. This should be followed up by other methods to increase the individual ownership of housing and at the same time reduce the costs of owning a house. Even if the housing sector cannot be made totally private, it is important that the government make statements saying that it has no intentions of supporting Fannie Mae
Additionally, the creation of a trust fund for housing could help to alleviate some of the economic burden on developers in Los Angeles. As compared to other major metropolis' such as San Jose, New York, and Chicago, Los Angeles uses the least amount of federal block grant funds on affordable housing on a per person basis, with just $23 per resident (In Short Demand). In addition to adopting an inclusionary
For this research proposal several possible methods of research were examined and discarded before settling on the structured interview and the questionnaire for methods to use in this particular study. Questionnaire The questionnaire will be distributed to 100 low income families and will consist of three sections. The first section will ask for general demographic information including race, age, number of family members, income and current living situation. The second section will ask the
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