Readers React: The free-market cowboy approach to affordable housing

To the editor: Writer Matt Welch is another free-market cowboy yelling “Yee ha!” He thinks removing government restrictions, including rent control, will create more affordable housing.
(“Why L.A. lacks housing,” Opinion, Oct. 2)

He probably also thinks removing the minimum wage will create more jobs. If Welch’s vision of increased supply brings market rents down to, say, $40 a day, many part-time or minimum wage workers may still wind up buying a tent.

Ken Hense, El Segundo

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To the editor: Welch, the editor in chief of Reason, is on the right track.

Our government’s efforts to solve the problems of a lack of affordable housing and the growing homeless population are not working.

It is a matter of supply and demand. Let’s deal with both sides of that equation. Demand grows as population grows. So, let’s encourage birth control. And let’s move the demand to areas that, unlike our crowded cities, have room to spare.

Create jobs by encouraging new manufacturing, farming, sales and office jobs in those areas, while encouraging developers to build affordable housing there. And also build there the facilities to satisfy the needs of the homeless, including their rehabilitation.

George Epstein, Los Angeles

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