[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house. We've been talking today about creating affordable housing for the next generation and some of the issues that we have out there and I'm really trying to see if we can change the tides here a little bit and get some more affordable homes for these kids that are coming out of college and everybody else out there that's just trying to find an affordable home.

[00:00:26] Eric Goranson: So that way they can live the American dream here in the United States. We've been talking about land prices. Building costs. And now here in this segment, I wanted to talk one of the biggest ones, and that's government regulations. And this is where, through the world of good intentions, we have really caused some issues.

[00:00:46] Eric Goranson: When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know. But we've got you covered. This is Around the House. Welcome to the Around the House show, the next generation of home improvement. [00:01:00] Thanks for joining me today. We've got a great show ahead, but first, if you want to find out more about us, head over to around the house, online.

[00:01:09] Eric Goranson: com. And if you've got a home improvement question that you need help with, call our helpline at 8 3 3 2 3 9 41 44 that number 8 3 3 2 3 9 4 1 4 4. If I'm not in the studio. Don't worry. Leave a message and I will call you back and make sure you got your voicemail options there ready so I can leave you a message.

[00:01:31] Eric Goranson: I've had a couple of people have their voicemail box completely full. So when I called them back, there was nothing I could do to help you. Now, today we've got a great show ahead in this hour. We're going to be talking about how do we create affordable housing for our next generation? And I'm looking at stuff right now out there, and it is somewhat shocking in my area.

[00:01:52] Eric Goranson: Of course, I live out here on the West coast. Where things are crazy expensive compared to the Midwest and other places [00:02:00] in the country. I know the Northeast has some of the same problems as we do, but up here in Oregon, I tell you what prices keep going through the roof, which is great as a property owner.

[00:02:09] Eric Goranson: But I'm looking at our next generation of homeowners out there going, how are these kids and I'm 53 years old. So I'm going to call them kids. How is this next generation? My kid's going to be able to afford their own home. When just to be able to get something basic, even an apartment, you need to almost have six figures of income to do that.

[00:02:30] Eric Goranson: And so I thought today, let's talk about this. We're not going to get into politics. I try to keep this politics free, but some of this is just what it is. And so I'm going to call the spade when I see it here today, but I'm not trying to get into some crazy political debate of right versus left and the rest of that.

[00:02:46] Eric Goranson: Because that's not really in our divided country helping us get to a solution here. So one of the things that we're running into when it comes to affordable housing is things are expensive. And one of the biggest things that I see [00:03:00] here on the West Coast And if you've got this problem in your area, let me know.

[00:03:04] Eric Goranson: You can head over to around the house online and send me a message. But one of the things that we've got a problem with is our urban growth boundaries. And what these are is these are good intentions, shall we say, to keep urban sprawl from going out. And taking out farmland and forests. And that's where the issue lies, because what happens is with these urban growth boundaries, it artificially raises the price of lots in the area.

[00:03:32] Eric Goranson: So we limit how much area we can sprawl out to. But it automatically can double the price of that developed land because it's rare. So this is open market. And so that's where we run into that area is that urban sprawl is an issue, but it's also making for unaffordable housing for people. And so these urban growth boundaries that we do, and here in our area, it's a specific [00:04:00] example, and even up in Washington State, it's an issue.

[00:04:02] Eric Goranson: But when they have these government controls, it artificially heightens that price. And so, instead of paying 50, 000 for a lot, you're paying 150, 000 or 200, 000 for a lot. And so these things really start to add to this. Now, I don't want to see us going down a mowing down protected forest and stuff to put houses in, but at the same time, we can't have people living on the streets either.

[00:04:28] Eric Goranson: So we need to come up with a way to work through this urban growth boundaries and make sure that there's enough affordable lots for people out there. And that's a big issue right there. So that's one of them there. The next here that I run into is zoning. Now zoning is an issue as well because you'll see in certain areas and Oregon is going through this right now where they basically created a free for all for zoning.

[00:04:56] Eric Goranson: But I want to make sure that we sit here and [00:05:00] think about zoning because zoning is a big issue What we're seeing now is there are all these new really great affordable options as far as Factory built housing and what we've seen is cities and counties Basically outlaw those because they haven't updated their codes and stuff Since the 1970s, eighties people were worried about coming in and putting a single wide just right next to their million dollar house.

[00:05:29] Eric Goranson: And of course they zoned these things and said, you can't put in manufactured housing. The problem is that many of these manufactured houses now are better than the entry level spec homes that these major builders are building out there for a number of reasons. One, They can build them cheaper and they can build a more efficient.

[00:05:49] Eric Goranson: And if you want to go back and take a listen to an episode, I interviewed my friends over at champion homes here a couple months ago, and we talked about this, but in a nutshell, what we're seeing [00:06:00] is you can see these homes being built in a dry, secure area. There's no jobsite materials getting stolen.

[00:06:08] Eric Goranson: You're not having rain soaked moldy plywood or particle board or chipboard because the thing hasn't been dried in yet. You're not seeing all of the health issues that come with building a house outside, especially if it's a rainy time of year. And so you don't have any of those issues, plus all the waste.

[00:06:29] Eric Goranson: So it's a very efficient way of building and very safe. So what you're seeing is that we have made those. As far as zoning go, we have made it. So people can't put those on a lot. And I think this is really where our zoning issues are. Developers out there are going to get into the point right now where it is more cost efficient for them.

[00:06:53] Eric Goranson: To go to someone like champion homes or Genesis homes or skyline under that umbrella. As an [00:07:00] example, to go to them and say, Hey, I can go in and do my site development. I can go in there and get this dialed in. I can have a move in over the next three weeks, this whole development of homes, build the garages on the front.

[00:07:16] Eric Goranson: They show up 80 percent done. And I tell you what, when this is done, you drive down suburbia here and there's two car garages on the front. Yeah. There is no way to tell that this is a manufactured site versus site built home community. And I think that's a really big deal. And quite frankly, it's built better.

[00:07:36] Eric Goranson: There is so many more checks on the framing on everything, because that's what these guys do every single day. And you have quality checks throughout it. You have so many more cool things to these houses and they're using the latest in technology. So you're seeing all of these things get built and get built right.

[00:07:58] Eric Goranson: And it's a heck of a lot [00:08:00] nicer than the spec homes being built today. That is one simple area where we could be putting homes in and saving people tons of money. And it's a zoning issue and an education issue. So I want to make sure that I would have no problem having one of those homes next door. And quite frankly, if I end up getting a retirement cabin up there for Julie and I up in the wild mountains, like I wouldn't mind doing one day, that's exactly how I'm going to do it because it makes good financial sense.

[00:08:28] Eric Goranson: And they're all energy star rated. They're tight. And I don't have to worry about buying a brand new home. It's jam packed with mold in it. Now, the next one here that I want to talk about is converting unused office spaces in urban areas into apartments in cities. This is something that I think we could be doing a lot more of, especially with so many people working remotely, we can be taking these office buildings.

[00:08:56] Eric Goranson: That are empty and converting them into affordable housing. [00:09:00] And if that would create a whole new urban core in areas, I was down a great example here, and I'm going to use my city as an example, because. This is what's happened on the West Coast and many of these, many of these cities like this, we'll just leave it at this, but when you're walking down through this, there's blocks of empty buildings.

[00:09:18] Eric Goranson: It is like a ghost town, and I tell you what, that ghost town could be filled with new residents, new affordable housing. You could put parking in, and that's one of those things that I think we really need to take a look at, as well as, It's going to revitalize that area because they can now put grocery stores in these empty buildings.

[00:09:38] Eric Goranson: There's things that services that could go in there that would be other jobs and everything else. When we come back, we're going to be talking about how we create more affordable housing and fix this problem just as soon as Around the House returns. Don't go anywhere.[00:10:00]

[00:10:08] Eric Goranson: Welcome to the Around the House show, the next generation of home improvement. If you're listening to us on the national radio show or streaming, I want to say thanks for tuning in on the talk media network. And if you're listening on the radio, I'd love to hear where you're listening from. So send me a message over to around the house, online.

[00:10:26] Eric Goranson: com. And I always message you back. So make sure and say hello over there. I always love to see. Where you guys are across the country. And if you're listening to the podcast on any one of the different podcast players, I'd love to get a review out of you guys. Five stars helps us spread the word out there to get this information out to other people that could use the help.

[00:10:45] Eric Goranson: And if you need help on your home improvement project, give us a call here in the studio. Love to give you a hand. That number is 8 3 3 2 3 9 41 44. That number again is 8 3 3 2 3 9 4 1 4 4. All [00:11:00] right. We've been talking today about how do we create affordable housing for the next generation? Cause like many people, I am concerned at where our housing prices are out there and how we're going to get people into these.

[00:11:13] Eric Goranson: It is expensive out there for many people and for everybody, I don't care who it is out there. Most of the people out there are struggling, especially with our interest rates. Being as high getting into homes. And so let's do an episode on this and see if we can really help people think about what the causes are and what we can do to change that.

[00:11:33] Eric Goranson: In the last segment, we were talking about kind of land prices and zoning issues and stuff that gets into that. And I was really talking about converting unused office space into apartments and cities. And many of our downtown cores have that where we could be going in there and getting things cleaned up.

[00:11:50] Eric Goranson: Now, one of the caveats with that I want to make sure we're doing, and this is something that many cities struggle with, is we've got to, if you're going to do that, you've got to create [00:12:00] parking for people as well if it's not already there. One of the biggest, hardest issues for families out there is if you've got a couple with a couple kids out there, you can't rely on them to get, especially in some of these cities with the crime problems that we have to get in there and jump on mass transit to be taking the groceries home with two kids and handfuls of groceries on mass transit.

[00:12:25] Eric Goranson: That is just not reliable. And it is not safe for many people. And so this is something that I think is a planning disaster because these cities go, Hey, we want to keep cars off the road. Well, guess what? You're not going to keep cars off the road. You're better to see if you can get people in the neighborhoods where maybe they can walk next door and get groceries.

[00:12:48] Eric Goranson: Why don't you build a safer city so people don't have to travel to do that. And if you can make these more neighborhood friendly, you're going to have a lot better situation where somebody in a high [00:13:00] rise can jump down the elevator, walk two blocks, have the neighbors, watch the kids for 30 minutes, go shopping and come back.

[00:13:08] Eric Goranson: So building better communities is the answer. Not ripping out parking where people can't have the ability to travel and go to work. This whole model of mass transit and all of this and hoping people do this. Yeah. Might be good in some of the bigger cities out there. And I get it, New York city, different story, but you've also got the little bodegas down, down the street where you can go get the milk.

[00:13:33] Eric Goranson: You can go get some groceries. You can go get some stuff. So it's a different model than we in these midsides and smaller cities. So I think that's where we really have some issues. Now, building costs is one of the biggest things we were talking about land. And I want to talk about what the building costs are.

[00:13:51] Eric Goranson: Now, one of the biggest things, of course, that we see out there is really when we're talking building costs, we have labor, we have time of [00:14:00] construction, because that in time of construction is an interesting one, because most of these builders or community builders have got carrying costs. So when they go build a house, they traditionally don't have cash on hand to pay for those materials.

[00:14:15] Eric Goranson: So they have to get some kind of a business loan or somebody is carrying that money for them. And so what happens is that you're financing that during the six months that house is being built. So that adds to that. Second of all, I think one of the bigger problems that I see out there is pretty shoddy construction.

[00:14:36] Eric Goranson: And I think that these builders need to be doing a better job of inspecting their own products as they go. I have been in some homes and seen pictures of homes all across the country of these larger, bigger builders creating an absolute hot mess. And passing it on to unsuspected homeowners when the warranty runs out with [00:15:00] whatever the state laws are, maybe it's a year, maybe it's two years, whatever that is, there's not inspections going on these things.

[00:15:07] Eric Goranson: And I think one, we need to hold everyone accountable. Because I love having these things inspected for the building department, but the building department is only worried about building code, which means health, safety, and welfare. That wall can be out of plum by an inch or two. And guess what? That's probably not in violation of a building code.

[00:15:30] Eric Goranson: It's just horrible construction. And so if you follow on social media, some of the new construction building inspectors, and you see the stuff that's getting passed off to people. Especially in certain areas, Texas, Florida, you guys are really getting hard hit by shoddy construction. And there's some great builders out there.

[00:15:52] Eric Goranson: But some of these big ones out there are just absolutely passing off defective stuff, which makes me nervous. I don't want to see that [00:16:00] happen to anyone. So one labor's expensive. These people out there building homes right now are rare. And that is because we took those programs out of high schools. So what happens is we've created our own problem.

[00:16:16] Eric Goranson: When we took out all of the shop classes, all of the construction, the welding, all of those things out of our high schools to force everyone to go into college. We have now created it where the people that are actually doing it are going to be making twice as much money because we have people retiring from the skilled trades faster than we're putting them in there.

[00:16:39] Eric Goranson: And so that's how right now electricians are making more than high school principals. And you've got plumbers. That are making more money than the high school football coach and the English teacher. So, or the nurses, just because of supply and demand. I know of electricians right now [00:17:00] that electrical companies that would pay a 20, 000 signing bonus for an electrician licensed journeyman, electrician to come work for them, sign up for a year, write you a check for 20 grand.

[00:17:11] Eric Goranson: And you could probably negotiate actually them paying for your moving costs cross country as well. So this is the stuff I'm talking about. And so when you're paying trades twice as much money, and I have no problem paying them that, but these have, these are now great, great wages for people and we have such a stigma out there in our big business of college education of pushing the trades out of high schools, out of community colleges.

[00:17:40] Eric Goranson: And some of the ones that are doing it are creating great communities around their, around these houses. They're building great houses. You've got trained people going out there, which will keep those prices a little more reasonable. So we have created that problem by eliminating these trade classes out there.

[00:17:59] Eric Goranson: And [00:18:00] as people that are paying taxes for your local school district, one of the things you can do to help out your community and help out building and affordable housing is making sure that you've got a trades program in those high schools to put those kids. Cause here's what happens is we all see it.

[00:18:20] Eric Goranson: Somebody gets pushed to go to community college. They go to college, they get their degree and go, I can't do this. I'm going to go swing a hammer someplace. Cause I really like doing and working outside. We're working in a factory or wherever they're working. And now they're paying off a student loan.

[00:18:35] Eric Goranson: They don't need, we're going to talk about the next one here. When we come back government regulations, and this is a big one. We'll do that just as soon as around the house returns.[00:19:00]

[00:19:08] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the around the house show. This is where we help you with your home design tips, everything. And it's the next generation of home improvement. We've been talking today about, uh, creating affordable housing for the next generation. And some of the issues that we have out there, and I'm really trying to see if we can change the tides here a little bit and get some more affordable homes.

[00:19:31] Eric Goranson: For these kids that are coming out of college and everybody else out there, that's just trying to find an affordable home so that way they can live the American dream here in the United States. We've been talking about land prices, building costs, and now here in this segment, I wanted to talk one of the biggest ones and that's government regulations.

[00:19:52] Eric Goranson: And this is where through the world of good intentions, we have really caused some issues, really caused some [00:20:00] issues. And these regulations can add over a hundred thousand dollars to an average price of a house. Easy, if not more. And here's how this happens. And this is the big thing. First off, if a, I'm going to use my city as an example here that I live next to, I don't live in the city of Portland, but we'll go what they're trying to do right here.

[00:20:25] Eric Goranson: So let's say we're trying to do an infill lot and we see a house that had a fire in it, or it was an abandoned place. And it's, we're going to build an affordable housing unit on this. If it was built. Prior to the 1940s, I believe you are going to have to disassemble that house by hand, tear it down, recycle it, and remove all the lead asbestos, all of that stuff.

[00:20:53] Eric Goranson: And I see getting rid of hazards. No problem. But the problem is you're going to have to remove that place by hand. You can't just come in there with the excavator [00:21:00] and throw it away. Now it has to get recycled. The problem is the market for recycling out there of. Old two by fours that have nails and stuff in them is not really cost prohibitive.

[00:21:11] Eric Goranson: The labor to do that is much more expensive and new builders aren't going to go out and build another house with that material. Even though it's decent, it's hard to work with. It's got nails in, it's tough on saw blades. What's it? Maybe it's a rough sawn lumber, so it's a different size. And these are things that the good intentions are now adding maybe 30, 000 to the price of knocking that house down and hauling it off.

[00:21:35] Eric Goranson: To the landfill or going off to the, to the wood recycling place. And that's where we start to see that. So let's say they knock that down, they get it hauled out. Okay. You now have a lot. And now this is where this changed this last week. We had a big case that hit the Supreme court. And this is a big one that we should talk about because it could really affect how you build a house in your neighborhood.[00:22:00]

[00:22:00] Eric Goranson: So this court case cheats versus Eldorado County. Involved George sheets, a California resident in 2016, applied for a permit to build an 1800 square foot manufactured home on a residential zoned lot. He owned the County imposed a 23, 420 traffic mitigation fee on the permit. Sheets protested the fee, but ultimately paid it.

[00:22:26] Eric Goranson: And then immediately sued the County arguing the fee was improper. At state court sheets argued the fee was not closely connected. To or proportional to the actual impact his new residents would have on the roads. Key tests laid out by precedent in two prior Supreme court cases countered that the test does not apply because the impact fee was authorized by legislation from the county council in this case, rather than by bureaucracy.

[00:22:52] Eric Goranson: So a small number of the state's courts, including California's have carved out legal exemptions to. The, uh, [00:23:00] proportionality test. If the fees in question are authorized by legislative body, what we saw there. So Eldorado County argued that this arraignment basically protected the fees from challenges under the takings clause of the fifth amendment.

[00:23:14] Eric Goranson: So we're not going to get into the whole case here, but, uh, my friends over at the NHB, where I got this information from really made an argument with this, all nine Supreme court justices agreed with justice, Amy Coney Barrett. Writing the unanimous opinion, Justice Barrett wrote, there is no basis for affordable property rights, less protection in the hands of legislators than administrators.

[00:23:38] Eric Goranson: The taking clause applies equally to both, which means that it prohibits legislators and agency alike from imposing unconstitutional conditions. On land use permits. So basically this ruling kicked the case back down to lower courts to decide if sheets 23, 420 fee was taking was a taking [00:24:00] and thus improper.

[00:24:01] Eric Goranson: So that's basically what we're seeing here. So we're going to see now these impact fees being read, a look at of what is going to be reasonable and not. So this could have significant long term impact on permitting fees for home development. And we're going to have to see what the fallout is on this, but this is something that could be huge.

[00:24:23] Eric Goranson: Cause I know of homes in my area where the city of Portland will hit somebody in an existing neighborhood where there was a house here before they'll hit them with impact fees for the stuff of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 000. So this is going to change how cities hit these fees that are improper and are not real, where it's just them taking the money.

[00:24:45] Eric Goranson: Out of people right now. So I'm excited to see how this goes. This is going to be a big one. Next up we have is energy. Our energy codes right now are getting where it's going to be hard to [00:25:00] do affordable HVAC for people's homes. Now, here's what we're seeing right now. We've got a couple of different things going on.

[00:25:08] Eric Goranson: One, we've got electric utilities across the country that are trying to push gas out so they have no competition. Second of all, they're trying to ban gas in new construction. And third, what we're seeing is the department of energy. And of course the U S government saying that we have to use these hyper efficient heating and cooling units and something I get using these units.

[00:25:39] Eric Goranson: But the problem that we see is the added expense of these without some massive government subsidy does not pan out. So when you're talking about making a heating and cooling system three or four times more expensive, Because it meets the current 2024 energy code or 2025 energy code. [00:26:00] These are things that are not going to come back and pay for themselves.

[00:26:05] Eric Goranson: I get that we can, I'm not going to get into the greenhouse gas energy efficiency. Less power on the power grid argument right now, but really this is where this stuff is adding unreasonable costs to our homes Because what's happening is now you've got maybe 10 or 15 grand in new Kind of costs for a home that didn't need to be there and I'm sorry I don't think if you're trying to build affordable housing And you're trying to be cost effective here, putting in a system that is very complex, that is very high maintenance, that is using the latest of technologies and might not be as reliable as a system that has eight or 10 percent less efficiency.

[00:26:55] Eric Goranson: That is in the best interest of these folks trying to get into affordable housing. Now, [00:27:00] the 15 or 20 bucks a month that they made save on their power bill is pretty amazing. But that's not, that's going to take a long time to do that. Now, could you put in a heat pump, water heater, or some things like that, that Really save you money in the long run.

[00:27:14] Eric Goranson: Yeah, that's, you start to get quick payoffs on that, but some of these higher end systems and less, the government is paying that, which means us as taxpayers are paying for it. I don't see this being really affordable. And so we're seeing that with HVAC. Now, the next one here, before we go out to break, I want to talk about is some of the stuff that we're seeing in cities and neighborhoods where they want to put in a couple of houses on a lot.

[00:27:41] Eric Goranson: But they've got protected trees and things like that in there. And I love my trees. Don't get me wrong, but sometimes when a builder comes in, buys that lot in literally has to spend two years through a permitting process to take down two medium sized trees. And so [00:28:00] they can put more house on that lot to make it more affordable.

[00:28:04] Eric Goranson: So we can put twice as many people on that lot to increase density. Those tree laws can be pretty tough to go through. And that builder now has to carry the cost of that land for two years as they go through that process. Trying to do that. So again, those are things that add tens of thousands of dollars to that property cost because they're paying interest on that.

[00:28:28] Eric Goranson: And then they have to pay for the lawyers to go through all that just to get the permits to follow that. We come back. I've got one more segment and we're going to talk about what we can do to figure out our homeless and crime issues in our areas around our house just as soon as we return. Don't go anywhere.[00:29:00]

[00:29:08] Eric Goranson: Back to the Around the House show, the next generation of home improvement. I'm Eric G. Thanks for joining us today. We've been talking here. How do we create affordable housing for the next generation with our housing prices going crazy out there? What can we do to, well, protect us current homeowners out there where people that have investments in real estate and how do we create new stuff for people that's more affordable so they can be invested in their own future going forward?

[00:29:38] Eric Goranson: Because there's nothing wrong with renting out there. But the issue is, unless you're taking that money and putting it well away. Real estate can still be one of the best investments you make out there if you play the game correctly. And I want to see everybody have that opportunity that wants to have it.

[00:29:57] Eric Goranson: And if you want to spend the rest of your life renting because you [00:30:00] don't want to maintain, awesome. That is cool. Proud of you. Keep it going. But there's plenty of people out there that want to be homeowners. We're trying to figure out how do we get them into homes. Now, one of the issues that gets put into this affordable housing discussion to me is not an affordable housing issue, and that is our homeless crisis that we have out there.

[00:30:25] Eric Goranson: The people that you see driving around, and I know some of you in states that don't have this issue because you guys manage it correctly. Are going, what are you talking about? But in many cities and many States out there, there are third world tent communities all around in the middle of the sidewalk, in the middle of the driveways of people's homes.

[00:30:47] Eric Goranson: It could be in the median of the freeway where it's super dangerous to be. And it's not being handled and it's not being handled well. And here's my opinion and I'm going to give it. And if you [00:31:00] want to give me a contradictory opinion, feel free to send me a message over to around the house, online. com.

[00:31:05] Eric Goranson: I'd love to hear it or respect everyone's opinion, but here is mine. I think this is where we have a problem. Do we have an affordable housing problem? Yes. Are many of the people out there that are camping in those tents? Going to be fixed by affordable housing. No, they're not. And a majority of those people, and I'm going to say majority because not all by any means, but a majority of those people out there.

[00:31:30] Eric Goranson: are either mentally ill, have some kind of a mental illness that is untreated. There are drug addiction issues that could be because of that self medication of the drugs that they're going through their system because they're trying to fix themselves. And that is the easy street way to do it. But until we come up with an actual mental health care system here in the United States, guess what?

[00:31:58] Eric Goranson: This is not going to [00:32:00] go away. And the problem we're seeing here is great example here in the Pacific Northwest. You're seeing states and cities spending 40 to 60, 000 per homeless person. This living out in the streets. A year, but we're spending that year after year after year on them and they're not getting better.

[00:32:25] Eric Goranson: We're feeding them. We're giving them tents. We're giving them tarps. We're moving them around. And that's the problem is we see these in neighborhoods. There's a, there'll be an elementary school and on one side of the fence along the elementary school, there'll be a homeless encampment. These kids are having to walk past, walk through this encampment Of drug abuse, domestic violence, all the things that you see in some of these communities.

[00:32:54] Eric Goranson: And the problem is it's not safe for the kids. It's not safe for the community, [00:33:00] but we need to get these people into some kind of a program so that we can get them help. And it's us as society need to deal with this. And our cities are not dealing with this correctly. We had some problems here where, you know, we've gotten to a point now where we do have a lot of beds.

[00:33:16] Eric Goranson: There are for thousands of beds here in Portland for people. But the problem is many nights, those are empty because people would much rather not have rules to follow and are out camping on the streets. And so this is where the issues lie. And so I don't want to mix this into our affordable housing thing.

[00:33:34] Eric Goranson: We need to get these people help. We need to be compassionate. We need to get them into a facility. Where they can become solid members of society and not out camping in the streets, dying from being overheated or dying from freezing to death. We need to make sure that we get these people help. And as part of this discussion, I think that's what we need to do.[00:34:00]

[00:34:00] Eric Goranson: And we need to get there and get them into a medical facility. And I think that's probably how we're going to have to do it. Cause. You know, as we know, if you've got family or friends that are fighting with mental illness and drug addiction, and I say, and, or could be one or the other, could be a combination of both.

[00:34:19] Eric Goranson: They usually don't want to get help until they are at rock bottom. And these people out living in tents are at rock bottom and they still. Aren't getting help. So my thought process here, and I'd love to hear your comments on it is maybe what we do is create a program where we get these people off of the public lands, out of these nature areas.

[00:34:41] Eric Goranson: They're just destroying parks and green areas and green spaces and cutting down trees, wildlife is getting destroyed. Watersheds are getting destroyed. If we get these people into a lock, let's not put them in jail. Let's get them help. So let's put them into a lockdown mental health [00:35:00] facility, get them in there, get them treated.

[00:35:04] Eric Goranson: Let's see if we can get them off drugs in the whole scheme of things. It's going to be cheaper if we spend two years of time getting them taken care of and get them to be taxpaying citizens, get them into some skilled trades. Get them into being protective members of society. And I tell you what, that is how we're going to do this one little piece at a time.

[00:35:25] Eric Goranson: And maybe we take some of these unused prison spaces out there and we make them lock down mental health care and drug addiction facilities. And we put in the best professionals in there and we make sure and get these people help. And as part of their sentence, they have to go through this program. And they're going to get fed.

[00:35:44] Eric Goranson: They're going to get medical attention. They're going to get the help they need. Then afterwards, we can have this discussion of getting them into affordable housing, because right now, if you take these people, a majority of them, now there's also great people out there that are struggling, living in cars.[00:36:00]

[00:36:00] Eric Goranson: That's another discussion, but that's not the majority of them. If you go and take these people and put them into a house right now, it's going to get destroyed. It's going to get trashed. You're going to have holes in the wall. You're going to have stuff getting just busted up and that doesn't help anyone.

[00:36:17] Eric Goranson: And that's a more stressful situation for them. So I'd like to see us go around and get them the help they need. So one, we have safer communities too. We're helping people that man need our help. And three, now we can work on getting them into affordable housing. And create a place for them to live and we'll have a lot better condition for everyone.

[00:36:40] Eric Goranson: And that's how I see it. I think there's ways to do this. I'm not going to get into it in this show. Cause this is a home improvement show and we're not going to dive into all of that. But I think that there are some reasonable things that we can do out there. There's charities out there that are helping people.

[00:36:54] Eric Goranson: There's nonprofits. But when I see us spending 40 to 60, 000 a year, And we're [00:37:00] not moving the needle around. We need to be doing this differently. And I think that's where this is going to be that we need some public private partnerships. We need to get people thinking about how to fix people. We need to bring in the medical community and the mental health community, and we need to create a mental health care system that is equal to our medical health care system.

[00:37:22] Eric Goranson: And that way we can get people the help they need. And I think that would sure save a lot of lives. It would sure save a lot of property damage. And in the end, it's going to reduce our rates on insurance and everything else for theft and car break ins and everything else. So I think that there are some winning that can be done here.

[00:37:40] Eric Goranson: And I think this is something that as a community, we can all stick together and help out our neighbors that maybe are living in the park down the street that we all drive past and go, ah, I wish they weren't here. We got to come up with some solutions. And I think they're out there. I think we just need to treat how we're doing it.

[00:37:57] Eric Goranson: Because right now in most cities. [00:38:00] We're not handling it correctly. We're putting a band aid over a major bleeding wound. That's not even solving it So what can we do to change that? And I think this is where we can really help people out And I think this is going to be one of those things that we can do All right, everybody that wraps up our number one here of around the house show Thanks for tuning in today.

[00:38:19] Eric Goranson: If you want to find out more comment on this Feel free to head over to around the house, online. com for more information. And if you've got a home improvement question, I would love to answer it for you. That number is 8 that number again, 8 3 3 2 3 9 41 44. One more thing guys, before we go out to break here, I am always looking for new topics, new subjects, or even new products that you have found out there that I should be talking about.

[00:38:50] Eric Goranson: So as you, as a member of the audience, I would appreciate it to feel free to head over to aroundthehouseonline. com. Send us a message, send us what you'd like to [00:39:00] hear us talk about. And I will try my best to be able to slide it into an upcoming show. So if you have a new product, a new tool, something that you just went, wow, this thing is amazing.

[00:39:10] Eric Goranson: I'd love to hear from you. So head over to around the house online. com and you can send me a message. And I can promise you, I'm going to message you back. Cause I do every single time my staff doesn't do it. I get back to you. So I'll let you know what I think of it. And, uh, if you have questions, I'll do the same for you.

[00:39:28] Eric Goranson: Appreciate you tuning in today. I'm Eric G and you've been listening to Around the

[00:39:41] Eric Goranson: House.