Housing Immigrants
In none of the articles I have read on immigration is there any mention of the effect of the mass influx on housing.
The newcomers gravitate to the oldest neighborhoods where the housing is aging. Zoning laws are violated by having many more people to a house than is normally allowable for health and safety reasons. Overcrowding results in friction between individuals and neighbors and overwhelms police availability. Foreigners don’t trust the police. Drug activity and crime result.
In California, families can be displaced due to the practice of housing large numbers of single males in a house where the beds may be rented on a rotation basis. This produces large rents per housing unit and by displacing family units contributes directly to the homeless situation.
Low-income housing is not being built at all, let alone in quantities adequate to accommodate the newcomers.
There is no way the United States can continue to admit a million immigrants each year without consideration of housing them, unless we want to house them as they do in Tijuana, Mexico.
R. CHARLTON JOHNSON
Laguna Hills
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