NANCY BRIER: My name's Nancy Brier (ph). I have four properties. The biggest property that we have is six units. So, you know, really small-time landlords. We sort of know all of our tenants. You know, so I've been doing this for 30 years now and have really seen every kind of housing situation that you can think of.
LUIS EDWIN SANCHEZ: Luis Edwin Sanchez (ph), born and raised in San Francisco. I'm 62 years old, journeyman union carpenter, retired. I had to take early disability retirement a couple years ago and had a pretty decent life until I got hurt (laughter), and things changed dramatically. But, yeah, so I know what the people who are sleeping on the city streets in tents right now are going through because I've been there - three times. And I'm not happy to say that it's a very good possibility it may happen again. I'm currently on the Section 8 waitlist for a voucher. It'll probably take me another 10 years, if I live that long. I mention that because of how huge the need is.
BRIER: Can I say one quick thing? My last Section 8 tenant just moved, and that family was in this unit for nine years. And I'm very happy that we were able to provide them with nice housing for all that time. But I swear, when that family moved out, I could hear the angels singing. I have another tenant I've had for over 20 years. The piece of paper that we have with our rental agreement is one side of one page. And for the Section 8 family that we housed, I have boxes and boxes and boxes of papers. It was insane. So, you know, maybe the reason that you can't find a Section 8 house, which I wish you could, is because the system makes it too hard for somebody like me to give it to you.
Nancy, there is literally nothing stopping you from giving this injured homeless worker a place besides your own self interest.
Of course, American society will eat you alive if you don't relentlessly pursue your self interest almost all of the time and all of us are just one illness and a few years of bad luck from being where Luis is at, but let's just be honest about what the situation is here.
BRIER: If I could wave the magic wand, I would want the government to make renting housing less risky for small-time landlords. How can we provide housing that isn't crazy expensive?
And If I could wave a magic wand the government would take all of Nancy's non-residential properties from her and just start running them as free public housing with onsite social workers and maintenance technicians.
Also, they'd provide taxpayer funded nutrition support and education for anyone who wants it, including Nancy.