Tiny Homes for the Homeless Now Under Attack in California

originally posted by: crazyewok

originally posted by: JimiBlack
a reply to: crazyewok

Gotta disagree with you about ANY African city. There are a lot of metro areas in a lot of African cities. Just saying man. All of Africa is not mudhuts my friend.

And on the outside of those metro areas slums. Unsafe, dirty slums.

Just like in parts of 'merica.

originally posted by: JimiBlack

originally posted by: stormcell

originally posted by: JimiBlack
a reply to: RedDragon

Come on man. Must EVERYTHING be liberal or conservative?

In this case, the situation gets reduced down to either the residents tolerate these little homes (liberal) or don't tolerate them (conservative). There isn't anything in-between. You are either willing to put up with homeless people begging for money for food, public transport, -liquor and drugs or you are not.

There should be some kind of assistance for them, but that would only be able to done on remote cheap land which the homeless don't want to go, And the residents in wealthy areas don't want them. So the only place left is under overpasses and downtown.

Still has nothing to do with liberalism or conservatism. I'm neither. If you are COMPLETELY liberal about EVERYTHING or COMPLETELY conservative about EVERYTHING, in my humble opinion, that makes for a VERY closed-minded individual.

Well said. There's plenty in between. Plenty of the Independent-Libertarian leaning types support, support helping the homeless in this way and even own "tiny homes". Shocking I know and we're not all supporting Agenda 21(old name for it) either.

There are parking lots, but apparently issues with establishing room for them, for Rvs in a city(Seattle). Maybe the houses can benefit in the same way when or if the availability issues are dealt with.

a reply to: Willtell

They are a safety hazard. They're poorly built in an earthquake prone area, which means they can collapse and bury the person inside. They also have no sanitation which leads to a spread of disease when groups of these are put together, and that's what most typically happens... they're basically shanty towns. Last, these things are typically built under large groups of power lines which means the residents are eventually going to develop cancer.

They're just not safe.

If you want to fix this, don't give people structurally unsound shanties. Do what Utah did and build actual housing projects that adhere to building codes and have utilities.

originally posted by: Willtell
a reply to: ketsuko

Those little homes are more like they should be.

I wonder though that some one will come along and start making money off those


No more free

In Europe you get holiday chalets. These are close in size to large garden sheds or "garden offices".

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a reply to: Willtell

Tiny homes are tiny little places people can hide form the spotlight of police, literally. If the cops want to know what homeless people are up to they just shine a million candle power light on them. They can't see inside these little boxes so they have to get out the squad car and approach, exposing themselves to potential danger.

Thats why they are making these illegal, it isn't safe for police.

a reply to: opethPA

Even if you could centralize the homeless, it would still not work. Many homeless people just aren't all there mentally. If you are homeless and really want to get off the street, it can be done. Section 8 housing, medicaid and food stamps can be gotten. The sad truth is many homeless are mentally "stuck" being homeless. I've worked with an organization that will put a homeless person in a 14 month average program where housing, medical care, food, clothes, counseling ect are all provided. At the end of that we get them set up with a job and their own apartment. Our success rate is barely 40%. They have to stay off of drugs and alcohol the whole time and most can't break out of the homeless/ addiction cycle. There is a majority of the homeless population that you can't help. We had multiple homeless people try our program 3 or 4 times, they almost always flake out and resort to their addictions.

Even if you gave some homeless a mansion, they'd slip back into a downward spiral of addiction. That doesn't mean we stop trying to help them, just be aware you are going to fail more often then succeed.

a reply to: Willtell

The danger here is that the 'tiny homes' become an established norm. First they're an improvement upon life on the street. But how long before 'tiny home' communities become a norm - standards and expectations adjusted en masse to fit such small living space, with family's being moved into them.

Here is the deal. Politicians and the city want your money. They want you to pay electric water and trash and property tax. If you live in a self sustained trailer or tiny home on wheels they are not making money off you. So they send you to jail for hygenic or sanitation laws in city limits and county as well if your not connected to water or electric. I didnt pay my gas bill for a year in my apartment I just went without hot water for a year. I took cold showers. When my apartment found out about it three months before I was due to end my lease they threatened to EVICT ME. For not having gas! All the gas did was heat my water and stove. I used a toaster oven to cook! Ridiculous. They were so pissed off that I went a year without gas they said it was a safety issue! BS!

a reply to: McGinty

they aren't suitable for families, but generally speaking, it's easier for families (that have children), to get gov't assistance than it is for single people, or widows for that matter.

but they might be just the thing for the single man or women who wants to stash some money away for their future, so they can at some point in their lives enjoy that family and children. for students or new graduates that are loaded down with so much debt that they don't see a future. or those who've raised their children, and are approaching their retirement years, or in their retirement years and on limited incomes.

personally, I love the things, not much cleaning involved in them, and they can be custom made so I could modify it to accommodate my disabilities. it would also keep me from hanging onto a bunch of junk that I am not gonna use that just takes up space and require my kids to go through and dispose after I am gone.

I'm not a people person, never have been. I like living out in the country, not in apartment complexes. It's a nice alternative to an efficiency apartment with paper thin walls and annoying neighbors. And all I would need is the land to plop it on and a few thousand to build it... I have the kids, one with the construction skills to build it for me.

originally posted by: McGinty
a reply to: Willtell

The danger here is that the 'tiny homes' become an established norm. First they're an improvement upon life on the street. But how long before 'tiny home' communities become a norm - standards and expectations adjusted en masse to fit such small living space, with family's being moved into them.

Sometimes, when I'm in a conspiracy theory kind of mood and I'm flipping through the channels and I come across those Tiny Homes shows, I wonder if it's not the government behind it, try to convince people that living in basically a tiny studio is "cool" and "hip."

Here in my neck of the woods, the City is in the process of passing (or already passed) some changes to the building codes to allow for "micro apartments."

Isn't one of the alleged goals of the NWO or PTB to confine everybody into small geographic locations?

a reply to: eluryh22

can they realistically do that though, without having to take control, and care of the children, that are needed for the continuation of the species? and well, which would you prefer, a micro apartment, with someone above and below, and to each side, or a micro home that is sitting a nice distance from the neighbors, preferably somewhere so far out in the middle of nowhere that the ptb won't be able to find you that easily to relocate you to those micro apartments?

a reply to: dawnstar

"They" like to trick the masses into doing things so "they" don't have to use force. Thats why (sometimes) I wonder if the tiny house shows are all propaganda. Again, I'm not trying to claim that is absolutely true.... It's just something I think about every once in a while.

originally posted by: eluryh22

originally posted by: McGinty
a reply to: Willtell

The danger here is that the 'tiny homes' become an established norm. First they're an improvement upon life on the street. But how long before 'tiny home' communities become a norm - standards and expectations adjusted en masse to fit such small living space, with family's being moved into them.

Sometimes, when I'm in a conspiracy theory kind of mood and I'm flipping through the channels and I come across those Tiny Homes shows, I wonder if it's not the government behind it, try to convince people that living in basically a tiny studio is "cool" and "hip."

Here in my neck of the woods, the City is in the process of passing (or already passed) some changes to the building codes to allow for "micro apartments."

Isn't one of the alleged goals of the NWO or PTB to confine everybody into small geographic locations?

Bingo! It's about modifying public expectations of what constitutes a fair living space. It's something that's constantly being chipped away.

And i'm guessing home manufacturers can increase profits if the building codes show ever decreasing standards.

"They" have a pretty high number of McMansions that they need to somehow unload onto the public thanks to the subprime blowup. "They" are facing the fact that our economy is destined to contract because we can't afford families.
If "they" were really wanting to reduce the population as much as they say, would "they" really be trying so hard to limit the access of birth control and abortions? I have no doubt that "they" want to decrease the population in some areas, like india, china, africa, ect. but in other areas, such as Japan, Europe, Russia, the US, that shrinking population is causing some major problems.

This topic is so horribly unfixable with the current culture.

I mean it's like gridlock, there are so many causes feeding into it, and each of 400 pieces require such profound changes it almost requires a spiritual change in the species to fix it.

Youtube has given people the bizarre idea that most homeless people are like those we see on the videos -- a sweet old man who happens to be blind, a nice guy sleeping in the cold without a coat. They exist. Rarely.

Employed people with kids living in their cars exist, there should be better avenues for temp shelter and help. That category of homeless should be addressed in a major way.

And no veteran anywhere should be homeless IMO and if that means we give up 40 other things taxes fund to have apt. complexes filled with them on taxpayer dole fine, they're a class unto themselves.

But just about everyone else homeless tends to be another reason and not a good one.

I've been around this. It's tragic but it's true: most homeless people will always be homeless no matter what you do for them. It wasn't just a bad circumstance that got them there. If you give them apartments they will end up so horribly vile, filled with urine, feces, blood, trash, etc. you can only hope they accidentally burn it down. Areas where lots of homeless live will be filled with the worst drugs and violent crime and abuse and often sanitation issues that risk plague and mass fires and more. Obviously not all are the same but enough are that it doesn't matter: On the streets at best they harrass others (for money), at worst they're very dangerous (drug abuse is overwhelming in that population).

And half the country ships their homeless to CA-TX and the other half to SC-FL because it's cheaper to buy people a bus ticket and a promise they won't freeze there, than deal with them, so those states are dealing with utterly staggering numbers of people, way beyond what's possible for locals to support or find solution for.

They can't live on sidewalks or streets or just off everyone's curb, that's both unworkable (for many reasons) and injust to everybody else. They can't live in parks (or they wouldn't be parks anymore) or national forests (or they'd be burned to the ground and we'd just have horrible ghettos in the forest instead). So where do they live? Small houses are an idea for the first or second category I mentioned which amounts to triaging all the homeless and sorting into "those who can probably be saved and become independent," and "veterans," and "most everybody else." We really should be putting massively more effort into the first categories. What to do with 'everyone else?'

In the old days you could go kidnap every male over 12 and impress them into the Navy but between drugs and horrible non-food and insanity today they wouldn't even be qualified to dig ditches never mind the discipline and demands of modern soldiering so that won't save anybody. We don't have continent sized gulags like the USA or AUS anymore handy to ship off everyone annoying. We can't imprison them, it's not only unconstitutional but it's freaking expensive. We can't just shoot them en masse or pack them into a few miles of dirt nobody else wants like was done to some of the american natives. So then what?

You have to really think about the origin of this because it can't be solved at the back end. It needs to be solved at the front end to prevent it or deal with it immediately. Why do we have such a staggering amount of mental health issues in our culture? Could it be a nationwide "ingestible entertainment" based on selling grains to the world rather than actual food and sufficient quality proteins/fats? Could it be the fast swelling single mom phenomenon that (and I AM a single mom mind you) the real statistics say have vastly more children that end up with drug and violence problems? Is it the "drug war" and I don't mean on pot I mean on all forms of meth, heroin etc.? Is it a lack of high school educating a lot of people so they still can't read or do math when they mysteriously graduate anyway? Is it a profound lack of jobs because millions and millions of them went overseas the last sixty years, greatly affecting the men in particular who worked all those factories and warehouses and didn't need a college degree for it? Is it the miserable economy? Can we fix some of these "sources" to reduce the flood of helpless-hopeless-homeless? So far we can't even fix them for the rest of us.

This is one of those problems that is just horrid because there really is no solution. There are a couple things that can and should be done, which will be huge and hard even just those; and then there's a big bundle of mess without any real solution. This mess isn't because of da man trying to get us to accept living like bees (although this may be true, the homeless issue exists regardless); it isn't because of evil (check one) trumpians, neocons, rich liberals or reptilians who just want to see hordes of homeless for no reason but their being born wicked; homeless people that are not in the first two categories I mentioned, are seldom homeless because of other people.

And they won't get un-homeless. We could give them food, a home, a job even a four year old could do, and most of them would not do the job and would trash the home and then what? What's the solution to people who either do not want or are not able to function in today's world? And we aren't talking about responsible people on hard times here, or vets, remember, only the others, so: why should it be the responsibility of any person/taxes to take care of all of them?

A few would be one thing. We aren't talking about a few. We're talking about maybe half a million people or more.

a reply to: MidKnight

originally posted by: MidKnight
Oh so you have to look at his tiny little house when you wake up? what about him, he has to see yours, as well as your neighbors. What makes you so special that makes you think that you should corral these guys up and putim in a camp. Oh I get it now. Your better than this guy because you have more sq ft than him. Maybe you as a home owner should be forced to move your house somewhere else, taking up all that space and land that could be utilized by more than what is living there. And if you think its all gravy, I wana see you try to get a job while you have to sleep on a park bench at night.
I swear people are just not happy without trying to impose their will on them. reply to: opethPA

An Act without a Victim should not a crime. These guys have done nothing more than try to improve their standard of living. Me personally would rather see his tiny house evryday than see him just rolled up on the curb in a sleeping bag on top of cardboard.

I gave you a star for that post.

'Successful' people don't want to see the offensive-looking homeless on their streets and avenues, nor the tiny scruffy-looking worthless shacks that harm their eyesight.

The solution is obvious but will mean spending taxpayers money: provide the homeless and transients with homes of a socially acceptable standard, pleasing and unoffensive to the eyes of society, with basic facilities necessary to eliminate any health hazards/risk to themselves and the rest of the community. For whatever reasons, these people are on the streets and are unable or unwilling to conform to socially acceptable living standards, and the only way to completely banish them from the streets is to shelter them.

I hear the usual shouts of 'why should I pay to house them?' and 'why should they get a free house when I have to sweat my bollocks off for mine?' - fair point. But your taxes are currently being spent to shelter them in prisons, feeding and clothing them, providing heating and sanitation, not to mention the cost of arresting them and the legal processes involved in providing them with a criminal record just to return them back to your streets. What a costly, never-ending, pointless cycle.

Where's the sense in constantly throwing money at a 'project' that never achieves its goal and never produces any results whatsoever?

So, why not instead spend that money providing them with somewhere to stay, be it temporary or otherwise? The homelessness problem is instantly extinct and 'successful' people will never have to be visually offended by them. The health of the community will no longer be at risk. End goal achieved. Instant results. Money well invested if you ask me.

Most can't see that their money is already being spent paying cops to move them on and/or arrest them right up to and including jailing them and repeat for evermore. At the very least all that expense of that side of things will be eliminated, as it is all that has to be paid for as well as the costs involved in keeping the homeless alive in jail.

Just provide them with somewhere to shelter - you're paying for them either way.

I agree we pay for them directly or indirectly.

It is so injust and judging to simply assume that it's merely that people don't want to see the homeless. There are about 100 good reasons for not having homeless people in public areas none of which are "they inconvenience our eyes."

It's not like this topic has no history. Areas have been built to provide shelter, and food, and keep them right near the city but not invasively in public. And people say: if you tell homeless they have to go to the shelter you're putting them in a cage like an animal. And: oh look the local government created an internment or concentration camp. And: oh look now it's illegal to be homeless, because if you're homeless on the street the city workers -- cops generally -- will take you to the place that has shelter and food for homeless rather than letting yet more homeless congregate in front of the shops.

So you build the homeless housing. Some take it up. It promptly becomes a terrifying and unsafe slum. Most the rest the homeless don't want to go there at all. If you don't make them, you haven't solved the homeless problem. If you do make them, you are violating their human and citizen rights.

This idea that we just go "Here's a whole neighborhood of places to live!" and homelessness is -- in your words -- "instantly solved" -- is so lovely and so completely unworkable.

Some cities in the warm climates such as South Carolina have had such a massive quantity of homeless sent by bus or any other route to their city -- the homeless aren't "theirs" they just arrive in droves -- they get desperate, they literally start getting overrun, but everything they want to do, people scream foul at that, too, because all opportunity you create is going to require some degree of restriction or responsibility -- or simply that people want it at all.

If we can't solve most the problem from the front-end it will never get solved. You cannot use logic and reason to provide a healthy situation for people who are not healthy (usually mentally) and don't want your situation.

Always a caveat for vets. No veteran should ever be homeless. That is a profound V.A. failing that needs addressing.