Are Tiny Houses the Key to Fighting Homelessness?

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/24/are-tiny-houses-the-key-to-fighting-homelessness/

by yiedyie • 12 years ago

136 123 12 years ago

I believe so, and it's a small price to pay to eliminate the homeless problem. I imagine the prices will only come down once we can "3D print" those homes.

yiedyie• 12 years ago

I guess you mean to print the key components as bricks I think are easier handwritten.

jack-r-abbit2• 12 years ago

Maybe not yet but something like this[1][2] is probably coming in the near future.

[1]http://innovation.uk.msn.com/design/the-3d-printer-that-can-... [2]http://www.contourcrafting.org/

krallja2• 12 years ago

seven acres of land donated by Carmen Guidi

Yeah, good luck with that in major cities.

What if we took all the tiny houses and put them all in a shared building, with shared infrastructure and a tinier combined footprint?

We could call it... an apartment building.

protomyth2• 12 years ago

I have wondered if you could build a building with plugable apartment modules that could be moved to other building when you wanted to move. Shipping crate apartments with standard utility hookups.

dasmoth• 12 years ago

This gets proposed from time to time (was Buckminster Fuller's Dynaxion Home the first?), but I can never see how you'd move them without crating up all your possessions. And isn't that the worst aspect of moving home in a traditional manner...?

iamwithnail2• 12 years ago

http://www.mac-containers.co.uk/temporary-container-housing....

Crito7• 12 years ago

Without careful management, you stand a chance of creating a "Hotel Carter"-esque situation where it is too easy for residents to adversely effect the lives of other residents. Some minimal amount of separation (even if it is only a few feet between each unit) and keeping things out in the air to aid in policing should be well-worth it.

The issue of land wouldn't be so bad if we had decent transportation around our cities. It shouldn't be necessary to own a car if you don't live downtown somewhere, although unfortunately it typically is.

willyt• 12 years ago

You need at least 4 story tenements to make rail based public transport viable. You can go a bit less dense with buses but not much. Refer to 'Cities for a Small Planet'. Ricky Burdet at the LSE has done quite a bit of research into this.

benched2• 12 years ago

I love how, despite the lessons of the inner-city projects, there's still this automatic urge to try to reduce the quality of life of the imaginary occupants as much as possible, right out of the gate.

twic• 12 years ago

Some of the most desirable and expensive homes in the world are in apartment blocks (eg the infamous One Hyde Park here in London). And on the other hand, some of the most despised and squalid homes in the world are detatched units (eg trailer parks).

It's not the layout of a home that governs the quality of life of its occupants. It's how well built it it, how well maintained it is, how well connected to work, infrastructure, amenities, and the larger community it is, how mixed its occupants are in income and occupation, how well cared for by police, fire, and health services it is, dozens of factors. But not whether it shares a wall with its neighbouring homes.

joeframbach• 12 years ago

You should read more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe

krallja2• 12 years ago

You should read more. http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14435.html

noonespecial• 12 years ago

No, I'm afraid they'd call it... a ghetto. Something special does happen when its "your" house. Is it special enough to avoid ghetto-ization? Its worth a try IMHO.

Mz17• 12 years ago

Upvoted and I hope it gets read but I don't think any one thing is THE solution to homelessness.

In previous life, I wanted to be an urban planner. As part of that, I took a class on Homelessness and Public Policy at SFSU. I am currently homeless and have been for over two years.

So, some thoughts in brief:

Current housing stock, financing, and policies in the U.S. is very skewed towards housing for "the nuclear family" and is rooted in things that happened when our soldiers came home from WWII. In the decades since, our demographic has diversified thus this type of housing stock, financing infrastructure and policies no longer fit our needs. Ironically, the result is we no longer have a lot of the options that were once fairly common here, like SRO's and boarding houses, which were better suited to single people with limited incomes. You increasingly see things like 3 (or more) roommates sharing a three bedroom apartment designed with the nuclear family in mind.

Yes, smaller houses would be nice. Post WWII, the average new home was around 1200sf. In 2000, the average new home was over 2000sf and housed fewer people and had more amenities. This is driven in part by tax policies that encourage those who can afford a house at all to buy the largest house they can afford. Meanwhile, homelessness is on the rise because it is increasingly hard to afford housing at all.

I have commented on this in various places over the years. I could probably write a good blog post on it. But most people seem to think this entrenched history is irrelevant. So I see little reason at this time to put much effort into laying it all out.

nickstinemates3• 12 years ago

Sorry for the personal question, but, are you homeless by choice?

It seems you can talk well in this area and appear to be eloquent enough to describe complex situations, so it begs the question.

Mz17• 12 years ago

As with all things, it is part choice, part happenstance.

I have a serious medical condition, as does my oldest son. I have been advised that people like me do not get well. I have figured out how to get us well, but it all came out of my pocket, leading to a lot of debt.

I had a job with a Fortune 500 company. At some point, I was evicted from my apartment, not due to inability to pay but because I had done things like removed carpeting without permission because that made more sense than staying ill. After getting a notice of eviction, I chose to not look for another apartment because it was clear to us that the apartment was part of why we were still ill. After three days sleeping in a tent amidst trees, I woke up feeling better than I had in years. I submitted my notice that I was quitting my job and I left on foot to cross the country and return to a climate I knew I would do better in.

Since then, I have focused on getting well and trying to develop an income that does not keep me sick. I have made good headway on getting well and I am beginning to make headway on an income that does not keep me ill. I would like to get off the street soon. I am nearly well enough that I think more conventional housing would no longer be an automatic health disaster for me and my sons. I don't yet know how to solve that problem, either financially or logistically. I really need to go straight from homeless to homeowner. Renting leaves me too little control over my home life to keep myself well given my medical situation.

saraid2166• 12 years ago

I suspect you'd be kinda shocked how well-educated and intelligent and capable a lot of homeless people actually are.

lotharbot• 12 years ago

My family has lived in the same neighborhood since 1951, and I work in one of our local schools. I often tell visitors about the history of the area to explain the struggles we have in our student body. Most of the houses were built right after the end of WWII by veterans who were starting their own families. They're what was considered starter houses even back then -- right around a thousand square feet, 3 small bedrooms, 1 small bathroom, a combined kitchen-dining area, and no dedicated laundry space (my grandparents' house originally had these characteristics; they eventually expanded and still live there.) By a decade later, many of those families were ready to move up, and they moved into the bigger houses being built farther away from the city (I grew up a mile west, where the average house was built a decade later and is more like 2000 square feet, 4+ bedrooms, 3+ bathrooms, with dedicated laundry rooms and rec rooms and fireplaces.)

Over time, the old and small homes in my grandparents' area became the bottom of the barrel for family living, which means they attract the poorest segments of society -- 90% of students in my school are native speakers of other languages (primarily Spanish), whose parents came to the area to make a living mostly as unskilled laborers who haven't moved up the ladder very far since arriving. At their income levels, many of them can't even afford this low-end housing -- so they end up with multiple parts of an extended family sharing a single house. This creates problems of various kinds for my students.

I have no doubt that some of these families would benefit from very small, truly affordable housing -- housing that fits their circumstances (low income, limited job prospects, sometimes no support network), instead of the circumstances my grandparents grew up under (the GI bill, family support, a manufacturing and export economy whose primary competitors were ravaged by the war.)

Mz17• 12 years ago

I lived in a duplex in Richland Washington that was built in the 1950s. It was in a very walkable neighborhood. I was a homemaker and we had two kids and one car. I found that a two bedroom, 1950's style home worked quite well for my 1950's style lifestyle at the time, much better than a lot of more 'modern' housing where you can't get anywhere without having two cars, etc. My sons hate the suburbs. My oldest refers to most suburbs as "suburban hell" because we live without a car and you just can't walk to anything in most American suburbs, especially those built relatively recently.

I also lived in Europe for a time, where homes tend to be smaller than than in the U.S. But the problem I have with articles like this one is that it is a poverty mentality solution, which helps keep poverty alive. It is not proposing policies which remove the incentives that are causing new housing to be 2000 sf or more. It is not making it more feasible for "normal" people to get a small place. It proposing tiny houses specifically for very poor people who are currently homeless. This is not a good way to solve the problem. That approach is basically how welfare began -- by defining the needy population as "poor, single moms" -- and it actively grew the population of poor single moms. This makes problems more entrenched. It is not a "solution."

Thanks for your great comment.

lostlogin2• 12 years ago

My family of 3 live in a basically unrenovated 1950s house. It has some inconveniences (combined small kitchen dinning, tiny bathroom) but some of the features turn out to be mostly good. The separate living room makes it more relaxing (can't see the dishes!) easier to heat and cool and quieter. Its layout, while old, is quite clever. The arrangement is such that all plumbing is close together, making maintenance easy. It is mostly efficient to heat at 90 square metres (970 square feet), although the brick walls lack insulation. And the house has character which is very important to me.

greggman• 12 years ago

This is very interesting.

I'm curious though, are you in SF still (you mentioned SFSU). I ask because, at least outside of SF, or at least in some parts of the country there are apartments built for roommates. They usually have 2 master bedrooms each with their own bathroom accessible only from that bedroom. They share the living room, dining room, and kitchen. SF seems to have none of that, mostly because there's so little new construction. It's mostly 2 or 3 bedroom places with 1 bathroom left over from 60-120 years ago.

I only really know LA, OC and SF but there's plenty of places built for roommates in LA and OC.

Not quite the same as boarding houses but still also not built for nuclear families.

Mz17• 12 years ago

I am in San Diego county. I took the class many years ago. I have never actually lived in San Francisco. I was living in Fairfield at the time, not SF. It was a mostly online class and I had to travel to San Francisco for in person class time only a few times. (There was also an internship portion which I was able to arrange more locally.)

chad_oliver3• 12 years ago

You increasingly see things like 3 (or more) roommates sharing a three bedroom apartment designed with the nuclear family in mind.

I'm a student in New Zealand, and almost all students here have that sort of accommodation (we call them 'flats'). I actually really enjoy this arrangement, and would go as far as to say that it's close to the optimal living arrangement for unmarried people. You get all the benefits of friendship and community (almost a pseudo-family), while also paying less for rent, utilities, and food.

However, your post was phrased in a way that implied that this was a sub-optimal solution. Could you expand on your reasoning?

To be clear, I'm not trying to say that you're wrong; your post was insightful so I assume you've got good reasons for feeling the way you do.

jmadsen• 12 years ago

For students, this is nice. However, in many US cities, adults with jobs who would like to have their own lifestyle are often forced to live this way because of pricing and availability.

Mz17• 12 years ago

However, your post was phrased in a way that implied that this was a sub-optimal solution. Could you expand on your reasoning?

What works in other countries does not necessarily work in the U.S. We tend to have low population density and, as a culture, much more strongly value our independence.

Just one concrete example: A three bedroom apartment may come with one or two assigned parking spaces. If three unrelated adults live there and each has their own car, at least one of them will have to routinely park in "guest" parking. Further, in some places, it is quite hard to arrange this at all. The leases are generally intended for a family, subletting may not be acceptable, etc.

In many other countries, living without a car, walking and using public transit, etc. are far more feasible.

There are other issues, I am just trying to come up with something concrete to give as an example of why this does not readily translate from your country to mine. They don't have the same infrastructure, culture, etc. So the same living arrangement in two different places is not necessarily equal in quality of life.

jseliger• 12 years ago

I could probably write a good blog post on it. But most people seem to think this entrenched history is irrelevant. So I see little reason at this time to put much effort into laying it all out.

I'm not sure how easy it is to get ahold of ebooks in your current situation, but if you have a chance take a look at Matt Yglesias's The Rent Is Too Damn High, in which he addresses similar themes albeit from a different perspective.

twelvechairs• 12 years ago

I'm an urban designer (not a planner but nearby). I agree with you that 'tiny houses' basically build in poverty. one of the key difficulties with housing is that the size to comfort chart is not linear. it drops off sharply at the low end and increases only slowly at the top end. this doesn't work well with a market system where the 'haves' end up with something big that doesn't really provide them much more than a mid-size home and the poor end up with a shoebox that makes living difficult. once in the west was the idea of having a safety net in social housing however this has been taken over by a high-rent system which increases productivity by forcing everyone to have an income to afford a roof over their head. this will be difficult to reverse however I think it will. Post war Hong Kong was economically driven by 80% government housing which in turn reduced the cost of employees (who didn't have to pay huge rent or mortgages). some smart state will realise this and compete in international businesses like tech. imagine the attraction for the youth if the next silicon valley had government provided housing.

sliverstorm• 12 years ago

This article doesn't seem to tackle the very question it posed- is inexpensive housing actually the fix to the problem? From what I recall of past discussions, past experiments have suggested affordable housing is simply not the problem for many of the chronically homeless, and it is not clear that providing inexpensive (or even free) housing will be successful.

tommu• 12 years ago

I get the impression that there is another benefit here. Each tenant has their own space to be responsible for. It's small enough to manage but maybe brings a sense of ownership that would be lacking in a regular municipal type shelter or shared apartment block.

baddox3• 12 years ago

Each tenant has their own space to be responsible for.

At the risk of sounding insensitive, which is not my intent, in what way would they be responsible for them? If access to the homes is truly unconditional, why keep them in good shape? Or are you just suggesting that by giving people self-contained, separated dwellings, they will think of it more as "their home" and tend to take better care of it?

MiguelHudnandez2• 12 years ago

Doesn't it seem wasteful to have four walls a few feet away from another four walls?

I'm open to the idea that it's more dignified to live in a unique, isolated dwelling, but it seems terribly inefficient to have 10 tiny houses versus a single-building condo with 10 dwellings of identical square footage.

thejteam• 12 years ago

I'm not familiar with the floorplan but it might be necessary to have an extra window or two to let more light in. At least one of the designs in the article power was limited to 80W of solar panels. Can't afford to waste anything on artificial light with those constraints.

MiguelHudnandez2• 12 years ago

You could save nearly 40% building costs by having 10 adjacent units versus ten free-standing structures nearby. That money could go into more solar or to build more units.

You go from 40 exterior walls (10 units x 4 walls) to 4 exterior walls at about 60% of the area. I can't tackle the math mentally to figure out how the roofing situation changes, but I imagine it is drastically cheaper as well. The roof would be two very long sides instead of 20 small sides.

The more I think about it, the more I am coming around on the "dignity" argument and I think having a space that is completely "yours," including a porch, some steps, and some garden area, will increase the amount of ownership felt. Want pink flamingos? You've got a hundred square feet of lawn that's yours.

ansible• 12 years ago

That's also my thought, but there may be more factors at play.

Any apartment building has significantly more regulations applying to it. Firewalls, lights in the stairwells (if multi-story), handicapped access, minimum sizes for doors and hallways, etc.. I don't know the whole story there.

The main thing from my point of view is that are these homes being built within walking distance of basic services (like a grocery store) and work opportunities?

baddox3• 12 years ago

You could still do one story "apartments," right? Like, literally just these same little houses, except each sharing a wall with the next.

Crito7• 12 years ago

Having lived in several row-homes, those air-gaps have several benefits. They act as firebreaks for pests and rot, actual fires, and significantly reduce cross-unit noise. They also allow (perhaps minimal) natural light in through the side.

cc4392• 12 years ago

I can't express how much I wish my apartment had just 1 window on the shared interior wall. It would turn a lightless cave into perfection.

I wonder what the energy trade off would be. I would think proper insulation (and heat from natural sunlight in winter) could work out to be more efficient than having the lights on in the middle of the day.

jack-r-abbit2• 12 years ago

Part of it could be that 10 tiny homes can be relocated a lot easier than a 10 unit building. These could possibly be "mass produced" in a large warehouse and transported to various places that can handle various numbers of them.

qq66• 12 years ago

I don't think it's more dignified to live in an isolated dwelling (some the most expensive residences in the world are in apartment buildings), but it does really help with the Tragedy of the Commons. In my apartment building in San Francisco, people do all sorts of anti-social things like having their dog crap in an elevator and not cleaning it up, and as a result we have to pay considerable monthly fees for the building staff to manage these issues. Having a detached property makes it a lot harder to shirk your responsibilities -- if your dog craps it will be on your own property instead of in common space.

Crito7• 12 years ago

Somewhat tautologically, yes. Building and giving away homes is a solution to "involuntary lack of a home".

Of course the effective reality is not so simple. Done naively you are going to end up with little more than a tent city with a greater sense of permanence. Tent cities "solve 'homelessness'" in the strictest sense, but of course a satisfactory solution is more than that. They need to be accompanied by social programs designed to help people with a wide variety of problems (mostly having to do with joblessness and health (mental or otherwise)).

pessimizer• 12 years ago

A shower and a roof solve an awful lot of problems, though.

Crito7• 12 years ago

Well, a standard shelter can provide a shower and a roof. Providing a safe, secure, and sanitary shower and roof is the tricky part. I think it is likely that this sort of setup could do that. Definitely worth pursuing.

sadbrother• 12 years ago

I see this question come up on here from time to time. I don't know much about homelessness in general, but I do have a brother who is a little mentally ill. Among other problems, he is incapable of keeping a place to live habitable. He utterly ruins a place over 2-3 years, gets evicted, and finds someone else who will rent to him (which is hard, he is blacklisted).

Something in him just won't train his dog, won't put food away, won't not get just angry enough to break things. Yet he appears like a reasonable person on the street. He spends most of his time at home too, so his life is pretty miserable surrounded by these miserable conditions.

We've tried hundreds of things to help him over the years, since I was a pre-teen, and it seems so intractable to help even just him, even with what should be enough money to support one person. It's hard to imagine how to solve the problem of all the world's homeless.

benched2• 12 years ago

I think it's important in the context of this topic not to try to solve everything, or make the perfect the enemy of the good. Like, getting people indoors and off of the streets is a great, high-priority goal, and if the will can be mustered to give them homes, I'm all for it. Figuring out how to train them to live more like Martha Stewart than they do could be a separate problem.

heydenberk4• 12 years ago

Utah is on its way to eradicating chronic homelessness[0]. Quoting [0] here:

> In 2005, one state defied "political feasibility" and began handing out free apartments to the homeless. These were neither temporary accommodations or shelters for the night. They were not welfare-to-work, or only if you're married, or just-take-this-drug-test: just free apartments, no strings attached. Nine years later, they've reduced long-term homelessness by 74% and are on track to eradicate it completely by 2015.

It actually saves money, due to decreased costs of law enforcement and emergency medical services. Homelessness is a problem of distribution, not supply. Since the housing crisis at the end of last decade, homeless and home vacancy have both been well-above average.

[0]http://www.policymic.com/articles/81507/the-most-unlikely-st...

iandanforth2• 12 years ago

Those articles don't have proof of savings. I want to believe it worked, but I'd like to see a report from the state of Utah charting ER visit costs and jail-time costs declining over the last 10 years.

jonah3• 12 years ago

Savings or not, it's humane.

heydenberk4• 12 years ago

The program is relatively new. I'd expect there to be a latency period during which the formerly homeless adjust to their new lives and find employment before all the cost savings can be properly calculated.

jackgavigan• 12 years ago

The YMCA is already looking at pre-fab'd homes for homeless people: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7258801

mixmax3• 12 years ago

I live on a boat, which has quite a lot of similarities to this. I have even less livingspace than these houses, but I've managed to fit everything I need and more into it. The marina I live in has a clubhouse which is the social hub, much like the common space that's talked about in the article.

Although the circumstances are very different (I live where I do entirely by choice, and don't suffer any of the other problems that I presume homeless people might) the physical living space is comparable, so I'll offer an opinion:

- Living in a small space is much less of a problem than people think. You quickly get used to it. You tend to be outside more though (which I think is a good thing)

- If you do live in a small space light is important. Small spaces without natural light don't work. I suspect that's one of the architectural reasons why the houses are seperate. The same goes for having a semi-private outdoor area.

- A common space is great because you meet other people. Again, the circumstances are very different but I've really enjoyed meeting people I can now call friends in our clubhouse.

- When living in a small space you have less belongings for obvious reasons. This is a good thing, which surprised me. Tyler Durden from Fight Club is spot on when he says "The things you own end up owning you"

This is a great project, and I hope it succeeds and spreads.

Crito7• 12 years ago

How is that style of living, expense wise? Would you estimate the cost of boat/maintenance/marina fees to be roughly comparable to renting, or does it cost much more?

That is the sort of thing that appeals to me, but I haven't really looked into it because it seems out of reach.

mixmax3• 12 years ago

It's incredibly cheap, but you need to spend some time doing boat-things like painting fixing rust, etc. Timewise it's probably comparable to a house.

I bought the boat in Holland for around $50.000 in cash and spent around $10.000 fixing it up with insulation, heating, toilet etc. So basically all I pay now is marina rent ($100 a month) and diesel for heating and electricity.

This is in Copenhagen btw.

drcode• 12 years ago

The big question left unanswered is: Do these houses have indoor plumbing, or is there a separate communal kitchen & bathroom?

kimonos• 12 years ago

Hmmmm, I don't think so...

manicdee• 12 years ago

Manna - Two Visions of Humanity's Future: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

avn2109• 12 years ago

Now seems like as good a time as any to get on my soapbox and proclaim the glories of Betteridge's law [0]. It has tremendous predictive power.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

saraid2166• 12 years ago

And, in this case, it's wrong. But contributing to the conversation would have been unsurmountably challenging, yeah?

schultkl• 12 years ago

I did some (very rough) math on how much it would cost to do this nationwide--in a nutshell, for the materials only, it would cost the 25%-50% of Americans who likely care enough to pay between $220-$441 as a one-time expense plus $2-$4 annual upkeep: http://schultkl.blogspot.com/2014/02/homeless-no-more-how-mu... . A thought experiment I did for my own benefit, mostly...like the article points out, there are architectural and design costs, labor costs, zoning and community buy-in issues, and so forth, and so forth.

sien• 12 years ago

Why not just use caravans?

Second ones can surely be bought for about $5K each.

stretchwithme• 12 years ago

Its absurd to buy a limited number of people regular houses when you could buy tiny houses for many more people.

To have a secure place to rest one's head and a place where you can take a shower and prepare food is enormously valuable.

If we redirected the resources granted to the middle and upper middle class through the mortgage tax deduction into tiny houses for those at the very bottom, we'd accomplish a lot more good.

bayesianhorse• 12 years ago

The big key to fighting homelessness in the US would be bringing mental health care up to international standards.

And maybe take at least some care for returning veterans who often suffer from PTSD and end up on the streets...

droithomme• 12 years ago

Smaller houses are not a bad trend, but smaller houses are often much less energy efficient due to thinner walls, lighter weight, less thermal mass.

If one does not live in a very temperate area such as Hawaii, this has consequences regarding the cost of heating and cooling that should be considered.

Many poor people for example live in single wide trailers. It is not uncommon for them to have winter heating bills in the range of $500-$1000, completely destroying their income budget and keeping them mired in poverty.

Another factor with small portable homes in particular is that they depreciate and one is almost never able to use them as collateral for a business loan to help their kids or nephews or other family members get started in a self owned business, which is something that is not a problem for those with full size houses. This inability to convert housing investment into investable liquid assets is another problem with small portable housing which keeps the poor poor.

For small houses to lift people from poverty, they would need to be much more energy efficient than they are typically made, unless the owners plan to try to get through the winter without heat.

ChiperSoft• 12 years ago

I don't think the goal here is to lift them from poverty, I think it's just to give them a place to live.

There's no particular reason why a small home would be less energy efficient. I built a 120sqft studio apartment for about $10,000 that was so well insulated that it was actually cold inside during 85° heat.

jmspring• 12 years ago

The biggest local issue will be one of land and infrastructure. I've considered a tiny house as an option for infill granny unit, the "infrastructure" costs were more than the unit itself.

On a wider scale, land and infrastructure really are the keys. A colony of small houses is comparable to an RV/trailer park. Hookups are needed and some will prejudices and stigmas attached.

Curious to see where the movement goes. Locally here in Santa Cruz, some groups are pushing for "sanctuary camps" with no real plan on the land aspect.

rdl• 12 years ago

They recreated the trailer park?

buro9• 12 years ago

I've been homeless and a street-sleeper. In my experience this is a great thing to do, but it is one of many things that needs doing.

On pure housing, a small space is a great shelter, can provide security. But it can also be a trap. It should be viewed as temporary housing only, for a transition period between the streets and the stability and security of a "normal" living space.

It's a trap as it will be used against you, perceived by others as a weakness or reason to treat you differently, to discriminate.

It's a trap as it will impair ones ability to have the essential social mobility to at least get a firm hold on the lower rungs of society.

But it is needed.

And needed in addition to starter-homes, is a supportive community, mental health advice. It isn't enough to give a room with a roof and walk away, by the time someone reaches this point they are dysfunctional and need help figuring out how to function within the society of others. The entire time homeless is a trauma, and a trauma probably preceded it.

A room with a roof is something essential, but the person is likely suffering PTSD and has various other issues.

There is no magic cure to homelessness, but this is one of many small things that can help.

And when I first came off the street, I didn't know what to do. I put a mattress on the floor of the living room, next to a camping stove. The bedroom was a cavern I never visited, the kitchen just a place where there was a tap, and I didn't understand how there could be so much cupboard space. I basically backed into a corner of one room, I couldn't comprehend the space or what I was supposed to do with it. I didn't even have a carpet, and the only seat was ripped from a car. A roof isn't enough unfortunately.

patrickg_zill• 12 years ago

Many municipalities adopt restrictive housing codes.

For instance, you cannot build a house less than X square feet in size.

You must have a lot size of X square feet (or this may be expressed in acres).

The international residential building code, which has some good things in it, but may be overkill for a smaller structure (like the ones mentioned, which are 320sf or less), must be followed.

These sorts of thing force compliance on 2000sf, multi-story dwellings with all kinds of complex systems; but is it needed for a well built but small, glorified storage shed? I would argue, "no".

Are Tiny Houses the Key to Fighting Homelessness?

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