California will spend $30M to build 1,200 tiny homes to combat homelessness | Hacker News Reader

California will spend $30M to build 1,200 tiny homes to combat homelessness

businessinsider.com

9 pointsharambae11 comments

Sheds. These are sheds. at 25 grand a piece some private contractor is going to make a killing.

These numbers seem....unproductive. 25k per house? A quick google has California's homeless population at 115k. This seems like it doesn't scale well?

On the flipside, as much as my heart goes out to whoever would live in those 1200 homes, does 1200 really do anything? Feels like spending 30 million taxpayer dollars on positive PR.

I know one of the biggest problems for homeless people getting a job is not having an address. I suspect that once someone had a job they could pay for the house or move to a better one so you could get more housing for others down the line.

just getting some one to living paycheck to paycheck is a huge win.

If that's true, it seems like free PO boxes would've been a cheaper and more impactful solution?

I agree with your sentiment, and my intention is not to cut costs, but instead maximize impact. Getting as many homeless people as many options as possible is the win to me.

Is your position that nothing should be done unless it is known beforehand that it will address some certain percentage of the problem?

Or like change your statement to be about housing in general. Tens of millions of people in housing that costs $300,000 per family? Doesn't sound like it scales.

> Is your position that nothing should be done unless it is known beforehand that it will address some certain percentage of the problem?

I think it makes sense to try to maximize dollars spent vs. impact made. 30 million dollars is a lot of money, whereas 1200 is literally 1% of the overall homeless population in California. What's the goal of this program? Do 1200 "houses" really move the needle? Is 25k per "house" really scalable?

Or is this just burning tax dollars on PR?

> Or like change your statement to be about housing in general. Tens of millions of people in housing that costs $300,000 per family? Doesn't sound like it scales.

If we move the needle enough on what we're discussing nothing makes sense. My question was basically "How does this actually positively impact the homelessness problem in California?". And the answer seems to be "It doesn't really".

Or they could build 900 economy-grade single wide trailers, but that would be too dignified..?

Why do you think trailers are better than mini houses?

Because a trailer has a bathroom and a kitchen and these are sheds?

Something like that was done in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and apparently worked out ok:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadaville,_Louisiana

Does that include the cost of land?

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