I've wanted to do something similar, and I remember reading on reddit that communal garages are very common on military bases...but in the real world, the greatest barrier I can see is insurance, primarily liability insurance. The potential liabilities, especially if you are a "shadetree" mechanic without some sort of recognized certification, are huge. Waivers cannot cover everything (including gross negligence.) I really wish the article had covered how he structured things; maybe he's simply banking on not having anything worth going after?
There's the liability not just from the repairs but from having volunteers using tools and lifts.
On a moral front: I'm very experienced with car repair, and while I have done things like brake jobs for street and track cars - it's me in the driver's seat in those cars. I wouldn't do a brake job for a friend beyond maybe a pad and rotor change, mostly because I couldn't bear the thought of my fucking up something and it resulting in someone being hurt.
Efforts like this are commendable, but what we really need to work on is putting back the public transit infrastructure that used to be in this country, and making it not only possible to walk and bike, but safe to do so, in terms of infrastructure and enforcement of vehicle standards and traffic laws that hold people more legally responsible if they are at fault when injuring or hurting others.
The automotive industry acclimating us to the notion that you can get away with injuring someone in a car crash you caused without any criminal penalty is the greatest wool-pull-over on the American public in probably the history of our country. Ditto for establishing the precedent that the identity of someone inside a metal box with partially reflective (and likely even tinted) windows in order to hold them responsible.
Why? As the article points out:
> Automobile culture is a system in which individuals privately shoulder the cost of public economic life. If your car fails in Alabama — and you cannot get to work, the grocery store, or school — your life begins to fail. It’s a system that perpetuates poverty.
If he really wants to help people, getting them on e-bikes, if it's practical to do so, would be a huge money savings for them. The vast majority of the US population lives in urbanized areas, and the vast majority of vehicle trips in the US are well under 5 miles. The "need" for cars is entirely artificial in much of our country and it is due to conscious choices by transportation planners and politicians to make infrastructure hostile to people not in a car.
I think the break-event point for a $1-1.5k ebike, which is a pretty damn nice ebike, is probably less than a thousand miles of driving a car (going off the IRS 50 cents/mile deduction) particularly an older one that doesn't get good mileage. Even if you've got a Prius, in gas costs alone the payback is under a year presuming you drive 20k miles/year.