The big bet on "tiny homes" to fix homelessness | Hacker News Reader

The big bet on "tiny homes" to fix homelessness

vox.com

25 pointsevolve2k49 comments

> Advocates for the homeless, meanwhile, worry that the tiny shelter boom will divert funds that could otherwise go to new permanent housing, preventing people from moving into a real home for even longer. The rush of private industry into the space also gives advocates pause, and they worry that cities will buy bare-bones, cheaper models, place them in remote parts of town, and criminalize those who refuse to go.

There needs to be a circle of hell for those who screw over other people when they insist that "perfect" gets in the way of "good enough to be a first step." If people are sleeping on the streets because the problem isn't getting fixed your way, you're part of the problem. It's Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs here. Step one: get people out of tent encampments and doorways. Step two: get them help to get back on their feet.

These advocates are paid in proportion to how bad the problem is. They're advocating in this way to ensure their income isn't interrupted by solving the problem they're being paid to fix.

As opposed to Dignity Moves, which has no financial interest in this situation?

The issue is that these projects by and large are from tiny home companies fleecing larger public agencies out of public funds. There’s so much corruption at the local government level in California, these municipalities should really not be granted access to so much funding with such a nonspecific mandate tied to it. Apparently when you factor in operating costs and the cost to install these sites, its like $3300 a month you are paying to subsidize living in a small shack on the side of a highway (1). That would get you a 2 bedroom market rate apartment anywhere in the area. Maybe even 3 bedroom.

https://www.curbed.com/2021/04/tiny-home-village-homeless-lo...

But the tiny house landlord explicitly says abusing this is something they will help the city do.

The issue isn't that the private companies providing solutions aren't good enough. Offloading these social services to for-profit companies incentivizes an abuse of the system for profitability quarter after quarter.

They aren't incentivized to end homelessness. They're incentivized to charge local and state governments more money for less service. They're incentivized to place roadblocks for other solutions to be implemented.

I can't speak for other cities, but in my city, our government is putting $90,000,000 towards tearing down one of the largest forests in our area to build a fake city to train police. All while our homeless population explodes & the only shelters available are volunteer-run and rely on donations.

That $90,000,000 could house every homeless person in our city for 23 months, even at our current market rents. That would be more than ample time to provide employment services, therapy/mental health services, and time to build employment history, savings, and rental history to secure future private housing. Imagine what could be done with lower rental rates.

I've seen a few news stories about that project, or skimmed headlines. Assuming this is the one in GA - and a quick DDG search tells me that another entire town down there, toomsboro is for sale for 2 mill..

I wonder what the thinking is.. and I am assuming it goes something like, this city spends a couple mill per year for training.. and this center will bring others here to train so there will be money brought in from outside the city - to the tune of 2 mill a year in tax / travel / etc..

So are they looking at this as an investment to get returns, like how they pitch fball stadiums?

That would be a different calculation than just, an expense for 90 mill - when they could spend X here for this or that..

Not saying any of all that is right or wrong, just saying the issue may need to be framed differently.

I had heard of study in Florida where the cost of homeless on the hospitals and other emergency services were calculated pretty high and if an investment was made for X per year for just housing it would of saved the city or state X power of 10 in money from healthcare spending..

Of course there would be forces opposed to saving money from going into the hospital coffers and what not - but that's a bigger story.

My point is the need for advocates to speak in terms of investment and money saved is money earned, with real dollars and numbers. I am assuming this 'training city' was proposed in such a fashion, and not as en expense.

This is one of America's fundamental ideological and moral turpitudes. There is a lack of integrated, holistic social services that treat people as human beings, with respect, and with genuine concern without first assessing how much money they have or what their needs are. Virtually no social workers go out and ask unhoused people if they're OK or if they need anything. In general, the American attitude blames the individual, divides people, encourages anomie and alienation, abolishes solidarity, frowns on the greater good and commonwealth, and sets lower classes against each other with a cynical, dismissive sentiment like: "If you're poor, then you're trash and don't deserve help because you should help yourself with imaginary bootstraps. So get a job, you lazy, freeloading slob. And don't even complain about being disabled, not having healthcare, mental healthcare, prescription coverage, eyeglass coverage, or dental coverage that most of us wage slaves have to pay for. If you get fired for not having shoes, that's your problem that you should've solved yourself with money and access you don't have."

Disclaimer: I was homeless for 9 years. I also worked MAANGs and major universities off and on.

> There is a lack of integrated, holistic social services that treat people as human beings, with respect, and with genuine concern without first assessing how much money they have or what their needs are.

Yep.

There are people who DO believe and do enact this level of caring, and as a whole our social systems don't.

Trickle down economics is as close as I've seen in my short life to all sides being "for", and that's horrifically insignificant.. justifying to oneself they do in fact care, and they don't need to do anything beyond make money while being in the USA. Close to our overt slavery economy, of hundreds of years ago, IMO.

Part of the problem is that the "advocates", mostly non profits and people in the government, are incentivized to not solve the problem. If homelessness is solved effectively, they all lose their jobs.

Think about it, if you manage to house everyone permanently, you don't need city departments that deal with the homeless, and nor do you need non profits that provide services to the homeless or advocate for them.

As someone with a spouse that works in homeless services, I can assure you that government agencies and everyone employed in them would love it if they could declare an immediate flawless victory where homelessness is entirely eradicated forever. There is no grand “homeless support” complex where people fear losing their jobs if the problem is resolved. These people would be working on the myriad of other social service problems we have instead after the homeless problem is resolved.

> There needs to be a circle of hell for those who screw over other people when they insist that "perfect" gets in the way of "good enough to be a first step."

"Tiny homes" do not solve the particular strain of homelessness that is most visible and are likely to make people angry about funding any real solution in the future. In addition, if you solve the most visible homeless, you reduce pressure on the homeless support systems, and the invisible homeless have a much easier time of it.

Almost 3/4 of the homeless have fairly significant medical issues. You need a free medical facility for them--nothing short of that is going to help. A medical facility for the homeless is expensive, or it devolves into a dystopian nightmare.

The reality is that we know what a lot of the homeless need. We know it is expensive. We choose not to fund or create it because the status quo is so much cheaper.

Our city provides a room in a rooming-house to the stable homeless. So they can have a shower, sit in a common room, lock up their stuff and not worry about thieves (including city teams that clear out shantytowns/ steal from the homeless and create more homelessness. Yes they did that).

Changes everything. Having an address, a place to change, to keep clean clothes makes employment 1000X easier.

Many cities do this, but of the people willing to go, they end up choosing not to for other reasons - usually due to the restrictions on the housing, like no pets or no alcohol.

However, the bigger issue is the population of homeless that refuse to go because they are not of sound mind and are not thinking rationally. Most jurisdictions do not allow them to be compelled or moved involuntarily. And so a large portion of the homeless population will remain until that particular hurdle is addressed.

Not advocating for them to be arrested or sectioned - just trying to highlight something that is often overlooked.

> the bigger issue is the population of homeless that refuse to go because they are not of sound mind and are not thinking rationally.

This is an emotionally appealing explanation for many - "we can't help them, they're just crazy" - but I've had a hard time finding evidence for it. Do you know of some study that supports this idea?

I don't have a study at hand to provide, but I've lived in a major US city for 17 years and when this topic inevitably comes up for debate in public forums, somebody asks why we can't just force these people to go into the shelters or housing that already exist. Most of the time, local governments have their hands tied.

Also, at least in my area, there isn't nearly enough shelter space to accommodate them. The number of beds available is less than 10% of the number of homeless people.

A local city did a more thorough than usual count of local homeless to better asses what the situation was and improve some resources. They expected about 50 homeless people, give or take.

They counted over 250.

I don't think the message is "we can't help them", I think the message is "those people need a different, additional kind of help".

I have no study that supports what I'm about to say, so anecdata and all that... but I've been working with the homeless on the street for years now. My observations with this particular area is that about 3/4ths of them have crippling psychological/emotional problems that are the primary cause of their homelessness.

There is a large population of "invisible" homeless who do not live on the street (so you wouldn't encounter them) but do not have stable housing.

They live in cars, on friend's couches, and sometimes in tents or abandoned buildings. They are the easiest to help, but helping them does not help a city's "homelessness problem", because they are not the homeless that people see. They are the "unproblematic" homeless.

Well, I do see and interact with the ones living in cars, tents, and abandoned buildings -- but you're right, the spectrum of homeless is wide, and I am limiting myself to a specific subset. I'm very well aware that the subset I'm not addressing do exist, though.

I can’t point you to it, but I have seen a survey that was done of homeless in one city. One third had untreated mental health problems. One third were substance addicted. I assume there was some overlap in those two groups but it wasn’t addressed in the numbers I saw.

Untreated mental illness and substance abuse problems could cause someone to be not of sound mind to the extent they irrationally refuse help, but they’re not synonymous with it.

To me the implausible claim is not that some homeless people are not of sound mind to the extent they refuse any and all help, but that there’s a significant number of them. It’s especially implausible given that homelessness varies so much by area and is linked to housing costs.

The study of me walking down the street and crossing paths with a homeless man throwing a brick into the street, chasing after it, and throwing it again, all while screaming obscenities to himself.

Watching dozens and dozens of hours of SWUB made me come to the sad conclusion that a sizeable portion of the homeless population (at least in LA), simply just prefer a life of getting high and living on the street.

Homelessness seems to be a perpetual problem of "You can bring a horse water, but you cannot make it drink".

Even if that's the case, it's still better to get the people who want to get off the street into housing. Then you can move onto specific solutions for other people.

Every single one of them wants to get off the street. Doing drugs in a house is way better than on the street.

That's the rub - society doesn't want the homeless dragging their vices into these homes. So the homeless just stay on the street where they can do whatever they want.

Which do you prefer: Living clean on the street where you get to experience the complete dehumanization afforded to you by millions of wealthy people blaming you for things completely out of control, harassed daily by cops, looked down upon by the majority of people, and generally treated worse than a wild dog, where any time you try to find a place out of anyone's hair enough to get a little privacy or silence or safety, cops come and steal your shit and tell you to get lost, and MAYBE have a SMALL chance of being helped by barebones social programs that are underfunded, under-cared for, and often straight up attacked for dumb political reasons, and take literally all day every day worth of effort to keep up with, and anytime you suffer a sweep you probably get set back in whatever process hell you were in the middle of, all so you can get a few sympathy bucks to not literally starve to death, or a cot in a big room full of much scarier people (I know formerly homeless people, american shelters are hell and can be just as dangerous as staying on the street)

Scrounging for a couple bucks today so you can get a fix and spend the day mostly zonked out of your mind, and not enduring literal psychological torture.

I have empathy for those who supposedly "don't want" to go clean. Maybe, we could give them some absolute minimum humanity and decency before asking them to give up the one thing that allows them to escape literal torture of a process and state that exists the way it does entirely to scare poor people into working themselves to death to at least have a legal residence and not be on the street.

I would suggest you actually watch the interviews with these people and the interviews with Mark (who makes the videos).

I will re-emphasize "You can bring a horse water, you cannot make it drink". To us it's unfathomable, drinking water is so good and important, so the problem seems simple. Just give them water. But it seems that there is some contingent of society who just does not like to drink water. Even if you give them pristine water and a safe place to drink it (as mark regularly does).

If you needed to fix homelessness, the way to do it would be to round everyone up and force them into a program. Like a nice camp with food, housing, recreation, counseling, and no drugs. No drugs.

The key word here is force. But you cannot do that. They are adults and ultimately they control what they do. So you give them the option, and inevitably they just chose to stay on the street. Mark has lamented endlessly about this.

Incorrect;

Only 30% of homeless are chronically homeless;

> Chronic homelessness is used to describe people who have experienced homelessness for at least a year — or repeatedly — while struggling with a disabling condition such as a serious mental illness, substance use disorder, or physical disability.

In 2019 this was down to 8%.

https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/who-expe...

I love these tiny home blocks, they feel like a great first step; however, every article about a solution to homelessness seems to brush a bigger problem under the rug: zoning laws.

One route to fixing homelessness on a bigger scale is to repeal zoning laws. Until local politicians and their constituents start to edit their zoning laws (and therefore lower the cost of housing and other civic projects), most 'solutions' to the homelessness crisis will remain bandaids and not cures.

If anyone here knows of any recents attempts/successes in this area, I would love to read them. I hate zoning laws and enjoy seeing them ripped down

It's not going to happen. The solution is to not be poor.

Even the most die-hard bleeding heart charity obsessed liberal is still voting for their home to keep up it's appreciation rate.

This is not accurate. In my city, we've rolled all that back.

The FCC did a lot to block zoning in cell phone tower placement and federal regulators should find a way to intervene here too. Meeting a primary basic need seems a bit more important than perfect 911 coverage to me.

You seem to get downvoted, but I completely agree. Not from US, but from western Europe and here it's in essence the same. The problem is not building these homes, everybody can do that. The problem is you're not allowed to live like this.

The issue is city governments don't want tiny homes. They want the large mcmansions on the outskirts/suburbs and highrises in the city. These are more expensive so they generate more property tax.

Builders don't want to make a 150k home when the initial costs (mainly time) takes the same amount as a 400k home. So builders themselves don't want to build starter homes anymore too.

Municipal government are starting to realize the costs of suburbs filled with "mcmansions" because the "they generate more property tax" is not true when taking into account the amount of resources they consume and the infrastructure which they require.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...

Still, many tiny homes projects are unlikely to be generating tax at all, at least those run by the charitable sector. However they can significantly reduce municipal and provincial spending on the needs of caring for the unhoused population. So they are likely to be a net benefit to government budgets.

AGreed, not saying either/or on the tiny homes, just why they don't happen naturally without some group trying to make them happen.

As for SFHs in the surburbs, there are alot more variables to take into account, especially where do people esp families geniunly want to live. I don't see cities and families co-existing.

the strongtowns website gives me strong "you will own nothing and be happy" vibes anytime they come across my feed.

We need this kind of housing option for everyone who wants it, and TFA has a nice section on this topic.

I happily lived in a 64sqft dwelling for years surfing at the beach. I would have lived in the same tiny box to get close to a good job in my favorite cities if that's all I could afford.

NIMBYism and turd-tier US urban planning are so exhausting.

Tiny homes are a vanity driven "false solution". It's massively easier (for the homeless and the tax payer) by simply building programs that prevent homelessness.

In fact there's an entire cottage industry around taking public money, shuffling it through a hundred non-profits, resulting in a few pathetic sheds. (I'm looking at you SF).

If you directly assist people who are at risk of becoming homeless, there's no room for your political cronies to get a kickback.

I feel that I'm going to get fiercely downvoted for expressing this but I always felt that a realistic and cost-constrained solution for homelessness would look a lot more similar to a prison than to a lavish suburb.

There are several problems to solve and prisons do it to the best of their capabilities, being also constrained by the population housed inside:

- Cost of operation must be minimized. Comfort and space is a luxury for people who can afford it. When the state needs to provide it for a large number of inmates, small rooms with little privacy is all that's possible. There's a vast difference between a Swedish prison and one in Antananarivo and eventually it all reduces to available budget. It's not like Madagascar wouldn't like to have Swedish prison conditions, they just can't afford it. In fact by reductio ad absurdum if they would DO have Swedish prison conditions they'd probably have a problem keeping people out, not in :)

- Food would follow the same typology. Expect prison / hospital / army level food rather than Michelin 3 stars restaurant quality.

- Unlike a "normal" neighborhood, expect a much higher percent of troublesome population. Mental illness, disability, substance abuse, violent behavior that is. So the problem is not just housing these people, is providing protection not just from the natural elements but from their own kind. Communities like this simply cannot function as regular suburbs, they probably need to be policed and controlled if not like a prison at least like a psychiatric institution.

Before jumping at my throat like rabied dogs for daring to propose such a revolting solution rather than build lavish villas to each homeless person on "money taken from the rich", in fact let's build TWO MANSIONS for each person! (I'm being sarcastic if you haven't noticed)... think a bit that it's better than sleeping on the streets, particularly winter streets. And people would be free to leave and live as they wish ... if they can afford something better nothing's stopping them. For some unfortunately, this might be their entire existence so needs to be made as endurable as possible but they need to be realizable realistically and not just dreams of utopias just so we can go to sleep without actually doing anything.

There’s a lot of space between “lavish villa” and “literally lock people up.” SRO hotels, for instance.

cost-constrained solution for homelessness would look a lot more similar to a prison than to a lavish suburb

Why wouldn't this just devolve into a slum? I went to a military academy boarding school, and the largest barricks building on campus took on some of the qualities of a slum on the weekends, to the point where some adults would have some trepidation entering it.

The problem with institutional solutions like this, is that they concentrate the problematic and traumatic elements. What if homeless people were dispersed in normalized environments that could absorb and dilute the problematic or traumatic elements in their lives? (With some additional professional supervision and help, of course.)

Well, normal environments cost a lot of money. A shit ton of money. You know how much an 80 square meters apartment costs in Paris? 1 million euro.

Normal people can't afford "normalized environments", let alone handing them to the homeless.

And secondly, have I mentioned that a lot of these people aren't normal? Have you lived in a neighborhood near these mentally ill people? I lived and I moved. I could afford to since I was renting and it wasn't worth having these psychos around. And there was just one of them nearby, let alone having more of them concentrated.

Well, normal environments cost a lot of money. A shit ton of money. You know how much an 80 square meters apartment costs in Paris? 1 million euro.

There are cheaper places in France and the US.

Have you lived in a neighborhood near these mentally ill people?

Yes. In SF, outside our apartment window, two different homeless at different times would sometimes stand on the nearby corner and scream at their demons.

And there was just one of them nearby, let alone having more of them concentrated.

Note that I was advocating the opposite of having them concentrated.

>Food would follow the same typology. Expect prison / hospital / army level food rather than Michelin 3 stars restaurant quality

You get voted down because your implication is that current systems are expensive because people are supposedly too stupid to make cheap food on a budget for a large audience.

Have you ever even stepped foot in a soup kitchen? Have you looked in a shelter? I don't know how you expect to house people cheaper than "50 cots in an open warehouse".

How does making the box cheaper solve the fact that for the majority of homeless people, the land the box is on is the cost factor that prevents them from scrounging up legal residence? They already have tents, if they could put them somewhere legally they would! That's the entire problem for the ones that "don't want" the "help" of all these stupid "solutions".

My city conducted a "sweep" (read: stole all the stuff from our homeless people and threw it in a dumpster and just otherwise harassed them) of a homeless camp that was situated on a highway off-ramp. Now that area is empty, unused, and completely devoid of a point. What the heck was the concern? It wasn't a crime hotspot, it wasn't building up trash, it's completely distant from any business or facility that could be "annoyed" by a homeless camp, it was just a perfectly good use of public property.

Where the fuck should they go then? There aren't enough beds in the shelter, and the shelter isn't even close to the social services they need. I'm so tired of people doing everything they can to apologize for destroying human beings for being inconvenient. "Oh but they do drugs in public and make trash and they poop in the open"

Okay, I've just taken away your legal residence and your bank accounts. Where the fuck do YOU poop?

[Advocates for the homeless] worry that cities will buy bare-bones, cheaper models, place them in remote parts of town, and criminalize those who refuse to go.

[Tiny homes] may provide cities with the legal authority to then clear out any remaining tent encampments: Funk told me she can determine “exactly how many units you need in order to make it illegal to sleep on the streets within the city limits in San Francisco.”

"Advocates for the homeless are worried cities might abuse this; cities and tiny home sellers, meanwhile, are openly salivating to abuse it"? This seems less like a, uh, "big bet" and more like yet another excuse to waste money and harass the homeless.

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