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After delays, California unveils first site of state tiny home project to relieve homelessness (apnews.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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An abandoned office park in Sacramento will be the site of the first group of 1,200 tiny homes to be built in four cities to address California’s homelessness crisis, the governor’s office announced Wednesday after being criticized for the project experiencing multiple delays.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is under pressure to make good on his promise to show he’s tackling the issue. In March, the Democratic governor announced a plan to gift several California cities hundreds of tiny homes by the fall to create space to help clear homeless encampments that have sprung up across the state’s major cities. The $30 million project would create homes, some as small as 120 square feet (11 square meters), that can be assembled in 90 minutes and cost a fraction of what it takes to build permanent housing.

More than 171,000 homeless people live in California, making up about 30% of the nation’s homeless population. The state has spent roughly $30 billion in the last few years to help them, with mixed results.

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[–] 12 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Why tiny homes and not high density housing?

Seems pointlessly inefficient.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    The tiny homes can be put up and taken down quicker from the sounds of the article. Takes the better part of a year to build an apartment building, they can put each of these up in 90 minutes supposedly. Does make me worried for structural integrity but it’s not like California gets severe weather so should be fine.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    Modern Hoovervilles. There is nothing new under the sun, etc. etc. But yes, this is the point, scale up housing quick, get homeless people housed now and try and get them stabilized and back into society.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Tiny homes = concentration camp

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    • [+] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)
    [deleted]
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    [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I thought tiny homes were a good idea until I lived in a couple of them.

    This is a CA project that is wasting money when they could better control rent and ditch air bnb (or make them bend and go back to the niche market).

    This is a stupid idea for a lot of reasons but the most prevalent is that nobody upkeeps their homes properly, do you think they’ll upkeep these?

    The housing crisis is more in depth than “we just need housing” its a systemic problem that keeps getting sidelined.

    Young people STILL can’t afford homes. WHY?

    This isn’t to stabilize things. This is just more bullshit directed by assholes with ZERO IDEAS who are also DEAF.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I thought tiny homes were a good idea until I lived in a couple of them.

    It seems that "tiny home" has a fluid definition. I've seen it used for 120 sq ft homes all the way up to just under 1000 sq ft. The latter measure of just under 650 to 1000 sq ft is close to the size of the hundreds of thousands of starter homes that returning soldiers from WWII that represented the largest boom in private home ownership in US history:

    source

    When developers are usually only building giant single family home outside of the reach of those new to home ownership, the return to these smaller starter homes sounds like a really REALLY good idea! Prior to this there has been almost no homes for sale for someone that is otherwise happy in the space of a one or two bedroom apartment. It meant essentially renting forever in many places in the USA.

    There's a development of tiny homes going up in San Antonio TX that I've been watching that looks really promising.

    350-650 sq ft with starting prices at $140k. That's affordable for many people that have been priced out of those WWII age homes of similar sizes that are going for $250k-$400k today.

    As you've actually lived in a tiny home, I'm interested in your opinion about how these won't work. How big was your tiny home? What makes it unworkable?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Any time I see pictures of narrow SFHs placed so close to each other I have to ask, why they fuck can't we just build row homes in this country? They save energy, space, and create much more living area in the same lot size. Properly designed row homes don't even have issues with noise because they're built with firewalls that are basically the same as outdoor walls between the homes.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    I think for the same reason that people usually prefer single family homes (aka "detached) to shared wall condos. Very little of what you neighbor does will affect you in a single family home. Shared walls means neighbors household neglect (like a roof) can make you have problems. A neighbor that does nothing to keep their home pest free means you're sharing walls (and roaches/mice) with your neighbor and very little you can do about the underlying problem.

    Separated walls means your neighbor's problems don't become your problems.

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    • [–] [B] 1 point 2 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — An abandoned office park in Sacramento will be the site of the first group of 1,200 tiny homes to be built in four cities to address California’s homelessness crisis, the governor’s office announced Wednesday after being criticized for the project experiencing multiple delays.

    But seven months after the announcement, those homes haven’t been built, and the state has yet to award any contracts for builders, the Sacramento Bee reported.

    Newsom’s administration said the state is “moving with unprecedented rate” on the project and will finalize the contracts this month, with plans to break ground at the Sacramento location before the end of the year.

    Officials also pointed to a new law signed by Newsom in July to streamline construction of tiny homes.

    “When it comes to projects like this, it’s just not overnight,” Hafsa Kaka, a senior advisor to Newsom, said at a news conference Wednesday.

    San Jose this month has secured a 7.2-acre lot owned by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority for its 200 homes.

    The original article contains 448 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 62%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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