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South LA resident Elvis Summers only got started building tiny homes in 2015, but his work has received a tremendous amount of attention since then. Last year, his colorful little dwellings—built for members of the city's growing homeless population—began popping up on sidewalks and freeway overpasses around the city.
A successful crowdfunding campaign, helped by a feature in People, brought in nearly $100,000 to finance the homes. In February, however, citing health and safety concerns, city officials began confiscating the houses. Eventually, after a run of bad press, the city gave the houses back to Summers.
Since the city tightened its unattended property ordinance, however, Summers has been forced to find private property on which to keep the homes. In spite of this complication, he's continued with his project, and has begun constructing mobile shower units as well. We checked in with him to see how his work is coming along.
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They're roughly six feet wide by eight feet long and about seven feet tall inside. There's two windows on each side. Every house has a steel reinforced door, American flag and address, smoke detectors, alarms on the windows, solar panel on the roof—which powers two lightbulbs and has a port to charge a cellphone—brand new carpet, and I provide everyone with a compost toilet.
Tiny houses and homelessness are not usual Soylent topics, but DIY (Do It Yourself) projects are. Are DIY projects like this a better way to tackle our challenges as a society than waiting for the government to take care of them?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday September 27 2016, @02:05AM
The reason housing projects end up the way they do is that they are a half assed minimal approach to the problem. There's a reason it's called the ghetto. Give them just enough to not actually revolt and burn civilization down, but make sure they don't have enough to actually pull themselves up and join the larger society..
So why do so many join a gang? Because that's who's hiring.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday September 27 2016, @02:24AM
Not just that. They're paying LIVING WAGES, and in fact, much higher than LIVING WAGES.
Even if Wallmart were hiring, why go work for them knowing you're being exploited by elite bastards for lower than Living Wage pay? Why get a job only to need to walk down the government offices and get your welfare check anyways? Not only that, you can be punished for working by losing benefits you can't afford to live without. You can get off welfare and benefits, but not make enough to survive. There is a very unfortunate portion of the wage spectrum where you're too high to receive the benefits you need from the state, and too low to afford the benefits you need by paying yourself.
Joining a gang and committing crimes is one of the few ways to achieve Living Wages that are afforded to people in the ghettos. You could afford health care as a cash payer, never worry about not eating steak again, and basically pay your fucking bills. On top of that, you get the nice toys.
People in the ghetto aren't stupid either. They know that crime pays after watching the government and Wall Street do it, and the only difference between their crimes and the crimes of the elites, is that the elites paid for the government to make their crimes legal, to make their crimes too-big-to-prosecute.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday September 27 2016, @03:24AM
Yes, exactly. Not to mention they get respect. Perhaps not the good kind of respect, but a lot more respect than they will get from any manager or customer at Walmart. And nobody looking down on them when they buy their groceries with cash.