SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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.
...
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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @09:21PM
I read many of the linked articles and some others. My understanding is not complete yet, but...
It seems the original intent was to build small communities on private properties out of these. They can be moved and maintained easily to allow deployment in different places as needed. They are not intended to be permanent; they are intended to be the first stage to stabilizing a homeless person's return to normal life.
From my reading, apparently this did not go as intended. They were not able to arrange for the small communities on the expected timetable. The houses were instead deployed in other places where it was legal (or rather, not illegal at least) to do so- mostly out of the way places, under bridges, etc. I didn't see a solid reason for this (maybe they were already made, and they were burning to try them out?). Some policemen went confiscated a few, though the police chief said they wouldn't be doing this too aggressively. I didn't see mention of where they were situated- possible they were in less-good positions? Alternatively, some police officers figured this would be a feather in their caps, and did this themselves. The media got ahold of the story and the police returned them.