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LA Man Builds Dozens of Tiny Houses for Homeless Residents

posted by takyon on Monday September 26 2016, @08:48PM   
from the small-change dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

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?

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Original Submission

• Compost toiletsCompost toilets (Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday September 27 2016, @12:16PM

  by Arik (4543) on Tuesday September 27 2016, @12:16PM (#406918) Journal

  This is not the first time recently I've seen them deployed in ways that just boil me over. He's building a tiny 6x8 house and he puts a compost toilet in it? Has he ever used one? WTF?
  
  The other place I saw this recently was in India. They deployed thousands of these things in the homes of villagers all over India, and of course the villagers mostly refuse to use them. I would too!
  
  You don't put a compost toilet in your home, that's crazy. You use it once and your home will stink like shit forever after. Compost toilets are not the same as flush toilets. Before we used flush toilets in this country, we used compost toilets, and they were uniformly placed as I suggest - in "outhouses" - for exactly this reason.
  
  That's doubly true when the home in question is so tiny to begin with. What are these people thinking?
  
  

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• Re:Compost toiletsRe:Compost toilets (Score: 2) by joshuajon on Tuesday September 27 2016, @01:38PM

  by joshuajon (807) on Tuesday September 27 2016, @01:38PM (#406937)

  Have you actually used one? A friend's household (of ~6 adults) has had a single compost toilet for 3 or 4 years. It doesn't smell if used properly.

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  • Re:Compost toilets(Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday September 27 2016, @02:14PM

    by Arik (4543) on Tuesday September 27 2016, @02:14PM (#406953) Journal

    Yeah I have, and I think you're sort of right, with light usage and constant maintenance the stink can be kept pretty minimal, but lots of things work well under ideal circumstances. But you should plan on less than ideal and a compost toilet inside the house, particularly such a small one, doesn't seem like such a bright idea. If I had one I'd probably try to keep it functional in case of emergencies but I'd be hiking to the grocery store and using their toilet instead whenever practical.

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    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

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