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San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

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Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#31

Post by _0w8t »

usaphp wrote: post #22
grecy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is truly sad that in by far the richest country in the world, and ostensibly the best, millions of people are living this way. Why on earth Americans are not fixing America, I have no idea.

Well just look at the president candidates for the most powerful and richest country in the world. How is that possible that in a whole country of many smart people these two individuals could get someone's votes.

I see it as a proof that president in US does not matter regarding domestic policies.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#33

Post by Roboprog »

grecy wrote: post #30
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that America makes a lot more sense when you think of it as a country run by rich people, with a whole lot of workers. For the rich, this place is amazing. The rich have all the political power, so this makes sense. You'd think the working class has political power but their opinions are controlled by the wealthy. So for the people running America, there's nothing to fix. The system is designed to produce…

> I've found that America makes a lot more sense when you think of it as a country run by rich people, with a whole lot of workers. For the rich, this place is amazing. That's an excellent insight, and it agrees with my experience. When I lived there I was earning minimum wage, as were all my (local) friends and I was not impressed. Friends who needed surgery could not afford it, could not afford car insurance, etc.…

I think there are often several candidates in the primary election for any given office (not just president) that would like to, but it only takes one stalking horse funded by the rich in either party to ad-bomb the election, fragment the vote between the better alternatives, and rake in a plurality of the votes for the win.

There are probably several ways around that, but why change it, since the system is "working"?

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#34

Post by ocschwar »

Chronic9q wrote: post #17
uxcn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle has set up more than one tiny house village [1], at least that I know of. Some of them even have internet access. We still have a very real homeless problem though, and you'll see panhandlers if you drive through the city. People have even set up camps along I-5. [1] http://www.kiro7.com/news/seattles-first-tiny-house-village-...

Do democratic/left/liberal states generate or attract more homelessness? Seems to happen with many other liberal city hubs.

Red states have a habit of having the police "suggest" to homeless people that they should get on the Greyhound bus to places like SF and Seattle.

And add to that the factor of both cities have weather that doesn't kill the homeless as quickly.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#35

Post by h4nkoslo »

A cluster of "tiny homes" is indistinguishable from a "trailer park".

There are actually very nice trailer parks / prefab house / mobile home communities, that cater to specific populations (especially retirement communities). They have a bad reputation in general because of the modal kind of person who inhabits them, not some sort of inherent characteristic of the construction style.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#36

Post by Roboprog »

mmmBacon wrote: post #20
ljf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Brit and a left leaning type, it baffles me to see America. From talking to friends who live there (I won't pretend I know fully) but it seems between income, state and property taxes you guys pay a lot. Add in health care and it seems you pay in line with or above many European countries. Yet with your society's wealth there seems a resistance to supporting your own people, and almost actively seeking to add to…

We pay almost 50% in taxes which I think is close to what you guys pay in Europe. The lions share goes to Washington where as far as I can tell it either evaporates or gets spent on very expensive jobs programs like the F-35. Our states do a better job generally and provide the bulk of the services. However in many cities and states the budgets are consumed by pensions leaving less for services each year. A person wh…

I'm not disagreeing with everything you said, BUT, most pension plans I have seen only pay about 1 to 2 percent of your (ending) salary per year of service, which means something in the range of 20 to 40 percent of your ending salary when you retire, rather than 80 percent. I'd really like to know about this "4% per year of service" job, so I could apply :-)

However, the part about "pay spiking" by taking on a more difficult or higher cost of living locaiton, but higher paying, job in the last 2 or 3 years, is very true. It would probably make more sense to average your entire career.

It's a shame private companies don't offer pensions anymore, but I guess that was just a thing for my grandparent's generation.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#37

Post by imh »

gok wrote: post #24
ljf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Brit and a left leaning type, it baffles me to see America. From talking to friends who live there (I won't pretend I know fully) but it seems between income, state and property taxes you guys pay a lot. Add in health care and it seems you pay in line with or above many European countries. Yet with your society's wealth there seems a resistance to supporting your own people, and almost actively seeking to add to…

Americans complain about taxes more than perhaps any other people from a rich nation, but we frankly don't pay that much. The OECD average is about 35% of GDP. The UK pays right about that. The US pays ~27% of GDP. And of course even with that relatively small amount of revenue, a lot of it goes to uniquely American spending schemes like defense or NASA, both of which are vastly better funded than their European equi…

Does that include state taxes?

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#39

Post by ralusek »

gok wrote: post #24
ljf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Brit and a left leaning type, it baffles me to see America. From talking to friends who live there (I won't pretend I know fully) but it seems between income, state and property taxes you guys pay a lot. Add in health care and it seems you pay in line with or above many European countries. Yet with your society's wealth there seems a resistance to supporting your own people, and almost actively seeking to add to…

Americans complain about taxes more than perhaps any other people from a rich nation, but we frankly don't pay that much. The OECD average is about 35% of GDP. The UK pays right about that. The US pays ~27% of GDP. And of course even with that relatively small amount of revenue, a lot of it goes to uniquely American spending schemes like defense or NASA, both of which are vastly better funded than their European equi…

Percentage of GDP sounds like an insane way to measure tax rate for individuals.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#40

Post by toast0 »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #8

Are the building codes really so restrictive as to prevent building housing for homeless people without ignoring them?

I think the intent here is to provide a very basic shelter, basically a place to sleep, without a kitchen or a bathroom. I assume there would shared bathroom facilities on site.

Building (or other) codes generally require private bathrooms and kitchen areas in new residential construction.

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