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Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

nytimes.com

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Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#151

Post by lukas099 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #61
jackblemming wrote: post #17

If the rich have their way we’re all going to be living like this within a few decades. Probably even worse.

Cities can't politically organize to build housing because the payoff is after any of the politicians being in office. It's too long term. You'd think developers would be the most powerful lobby in terms of local politics. But the collective defense of housing value inflation is almost stronger than social security in terms of uniting boomers

I'm starting to think that sometimes the biggest, strongest developers actually support and benefit from the policies that make it harder for mom and pop developers to build.

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#152

Post by lukas099 »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #129

While I appreciate the sentiment, can America move on from these "solutions" for unhoused people? This is more like a 21st century garden hermit situation [1]. They don't have plumbing or kitchens, they're effectively Home Depo garden sheds. It's vastly cheaper and more humane to prevent homelessness in the first place via rent control and allowing more housing to be built. It's not flashy or sexy, but it's actually…

> rent control

A displacement-prevention measure, not a housing affordability measure

> allowing more housing to be built

That's what they are doing, building houses, and you are pushing against it. You may not like the houses, but they are the best available option for many people, as proven by the fact that they are choosing to live there.

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#153

Post by lukas099 »

closeparen wrote: post #25

You can certainly have a housing crisis of the form that incomes are too low relative to the construction materials and labor involved in normal amounts of built square footage using normal methods. Most urban housing crises, though, are about increasingly stiff competition for land. Only the vertical axis can save you there.

Austin is nowhere near its potential for infill development, though.

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#154

Post by lukas099 »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #48
akira2501 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just like communism in that it entirely ignores the needs and capacity of an individual and makes them slaves to the idealism of the state. They're no better than a homeless encampment because you can't give people a house and then expect them to act like a homeowner overnight. It was the wrong problem to solve, and I think people rush to solve it out of self conscious guilt and a desire to quickly make the _app…

I have found that many people who receive housing benefits are very poor stewards of their personal resources. The first thing someone does when they get housed is to invite all their homeless friends over, to shower, to eat, to crash, to do drugs, to play games, whatever. So your typical Section 8 housing recipient is not just a single person/family benefiting from housing, they're dragging in their entire circle of…

So your saying that even more people are being housed? I guess we need more Section 8!

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#155

Post by lukas099 »

cpursley wrote: post #88
pyuser583 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Housing First” is such a bit like communism - perfect in theory. The problem is you need “second” and “third” things too, and the political will often just doesn’t exist. I lived near a “housing first” facility that was no better than a homeless encampment.

I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum as communist but let’s be honest, the well run communist regimes got all their people housed, and quickly. The real answer is not tiny homes, it’s prefabricated apartment blocks that can be put up cheaply (in master planned super blocks where people can walk to stores and work).

It's hard to imagine a socialist solution working in the context of the United States of America, though. The more viable solution in this context is allowing the free market to build abundant housing.

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#156

Post by lukas099 »

mulmen wrote: post #6
TexanFeller wrote: post #2

Looks like this housing is built outside of town, so it might actually work! One things cities do wrong is trying to house homeless people near downtown. It's dramatically more expensive to do it there, so there will never be enough housing or will to pay for it. The housing that was built for "low income artists to be able to live here" was even more of a joke. A bunch of condos downtown that were priced uncomfortab…

Hmm, when I hear “artist housing” I always assumed they meant “interesting people who make music and maybe paint”. But “interesting” is too subjective to be real. Freestyle watercolor is no foundation of an economy. We should not judge other humans by their ability to make rent. Some of my best friends struggle to do that. But for a city making rent is all that really matters. They don’t care if you literally create…

> So, do city planners look at “artists” as a revenue stream?

Absolutely, especially if you include tourism, which you should. Look at Asheville, NC.

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#157

Post by lukas099 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #127
mulmen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, when I hear “artist housing” I always assumed they meant “interesting people who make music and maybe paint”. But “interesting” is too subjective to be real. Freestyle watercolor is no foundation of an economy. We should not judge other humans by their ability to make rent. Some of my best friends struggle to do that. But for a city making rent is all that really matters. They don’t care if you literally create…

Artist housing usually happens accidentally. Like some city overbuilds and suffers a real estate crash, or Detroit. It could also be a shutdown factory complex that doesn’t make for very good housing but works for artists (like 798 in Beijing)…until it becomes popular enough to gentrify and prices the artists out again.

Is Detroit currently an artist city? It makes sense because of what you said, but I just haven't heard that before.

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#158

Post by lukas099 »

faeriechangling wrote: post #118
at_a_remove wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about this last night, what with people currently obsessing over "walkable cities." First, we need to understand why some people don't really like dense housing. Let me try a rough list without a great deal of order. Noise, smells, having to not make noise, crime, vermin infestation, inability to re-shape the property, the lack of permanence (you can be kicked out) ... that's a good starter. Some of th…

All of those are good points. Living high density sucks. The thing is, something has gotta give. It’s simply not possible for everybody to have a front yard and backyard and standalone dwelling. Density is likely the lesser evil.

> Living high density sucks.

Sounds like "no one goes there anymore, it's too crowded". Obviously the high-density places are providing something, or they wouldn't be high-density.

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#159

Post by lukas099 »

at_a_remove wrote: post #92
cglan wrote: post #12

Definitely not against this, since any housing is good, and I hate letting perfect be the enemy of good, but not sure why we are so intent on scaling the concept of a single family home down to 200sqft. Townhouses in NYC have existed for over a hundred years, and generally across the world are an extremely viable concept for dense and cheap housing. It's perfectly possible to build cheap townhomes that can house 6 or…

I was thinking about this last night, what with people currently obsessing over "walkable cities." First, we need to understand why some people don't really like dense housing. Let me try a rough list without a great deal of order. Noise, smells, having to not make noise, crime, vermin infestation, inability to re-shape the property, the lack of permanence (you can be kicked out) ... that's a good starter. Some of th…

A couple problems.

1) We not only can, but we do build high-quality multifamily housing. Not enough, but then again we're not building enough of any kind of housing

2) Sure, some people don't like dense housing, but it's obviously preferable to the alternative for a lot of people, otherwise not so many people would live there.

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