B.C.'s tiny houses show big promise for homeless

[inanna]

FRANCES BULA
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED 14 HOURS AGO

When homeless people in Duncan, B.C., were asked two years ago how they’d like to live, they said a small cluster of simple sleeping cabins would be great. That way, they’d have a few others around for some protection but not so many that it would become a chaotic, unregulated camp.

So that’s what affordable housing advocate John Horn decided he would push to create as Duncan’s homelessness crisis accelerated last year during the pandemic.

Last Friday, 12 people moved into the first cluster of little sleeping cabins that Mr. Horn had built on a downtown city parking lot. The eight-foot-by-eight-foot rooms have a window, a door, a plug, an electric baseboard heater and a bed. Another two clusters are in progress. Cost: a little less than $7,000 a cabin.

That idea is the latest advance in the effort to tackle homelessness, as even temporary modular housing, seen a few years ago as a revolutionary new approach, is now viewed as too expensive and too slow to build given the disaster unfolding in many cities.

...

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-bcs-tiny-houses-show-big-promise-for-homeless/

ETA: there are a few photos at link.

[Me.]

1. KR

[Karadeniz]

2. Is our govt trying to do anything for these people besides declaring them illegal occupants and

Trying to push them out of sight?

[OldBaldy1701E]

7. Nope.

We have 3 billion dollars to give Israel. We spend 57% of our entire budget on the military. Yet we have homeless and hungry on our streets. The streets of 'the most prosperous nation on earth'. Makes me sick.

[Karadeniz]

8. Really no excuse.

[LazySusanNot]

3. An idea who's time is way past due

Last edited Sat Jan 30, 2021, 04:28 PM - Edit history (1)

Thanks for posting this. Previous efforts I've read about seem to really help pull some of these folks out of their circumstance. I also read about a plan in LA where they built Container Housing as one of many solutions to this difficult problem.
Link to the article: [link:https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/18/us/los-angeles-homeless-shipping-container-home-trnd/index.html|
Shipping containers in Los Angeles becoming homes for the homeless

"Recycled shipping containers are a cheaper alternative and faster way to provide much-needed housing to homeless families and veterans, and others who may be experiencing hard times, including during the coronavirus pandemic."

Our youngest son is looking at building a retirement house in the near future. He's very interested in the potential that Container Housing offers at what some tout as "half the construction cost of a standard stick built residence". Not sure if that's true but it certainly is food for thought.

[inanna]

4. I actually really like the shipping container idea.

For myself!

I'd want one of the larger ones though. Fix it up over time and place it someplace half decent, for retirement.

The longer I live in this world, the more attractive these alternative forms of housing are becoming to me.

[LazySusanNot]

5. Yes, I agree. It's an exciting concept

We would never have considered this in years past when they were just feeling their way through the technique. Several years later they have made some strides. In the old days, you had to be content to some degree with a series of 8 ft. wide by 8 ft. tall by 20 or 40 feet long as the basis for the design. Different styles of container are being used now that give you a lot of design and layout options including 16 ft. widths instead of just 8 ft. My favorites are the ones where they set the containers at some distance apart from each other thereby creating large open span living areas. Add roof trusses above and you're there!

[Wednesdays]

6. When I first saw the headline, I thought it was