The difference in this project in New Brunswick, in Canada, is this...The man who is building the tiny homes, also owns the land on which they are being located. The city is 100 percent behind the project, too. He has installed all of the utility services such as electrical power, water, sewers , natural gas supply for cooking and heating, and street lighting, all at his expense. The houses are rentals, so the ownership stays with the man who built the project. Applicants have to meet the requirements set by the builder in order to be accepted as tenants. Rents are set at 30 percent of the person's monthly net income. JimB.
I caught those differences, and they're significant. But the L.A. guy who built and donated his tiny homes, even as sparse of amenities as they were, had permission from the city to use public land, and from various property owners to use their land. While the private property owners were still ok with his project, the city basically rescinded their permission without a clear explanation.
As I remember it, a city official told him that somewhere along the line, "someone" had failed to advise him that he needed some obscure permit and he'd be required to pay for a separate permit for each structure. And at that point, at x-amount per tiny home he'd
donated, he owed the city thousands.
The city destroyed the first few tiny homes they collected, then they told the guy they would store them until he could pay for all the permits, but that he no longer had permission to use public land because his tiny homes had locking doors and something about the window. I don't remember if they said he had to add another window, remove the one window, or the window had to be a square inch larger or smaller...some shyte like that. Whatever it was, it was gonna cost him.
He tried to fight it, and someone put up a Go-Fund-Me thing for him, but he eventually just gave up. Meanwhile, some big real estate corporation basically stole his idea and built a few state-subsidized tiny-home villages, and that, of course, was new bank for the city.
My main point was that state, county, and local governments (at least here in Calif) will do all they can to prevent
individuals from solving or helping to solve the homeless problem....unless there's money in it for them. And the tiny-home donating dude is only one example.
Even when the city/county/state does allow an individual or charitable group to get a solid project off the ground, they always reserve the right to sell or "donate" your project to some corporation or agency for a financial benefit, which invariably leaves the people you helped in the lurch. There's a fairly public example of that in Detroit, I think. But there are other examples. The "Meals on Wheels" program is a well-known one.
