What happened to the tiny homes for the homeless idea?

Murrmurr

Murrmurr

SF VIP
Location
Sacramento, California
Taking Multnomah County in Oregon as one example;

Elected state and county officials offered Portland homeowners a deal where, if the homeowner agreed to let a furnished pre-fab tiny house be erected in their backyard, and a homeless person or small family occupy it for up to 5 years, the home owner would get a significant discount on utility costs AND get to keep the tiny house when the program was terminated.

Thousands of homeowners applied but only 4 were chosen. Four tiny homes were erected in 4 backyards, costing the county about $80,000 to $130,000 each, and were occupied for only several months, impacting only a handful of homeless people.

First, COVID hit. But then the responsibility for the tiny homes was shifted from department to department within Multnomah County and the state of Oregon. The homeowners got no follow-ups, no support, and there was no inter-departmental coordination. Then, one department decided to donate the homes to a charity organization....and the program died after over 1/4-million tax-dollars was invested.

And now these homeowners are being told that the tiny homes in their yards are an "option to buy" deal.

And the thing is, this is not an isolated incident. Every US tax-funded 'tiny home for the homeless' project has failed to positively impact the homeless population, and many millions of our tax dollars has (again) been wasted.

 

I often think the bureaucrat staff who poorly plan and follow thru should be held accountable. Far too many of these ideas are doomed to fail because they do not pay attention to the details. How this will really work when it starts to fail good time to shift to another group or department to deal with.

This is a huge waste of money for taxpayers.
The whole tiny home thing did not last as many found they did not have enough space for storage or crawling all over each other.
The tiny home village for homeless in my state they did not have sewer access and no real bathroom as village had porta pottys for the place...was suppose to be no drugs and if violent people were thrown out in less then year all there are addicts and stabbings happen weekly.

did these tiny homes put in yards have toilet/ bath etc ?

Imagine if you will a person you did not vet moving into your yard and always there.
I have seen best friends grow to bitter end just being roommates........ let alone a stranger whose lifestyle you may have issues with.
 
They probably run into the same issues as manufactured homes and sheds which have to be built and/or installed to code. They're also could issues similar to those with trailer homes/RV including lot rent and utilities. Many mobile home parks the rent increases are just as bad as a living in an apartment.

It's the lack of housing or supply but setting that aside even if they set aside land for them we're still back to utilities. Would sewage be connected to public sewers or use septic tanks. Who pays for all of this.
 

I don't think that idea would work in our area. People need to feel safe and that probably wouldn't be the case. As for myself, I wouldn't be interested in sharing my land with a stranger and probably end up having to do a lot of looking out the window to see what my new neighbors were up to.
 
This is really very sad. These tiny houses generally DO have running water and a toilet but what a waste of tax payers money to set up a plan and not follow through with it.

Its actually pathetic that theyā€™d hype thousands of people up only to pick 4 of them and out of that 4 only 1 person bought the tiny home. Itā€™s really a nice home at only 280 square feet.

Apparently Seattle has a similar plan in place with over 95% success rate.
 
probably sounded a good idea at planning - unfortunately too many smart arses about with no brains - they needed a pyscho babbler on their team!!
 
PeppermintPatty said:
This is really very sad. These tiny houses generally DO have running water and a toilet but what a waste of tax payers money to set up a plan and not follow through with it.

Its actually pathetic that theyā€™d hype thousands of people up only to pick 4 of them and out of that 4 only 1 person bought the tiny home. Itā€™s really a nice home at only 280 square feet.

Apparently Seattle has a similar plan in place with over 95% success rate.
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Yeah, but successful at what? What is Seattle rating?

95% of a half-dozen tiny homes were occupied ...for a while?
95% of 10 homeless people are now off the street?
95% of the money was spent according to plan?

That lady didn't specify.

There are state and county employees whose only job is to make tax-funded programs look good on record in order to get them re-funded, get more funds, or justify the spending. And our tax dollars pays their salary and life-long benefits. My brother's wife retired from that kind of job about 8 years ago.

Interestingly, during her 30 years at that job, the cost of tax-funded county programs gradually grew from in the tens of thousands per year to millions per year. Doesn't matter what type of program, medical, agricultural, educational, or shelter, what costed $30,000 a few decades ago costs $3-million today.

And that old $30K served 10s of thousands of people in need. Today's $3mil serves half-a-dozen.
$3-billion will serve 50 if I use Calif's most recent low-income housing project as an example.
 
Murrmurr said:
Yeah, but successful at what? What is Seattle rating?

95% of a half-dozen tiny homes were occupied ...for a while?
95% of 10 homeless people are now off the street?
95% of the money was spent according to plan?

That lady didn't specify.

There are state and county employees whose only job is to make tax-funded programs look good on record in order to get them re-funded, get more funds, or justify the spending. And our tax dollars pays their salary and life-long benefits. My brother's wife retired from that kind of job about 8 years ago.

Interestingly, during her 30 years at that job, the cost of tax-funded county programs gradually grew from in the tens of thousands per year to millions per year. Doesn't matter what type of program, medical, agricultural, educational, or shelter, what costed $30,000 a few decades ago costs $3-million today.

And that old $30K served 10s of thousands of people in need. Today's $3mil serves half-a-dozen.
$3-billion will serve 50 if I use Calif's most recent low-income housing project as an example.
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Itā€™s even sadder then.
Do you think the program is set up and intentionally sabotaged?
 
Yeah, right. Some municipal government is going to shell out an average of $105,000 and lose property tax money to house each one of hundreds/thousands of homeless families. And the local taxpayers are going to super OK with that.
R- I- G- H -T!!!
 
PeppermintPatty said:
Itā€™s even sadder then.
Do you think the program is set up and intentionally sabotaged?
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No, not really. But gov't offices do take advantage of tax-payer funding, and sometimes they misappropriate the funding. Like, if appropriations aren't specified to the smallest detail, the department that gets the funding spends it however they want.

Also, if it's a construction project, they never give the contract to the construction company with the lowest-bid, they go with one owned by a friend, or one that their kid works for, or one they've invested in or that gives them a kick-back. No one checks on this stuff.

They hire companies and organizations and individual people to manage and organize these projects, and sometimes the money's gone before actual construction even starts because the state or county pays those people well above minimum wage, benefits and bonuses included, and they pay in advance.

If it's a beautification project, they start with their private office or even their private home...the "home office"...and the city gets beautified last. My SIL said one such project cost tax-payers a half-million and all the city got for it was a row of trees in a median that ran up to the city's most popular shopping mall....and then they raised the rent on most of the mall's stores; all except Macys, JC Penneys, and Sears.

If a program takes too much time and effort, they skim pay themselves first and then pass it along to another department. They call that "better matching"...like that department is a better match for this program than mine, maybe because it "impacts" kids or addicts or elderly people; they'll find a reason. And if they run out of "matches", they either sell the program or terminate it.

It's a real mess. And nobody's looking. No checks & balances, no follow-up, never an investigation. Not unless there's a whistle-blower, and they're pretty good at spotting them early.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
Yeah, right. Some municipal government is going to shell out an average of $105,000 and lose property tax money to house each one of hundreds/thousands of homeless families. And the local taxpayers are going to super OK with that.
R- I- G- H -T!!!
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You're the one shelling it out, my friend. And it sounded like a good idea at the time. :oops:
 
It really is an outrage. I previously watched this video or one similar. A commenter on YouTube made a really good point regarding how much bureaucratic money was spent for people to sit on their ass' and discuss. I'd bet a good amount. This is no solution.
 
Tiny homes are not a solution to homelessness!! Problem is there is no place to put the tiny homes. Most people, including myself and everyone I know, prefer to live with other people who are in the same socio-economic strata as themselves. Is that fair? Is that just? IDK. IMHO it is simply an immutable law of nature that governs the behavior and attitudes of 'ordinary' human beings like myself and which politicians and bureaucrats, no matter how well intentioned and noble they may be, can never hope to change. My wife and I own a nice townhome in a beautiful suburb in coastal California. There has been talk of converting some of the space in a nearby shopping center into 'affordable' housing. That proposal is being shouted down as fast as anyone can bring it up. I note that our regional Home Depot is out of pitchforks most of the time now. They cant seem to keep them in stock!
 
sch404 said:
Tiny homes are not a solution to homelessness!! Problem is there is no place to put the tiny homes. Most people, including myself and everyone I know, prefer to live with other people who are in the same socio-economic strata as themselves. Is that fair? Is that just? IDK. IMHO it is simply an immutable law of nature that governs the behavior and attitudes of 'ordinary' human beings like myself and which politicians and bureaucrats, no matter how well intentioned and noble they may be, can never hope to change. My wife and I own a nice townhome in a beautiful suburb in coastal California. There has been talk of converting some of the space in a nearby shopping center into 'affordable' housing. That proposal is being shouted down as fast as anyone can bring it up. I note that our regional Home Depot is out of pitchforks most of the time now. They cant seem to keep them in stock!
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I agree, there isn't a place to put the tiny homes. I know there are some communities specifically for tiny homes but they are rare. Some tiny homes are extremely livable. I think this is different than the super tiny for getting homeless off the street.

There has been the same concerns in my town about what is going to go where. The 'not in my neighborhood.' And some of the people who want the solutions don't want them anywhere near where they live.
 
Remy said:
I agree, there isn't a place to put the tiny homes. I know there are some communities specifically for tiny homes but they are rare. Some tiny homes are extremely livable. I think this is different than the super tiny for getting homeless off the street.

There has been the same concerns in my town about what is going to go where. The 'not in my neighborhood.' And some of the people who want the solutions don't want them anywhere near where they live.
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There are a few tax-funded tiny home villages in Los Angeles that started off really well. But after a few months, the city stopped policing them. Now they pay a manager to be there 8 hours a day, but the residents are on their own the other 16 hours.
 
Many of the homeless are mentally Iā€™ll, drug and alcohol addicted, and letā€˜s face it, candidates for criminal behavior of one sort or another. Who would want someone like that living in their backyard, let alone populating every backyard in the neighborhood? On the other hand most homeless donā€™t like an atmosphere of judgmental rules. When the mental hospitals of California were closed and the residents moved into halfway houses in the cities, they left for unsupervised life in the alleys. My son-in-law, a San Francisco cop was armed with free vouchers for rooms in local boarding housing, and was frustrated by failed efforts to give them away. So much for helping the homeless who reject help and are repelled by rules that most of us would consider reasonable.
 
sch404 said:
Tiny homes are not a solution to homelessness!! Problem is there is no place to put the tiny homes. Most people, including myself and everyone I know, prefer to live with other people who are in the same socio-economic strata as themselves. Is that fair? Is that just? IDK. IMHO it is simply an immutable law of nature that governs the behavior and attitudes of 'ordinary' human beings like myself and which politicians and bureaucrats, no matter how well intentioned and noble they may be, can never hope to change. My wife and I own a nice townhome in a beautiful suburb in coastal California. There has been talk of converting some of the space in a nearby shopping center into 'affordable' housing. That proposal is being shouted down as fast as anyone can bring it up. I note that our regional Home Depot is out of pitchforks most of the time now. They cant seem to keep them in stock!
Click to expand...
ElCastor said:
Many of the homeless are mentally Iā€™ll, drug and alcohol addicted, and letā€˜s face it, candidates for criminal behavior of one sort or another. Who would want someone like that living in their backyard, let alone populating every backyard in the neighborhood? On the other hand most homeless donā€™t like an atmosphere of judgmental rules. When the mental hospitals of California were closed and the residents moved into halfway houses in the cities, they left for unsupervised life in the alleys. My son-in-law, a San Francisco cop was armed with free vouchers for rooms in local boarding housing, and was frustrated by failed efforts to give them away. So much for helping the homeless who reject help and are repelled by rules that most of us would consider reasonable.
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I agree 100%. I'd estimate at least 85% of the homeless don't need a house, they need rehabilitation and ongoing therapy. Some should be in jail. The other 15% need job training and employment assistance.

And I contend that the $billions wasted so far on shelter programs and low-income housing projects could have been spent on professionally staffed facilities that offer the gamut: treatment for substance abuse, mental health treatment and therapy, and job training / job placement, with far greater success.

Socialize that 85% first, then help them become productive, then help them find a place to live.
 
Remy said:
These are no dumps. This is very livable. It's a bit like a mobile home park.
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When they're well managed and support funds keep coming, they are decent places to live. It's tragic when the county (or state) gov't loses interest, outsources responsibility for them, or terminates the program all together. These villages have the potential to become reasonably self-sufficient, imo.

Key, too, is separating the chaff from the wheat.
 
Just passing on something from memory about an ex President of the USofA, nicely known as "The Peanut Farmer" Jimmy Carter. Didn't he'd began a project to build houses for homeless?

Did they completed their goals or they didn't?

Just curious...
 
Supernatural said:
Just passing on something from memory about an ex President of the USofA, nicely known as "The Peanut Farmer" Jimmy Carter. Didn't he'd began a project to build houses for homeless?

Did they completed their goals or they didn't?

Just curious...
Click to expand...
The USofA?
Thatā€™s interesting šŸ¤”
I have nothing to add.
 
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