[HN Gopher] Toronto man creates tiny mobile homes to help unhous...
___________________________________________________________________
Toronto man creates tiny mobile homes to help unhoused people
escape the cold
Author : colinprince
Score : 156 points
Date : 2024-12-29 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbc.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbc.ca)
| tmsh wrote:
| https://www.gofundme.com/f/tiny-tiny-homes-affordable-housin...
| kaycebasques wrote:
| The cbc.ca article says that each home costs $10K but the
| GoFundMe page says this:
|
| > Each unit costs around $5000 (not including sweat equity) to
| build, and I will ensure that every penny is spent wisely to
| create a safe and comfortable home for those who need it the
| most.
|
| So it sounds like the cost of materials has increased or Donais
| puts aside $5K of funds for every house built for his own
| living costs. Or maybe after starting the project and getting
| the larger construction space they can now accurately estimate
| the overall cost at $10K.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Maybe your comment was meant to highlight costs and logistics
| or maybe it was meant to simultaneously undermine their
| project and projects like them, who can say? Do you think
| you'll be contributing or do you think there's fraud and you
| will dig into it? Hard to say you could have either motive,
| most any comment online could have either a good or nefarious
| motive. Maybe you're just wondering aloud or maybe you have
| an agenda.
| tomComb wrote:
| People asking tough questions and being careful consumers
| are exactly what most good charities and other initiatives
| need.
|
| So, I think comments like yours are the ones undermining
| those good initiatives, which have a hard time being heard
| in a sea of scams.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Accusing organizations of fraud without evidence isn't
| great.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| I don't know why people are assuming malice in my comments.
| It's great work and I'm just curious about the cost
| breakdown.
|
| I also figured that other HN visitors would have similar
| questions and I could save them a few minutes of digging
| around.
|
| And yes, I did just donate.
| riiii wrote:
| Materials have gone up. But there are other costs involved
| than just raw materials. Transport, bought expert services
| (electrician, etc), tool wear, ...
|
| He also has to live and cover unexpected costs.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| > Materials have gone up.
|
| The GoFundMe campaign was created on June 30th, 2024. Has
| Canada (or the world) had a big bout of inflation in the
| last 6 months? (Serious question, I'm not up-to-date with
| global macroeconomics.)
| stackghost wrote:
| Canadian here. The retail price of a 2x4 has fluctuated
| wildly over the last 18-24 months, mostly disconnected
| from inflation and due more to global supply chain
| issues.
|
| At one point my local hardware store in a medium sized
| city was selling a single 8-foot spruce 2x4 for upwards
| of $14, when pre-COVID it was probably closer to $4.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| I remember when prices exploded during covid. Has that
| happened again in the last 6 months in Canada? Global
| prices look mostly flat over the last year.
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU081
| karaterobot wrote:
| Another possibility is simply that the CBC article is
| incorrect. Or, more generously, that he told them a rough
| estimate of, e.g. "about $5-$10k" and they went with the
| higher number.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42540975
| bad_haircut72 wrote:
| Some people at my local makerspace decided to build some of these
| "conestoga huts" to aid local homeless, which is basically a tiny
| house
|
| https://www.communitysupportedshelters.org/conestoga-huts
|
| as a shelter I would much prefer it over being homeless I guess,
| but there were issues
|
| - Being made primarily out of wood it was cheap and easy to
| build, but it was HEAVY. I guess this is a good thing once its
| placed somewhere but it took 6 men to get it onto a trailer and
| because everyone is a volunteer its not easy finding a time when
| that many people can show up just to move a house (the building
| was the fun part)
|
| - Where to put it? The city was more annoyed by our efforts (the
| actual organizers really since I just put in labor) than grateful
| because they started showing the houses off to people and saying
| "just as soon as the city tells us where to put it youll get a
| house"
|
| - security on these was decent, I found out that primarily people
| wanted security from other homeless rather than even shelter
|
| - without power or plumbing its not clear to me how actually
| livable these things would be. Although it had 2 windows it was
| extremely dark inside
|
| Overall I think these types of houses are not solving the root
| issues - if the city decided to do it and found the land, it
| would be way better to just tack-weld some metal boxes together
| and weigh it down with concrete blocks. Then it takes specialists
| to build though and that sucks the spirit out of volunteers who
| want to spend a Sunday physically building something, not throw
| in $200 for a contractor to build 50 of them, even though that
| would obviously be of more help
| ibejoeb wrote:
| It is certainly not solving the problem. It is probably
| perpetuating it. Without the other complementary life-critical
| facilities, nothing changes.
|
| These are useful for solving one particular facet: people die
| from exposure in Toronto. If this did anything to address the
| actual problem, then there would be no homelessness problem in
| LA.
|
| Quite a few cities have actually solved this problem. They
| provide housing and all of the additional services, like
| hygiene facilities, food, and security. Granted, they only
| solve it for certain cohorts, but it demonstrates that it is
| rather trivially solvable. That's going to lead to hot
| political quarreling, so it's a good place to stop.
|
| There is no chance that these can provide the full spectrum of
| services required for a person to thrive. We absolutely can't
| handle the upkeep on 100,000 one-person boxes. We need to make
| the shelters better. Many are terrible, but there are better
| ones, and a lot of that comes down to who is working there.
| Everyone who is able should make time to volunteer, even just a
| few shifts, to see what it is and how it can be improved. (It's
| also a good way to meet people in your city.)
| mmooss wrote:
| While I agree with your general points,
|
| > These are useful for solving one particular facet: people
| die from exposure in Toronto.
|
| They are also useful because human beings need shelter,
| whether or not the exposure is life-threatening. They can't
| wait for your more ideal solutions.
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| >Quite a few cities have actually solved this problem. They
| provide housing and all of the additional services, like
| hygiene facilities, food, and security. Granted, they only
| solve it for certain cohorts, but it demonstrates that it is
| rather trivially solvable. That's going to lead to hot
| political quarreling, so it's a good place to stop.
|
| Most of those services are available AFAIK, there's charities
| in most major Canadian cities that provide those basics.
| Without them the homeless population would probably be triple
| what you can see, and from what I've heard the majority just
| need it short term to get back on their feet.
|
| But they can only offer those to people without substance
| abuse problems (drugs and alcohol are banned in those
| shelters), and those are the folks you'll mostly see out and
| about. You'd need some sort of institution with far greater
| resources to handle those, like an asylum. North America just
| seems to have a sordid history with the like.
| bsder wrote:
| > You'd need some sort of institution with far greater
| resources to handle those, like an asylum. North America
| just seems to have a sordid history with the like.
|
| Does _anywhere_ not have a sordid history with asylums? I
| 'm genuinely asking as it seems like such facilities always
| devolve into pseudo-prison for the undesirable no matter
| what.
| buckle8017 wrote:
| The thing about asylums is that they're always going to
| be terrible, but the standard isn't good, it's better.
|
| Is a terrible asylum better or worse than living on the
| streets?
| buckle8017 wrote:
| > Granted, they only solve it for certain cohorts, but it
| demonstrates that it is rather trivially solvable.
|
| Those cohorts being women and children.
| starkparker wrote:
| cf. Portland's Safe Rest camps composed of one-room tiny
| shelters with similar accommodations as the article's tiny
| houses (locks, bed, power, storage, water, in some cases mini-
| split heat/AC) but not built to be as mobile, as they're
| clustered in camps with centralized shower/toilet bathrooms and
| laundry, and also built with ADA-compliant ramps.
|
| $17-24k each per city/county documents:
| https://www.portland.gov/shelter-services/city-shelter-villa...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The price sounds about right. The Oakland mayor was recently
| investigated for paying 800k each for a similar solution from
| a campaign donor.
|
| People try to tell me that it was a good deal because houses
| are over a million, but those include the land
| jklinger410 wrote:
| Of course they're not solving the root of the problem. The
| issue of homelessness is not caused by a lack of homes.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It sure seems like the places with the most homeless have the
| most expensive housing markets.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Because those are the most desirable places to live.
| Homeless people move too.
|
| Granted, there are homeless people who have a stable life
| but work a job that just doesn't pay enough to afford a
| home, or people who are between jobs and are temporarily
| homeless. But those people generally sleep in a car, cause
| few problems, are largely invisible, have most of their
| needs met in some way, and are generally not the people we
| are concerned about when talking about "the homeless".
|
| The Homeless(tm) usually have more complex issues like
| untreated psychological issues, drug problems, etc. And
| while the previous group would rejoice about small cheap
| housing, it does little to solve the issues of The
| Homeless(tm).
| jeffalyanak wrote:
| Most expensive homes yes, but that doesn't mean there
| aren't plenty of livable homes and apartments that are
| _empty_ at any given time. Canada has a lot of vacant
| houses.
| Maxatar wrote:
| Canada has one of the lowest home vacancy rates among the
| OECD countries and currently at the lowest rate it's been
| in 40 years:
|
| https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/data/datasets/af
| for...
| grouchypumpkin wrote:
| I believe current research says the root cause of
| homelessness is lack of affordable housing in a city. Drugs
| and mental illness are important, but still secondary
| factors.
| no_wizard wrote:
| For point one, it being so heavy, why not build each on the
| trailer so it doesn't have to be moved on to it? Then when it's
| ready it can simply be driven to its destination.
|
| It may be impractical I realize but since the trailer has to
| fit it anyway, perhaps not
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Not a bad idea if you have a flatbed trailer laying around
| unused
| buckle8017 wrote:
| Trailers are useful and thus expensive.
| no_wizard wrote:
| General assumption maybe I shouldn't be making, is that the
| trailers are already owned by the organization responsible
| for this and would already only be used for this purpose.
|
| Perhaps the fact that you could build these theoretically
| faster than doing on a trailer makes it a moot point, then
| again if trailers are your bottleneck maybe it's possible
| to schedule building around that to keep delivery smooth
| mindslight wrote:
| Trailers generally require vehicle registration to be towed
| on the road, and tow vehicles are themselves a significant
| asset. Individual residents would still be unable to move
| their shelter themselves in response to being told to move
| on, and any organization that helps out with tow vehicles
| creates a centralized target to attack.
|
| The solution in the OP of building this as part of a
| dedicated tricycle is pretty damn slick. "Yes of course
| officer. I'm moving my bike as fast as I can."
| diggan wrote:
| > Being made primarily out of wood it was cheap and easy to
| build, but it was HEAVY.
|
| I'm not overly knowledgeable about the weather in Toronto, but
| heavy snow and heavy windows typically require things to be
| heavy so they don't get pushed by snow or wind. Maybe this is
| actually a feature of these type of huts.
|
| Also, the huts in the article seem easier to move if what it
| states is accurate, that you can transport them in the bicycle
| lane legally and with bikes.
|
| > without power or plumbing its not clear to me how actually
| livable these things would be.
|
| What I've seen in my country (Spain) is that homeless tends to
| resolve to using tents, so if it's at least the same
| liveability but a little more protective against the elements,
| it sounds like an improvement.
|
| The root issue of course isn't just that these people cannot
| find housing, but something about the reason why they aren't
| able to use the existing empty housing and how they became
| homeless in the first place. Be it because of costs, health,
| housing requirements or whatever.
| hinkley wrote:
| You need some sort of light shelf or clerestory for those but
| I'm at a loss as to how to incorporate one cheaply. The
| clearance wouldn't be good enough to bring the ceiling down and
| keeping the whole envelope water tight would be tricky.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| [flagged]
| atlintots wrote:
| With the state of the housing market, no one bothers investing
| in anything else -- it's just not "worth it" when housing is
| already such a good investment. Not to mention the issue of
| monopolies.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| This. People sit on houses like lecherous dragons instead of
| funding risky startups which can take over the world. There
| are no stars in Canada. Growing the pie is frowned upon. That
| "mediocrity" thinking falls all the way down to the local
| governance level and housing.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Ah yes, if only Canada had a lion (?) to reduce capital gains
| tax (?) you'd get more startups (?) which would then magically
| solve the problem of homeless people being cold in winter.
|
| Or you could, you know, look at perverse housing policy across
| more or less the entire developed world.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| I don't know how your comment is related to the article under
| discussion. If innovation could solve homelessness, San
| Francisco wouldn't have had the crisis it currently does. I
| don't know how changing Toronto to be more like SF in terms of
| tech companies is supposed to solve homelessness. At best,
| these are orthogonal issues.
| gruez wrote:
| >If innovation could solve homelessness, San Francisco
| wouldn't have had the crisis it currently does.
|
| You can't innovate when zoning regulations and building codes
| prevent you from doing so.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Taxis and short-stay-rentals got innovated, even when there
| were pretty clear regulations that had to be
| broken/ignored.
|
| I suspect the bigger problem here is that there's no (or
| not nearly enough) money at the end of the rainbow of
| solving the homelessness problem.
| forinti wrote:
| You need to build houses. The government has to plan
| neighbourhoods, finance the building, extend public transport.
|
| The market is great at selling gadgets, but health, transport,
| education, housing, have to be directed by the government.
| orangecat wrote:
| _You need to build houses._
|
| Correct.
|
| _health, transport, education, housing, have to be directed
| by the government._
|
| This is not at all clear. In the case of housing,
| government's major contribution has been to forbid people
| from building more homes, so perhaps we could start by not
| doing that.
| retrac wrote:
| I don't see housing as something that really needs innovation.
| We historically solved the problem; in the 1980s rough sleeping
| in Canada was at levels you see in like Finland today --
| estimates for Toronto were a couple hundred individuals (so
| like 10% the rate today).
|
| What's fascinating to me is everyone seems to know and agree
| what would help (loosen zoning, increase welfare) and there's
| broad popular support for these (increasing disability polls at
| like 85% yes) and political parties sometimes campaign on these
| - yet because of the way politics works in Canada with three
| levels of government - it runs into deadlock and never
| materializes. Public drug insurance coverage is a similar
| story. The ruling party campaigned on it and 90% of the
| population wants it and yet the political system seems unable
| to realize what everyone wants. Americans will sympathize with
| that circumstance, I imagine.
|
| We need constitutional reform honestly but it'll never happen
| because the mechanism to pass such an amendment is just as
| paper-jammed.
| gruez wrote:
| Sounds like the actual issue is that everyone agrees that
| "something" needs to be done, but can't agree on the details,
| so it flames out when it comes to the implementation stage.
| Your proposal for "constitutional reform" mirrors this. What
| "constitutional reform" would solve this? Moving to a unitary
| system?
| retrac wrote:
| Canadian federalism relies on an interworking of government
| levels. To use an example, criminal law is written
| federally, the prosecutors are funded and run provincially,
| the superior courts are run provincially but the federal
| government appoints the judges.
|
| It's a nice idea but as you say when we run into
| governments with different views on how to realize things,
| it can result in a log-jam.
|
| I don't think anything as dramatic as a unitary state is
| needed; just make healthcare and housing the sole
| jurisdiction of either the feds or the provinces. The
| current system of joint funding seems to have caused a game
| of jurisdictional hot potato.
| morkalork wrote:
| I'm not sure of the specifics but there are domains of
| responsibility split between the levels, one example is the
| healthcare system. Healthcare is a provincial
| responsibility and the federal government is not allowed to
| overstep or interfere on how its run, however significant
| funding for it comes from the federal government so there's
| some weird disconnects where money is prodivded for one
| aspect and used for another by the province. Would it take
| a constitutional change to address this problem? If so,
| then it will never be fixed.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| It's not true thar people agree on it though. Housing is
| expensive, we could bring it down, but bringing it down
| would crush our economy, so we don't do it. Supermajority
| of people also own their homes, and if you bought in the
| last 10 years for some incredibly high price, you wouldn't
| want your investment to go down.
|
| For homeless people it's tough, and a good chunk of people
| got severely desensitized in the last 20 years. So they've
| become an after thought, and people are pushing for "out of
| sight out of mind" policies. Can't really blame them
| either.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't start tedious nationalistic or ideological
| flamewars on HN. Or any flamewars.
|
| This is in the site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| Edit: we've unfortunately had to ask you about this repeatedly
| for a long time.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41577037 (Sept 2024)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39281820 (Feb 2024)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35656288 (April 2023)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34844518 (Feb 2023)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18585046 (Dec 2018)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18575831 (Dec 2018)
|
| If you keep it up, we're going to have to ban you, so please
| stop posting like this to HN.
| chollida1 wrote:
| 80% of Toronto's shelter space is taken up by refugees and new
| immigrants to Canada. Canada has a problem with letting way
| more people in than it can take care of.
|
| In 2023 it was 44%.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Boothbay VETS in Maine has been making not-quite-as-small towable
| shelters for homeless veterans in Maine since 2019.
| https://boothbay-vets.com/in-the-press/
| denuoweb wrote:
| For $250 one could build themselves a mobile nanoshelter of my
| design. Build instructions found at nanoshelters.com
| kimjune01 wrote:
| You might also be interested in designs by Paul Elkins. I like
| his use of coroplast
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPWpjnmL3B0&t=213s
| euniceee3 wrote:
| While his work is inspirational it is really not moving the
| needle on solving this problem. He is a tinkerer, wish he
| would put his idea's into motion to produce his designs like
| the dude making the wheelchairs in Utah.
| exe34 wrote:
| did your sketchup account get pushed out of free tier because
| of the traffic or something? it won't load up on chrome on
| android or Linux.
|
| any chance you would be able to include a downloadable file in
| some common format please?
| euniceee3 wrote:
| Nice design!
| bonzibuddy wrote:
| Awesome project. Any plans to include insulation instructions?
| In Toronto, and much of Canada, plywood alone couldnt provide
| shelter from the cold in the winter months
| ziofill wrote:
| the 3D model doesn't load
| tomComb wrote:
| Wow, the formatting of this CBC article is great. It looks like
| this is their 'low-bandwidth' site.
|
| I wish all my news was presented like this.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| It's a great format, only stained by the mention of advertiser
| tracking cookies at the very bottom.
| tomcam wrote:
| But you can opt out completely, so I'm fine with it
| cf100clunk wrote:
| The given link goes to CBC Lite version as opposed to their
| regular site at www.cbc.ca/news
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-tiny-
| mobile-h...
| dan353hehe wrote:
| Whole heartedly agree.
|
| At first I was confused by there being no images/media, but
| then I was delighted that got to choose which ones to load.
|
| No auto playing videos, or obstructive ads.
| tomcam wrote:
| I would actually pay for such news sites.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| CBC is "free" in that anyone can access it and it is funded
| by Canadian taxes.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| CBC is government funded. Like 1.4 billion a year. With all the
| Bureaucratic overhead, they can only afford to hire a basic
| html guy. So it's accidentally great.
| jszymborski wrote:
| Nice try, but there is a "non-lite" version (which is
| actually the default).
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-tiny-
| mobile-h...
| JasserInicide wrote:
| _unhoused_
|
| Can we stop with the language propaganda bullshit? They're
| _homeless_. We 've used the term for decades
| deadbabe wrote:
| Technically I'd say it's more accurate to call some of these
| homeless as non-functional drug addicts.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Usually, mentally ill folks (which can include drug addicts).
| I've known plenty of "fully functional" drug addicts that
| make life _much_ harder for everyone, than some
| schizoaffective dude on the sidewalk.
|
| Before the 1980s, when they started shutting down the
| "warehouse" mental institutions, homelessness was a far less
| pervasive issue.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| we're leaving this doublethink wordplay back in 2024 where it
| belongs.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| The words "house" and "home" mean different things. "Houseless"
| is more correct than "homeless" - except that not all housing
| is houses, so you'd have to make it "housingless", and
| "unhoused" is far less clumsy. (I don't think this is one worth
| fighting: if you feel strongly about neologisms, best to pick
| your battles.)
| tomcam wrote:
| I read your comment three times and still can't understand it
| ternnoburn wrote:
| Great, glad you are trying to understand. Let me break it
| down a bit for you and if you still have questions, ask
| away.
|
| > The words "house" and "home" mean different things.
|
| A house is a physical dwelling unit for humans to occupy.
| It's a building. A home often implies a place you reside,
| where you find safety and joy. The difference between these
| concepts gives rise to the common expression "make this
| house a _home_ ".
|
| People can have homes, even without a house. For instance,
| a digital nomad might live in an RV or van. They would call
| it home, but not a house.
|
| > "Houseless" is more correct than "homeless"
|
| If we decouple the idea of a physical house from the idea
| of a home, then "homeless" people might actually have homes
| -- a spot they feel secure in, a place they return to.
|
| So calling them homeless is incorrect. One can have a home
| but not have a house.
|
| > except that not all housing is houses, so you'd have to
| make it "housingless",
|
| Many things aren't "houses" per se, though they are
| housing. Apartments aren't houses, condos aren't houses,
| RVs aren't houses, etc. The umbrella term for house
| structures is "housing". These people lack housing of any
| type, not homes, so they could be called "housingless".
|
| > and "unhoused" is far less clumsy.
|
| This person would rather say "unhoused" vs "housingless",
| because they find it easier to say.
|
| Hope that's clarifying. I'm not interested in discussing
| whether the terms are good or bad. You can disagree with
| their use and keep using "homeless" for all I care.
|
| I just want you to understand the post being presented.
| Again, feel free to disagree, I just don't want you to feel
| like "I don't understand the reasoning".
| Gigachad wrote:
| I'm unhoused. I live in an apartment.
| _xerces_ wrote:
| I think words like these are also used now as a means of
| signaling...well.. _something_ about your views or beliefs or
| group identity.
|
| Reminds me of the politically-correct nonsense in the 90s with
| *-challenged, like a short person is now vertically-challenged,
| a bald person is folliclly-challenged or adding *-technician to
| something like dish-cleansing-technician.
| fiforpg wrote:
| Looks like this kind of soft / euphemistic language dates
| back to even earlier than that. Here is a YT clip of George
| Carlin railing against it in his 1990 special:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o25I2fzFGoY
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Language constantly evolves, everywhere, sorry it offends you.
| It's not a conspiracy.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| There's a difference between language naturally evolving via
| everyday use and usage being forced on us by those with
| vested interests. This is a case of the latter.
| mhb wrote:
| This is the sort of vapid meta-comment that someone has to
| make in all of these discussions. He's obviously interested
| in shaping the direction of the evolution. Don't be upset if
| not everyone agrees with your preferred evolutionary
| direction.
| terminatornet wrote:
| question: who cares?
| Eumenes wrote:
| The woke city council in my town spends the first 15 mins of
| every meeting on land acknowledgements, followed by 30 mins on
| how to divvy out needles to the "unhoused" ... followed by
| divesting from Israeli companies in their pensions (a good
| cause, but it just adds to the irony).
| ars wrote:
| Antisemitism is a good cause? And don't fool yourself that
| they have any other motivation. Do they have a special
| session on every country they dislike, or is it just Israel?
| Eumenes wrote:
| I don't think its antisemitic to divest from a country
| involved in a questionable war ... but thats not really a
| conversation for this thread. Fwiw, I disagree with it in
| general, because small town politics should be focused on
| small town issues, not active management of pension fund
| allocations based on political issues.
| dave4420 wrote:
| It is to distinguish between "homeless and living on the
| streets" from "homeless and living on friends' floors"?
| gopher_space wrote:
| Yeah, it alludes to the majority of homeless who work or are
| in school during the day and in shelters at night.
| ternnoburn wrote:
| They have homes, it's just that their home might be a tent
| under the on-ramp. Or a park bench. Or the city at large.
|
| These people are your neighbors, your neighborhood is home to
| them, they just don't have houses.
| euniceee3 wrote:
| Man that is really selling it. I lived in a car and it was my
| house. I will meet you in the middle there. But a tent is not
| a home. Even by my liberal standards of calling a vehicle a
| home.
|
| I think the best term that has the most impact is Sleeping
| Rough Outdoors. You read that and it does not matter what
| side you are one, you now how the person is living and it
| describes the plight that many homeless face when just
| needing to get some rest.
|
| The concept you are describing is a "homebum" which describes
| a person who sticks to one area. This is different than a
| "hobo" who keeps moving and is not as much a nuisance of
| homeless. A "rubber tramp" is a homeless person who lives in
| a vehicle.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Why not call them the houseless then?
|
| I think part of the linguistic shift is to imply social
| ownership. Unhoused describes both their state, but also a
| failure of someone who is responsible for housing them.
| bloodyplonker22 wrote:
| This comment is hilarious because the term used to be
| "vagrant", and then it was changed to "homeless" because people
| were offended by it. Society truly has reached a new level of
| being offended.
| archagon wrote:
| It tends to make people who loathe the unhoused upset, so I
| think it's worth doing for that reason alone.
|
| And in any case, this is just yelling into the void. Language
| usage will not change just because you want it to.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| Is "unhoused" the one for homeless person that doesn't live in
| a shelter? Or was that "unsheltered"?
|
| It does seem that vapid progressives love faux-academic jargon
| to get double plus good points.
| euniceee3 wrote:
| Looks too nice for a stealth shelter. Make it look like a
| dumpster and nobody will be complaining.
| johnklos wrote:
| I love the idea of small homes for everyone, and I'd want to help
| with similar projects in my areas. This is inspiring.
|
| Separately, I absolutely love the "lite" aspect of this news web
| page. Clean, simple, quick, with an easy button to load an image?
| Yes, please! More of this!
| osigurdson wrote:
| A house, that conforms to e-bike regulations? Photo please.
| fldskfjdslkfj wrote:
| Zoning laws and housing regulations need to be abolished across
| the border.
| kkfx wrote:
| Non that much related, but inspired by: in the past southern
| States was the richest also thanks to the climate, and places
| where circadian delta was little was the most preferred. Than
| when heating became more automated (meaning you do not have to
| manually chop wood/dig for coal for most of the year) northern
| countries get richer, since there was still no A/C. I think we
| start to reverse again where some sufficiently mild climate
| zones, where p.v. is meaningful and with BIG circadian delta, to
| not need cooling in summer nights, will be again the richest a
| small step at a time as fossils get phased out.
|
| At our current technological progress we still need nature to
| produce food and climate have an immense impact, so well... Try
| to really think about the not-so-near future, where in most
| northern/southern areas even if the climate will be less cold
| heating will be simply too expensive for most.
|
| Introduce in the mix issues with melting permafrost and Canadian
| geological peculiarities... Canada seems to be probably a work
| zone for poor more than a wealthy country...
| HPsquared wrote:
| Human factors are the most important thing these days to
| wealth, not geography.
| Neonlicht wrote:
| American style tent cities or Brazillian style shanty towns are
| not the solution.
|
| In my country there's a problem with providing shelters- you
| don't want to attract every Eastern European crackhead. On the
| other hand people have died and that's a bit embarrassing as
| well.
|
| The solution was those crazy Christians from the Salvation army.
| They don't ask for ID and they are a private initiative which
| allows for full plausible deniability from the government.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| How did that solve the crackhead problem?
| MattGaiser wrote:
| How did the Salvation Army solve the problem?
| NewJazz wrote:
| Prayed it away
| rmbyrro wrote:
| this [load image] button is so respectful and considerate, such a
| pleasant surprise to find on a random website in 2024's internet
| averageRoyalty wrote:
| Serious question, is there any nuanced difference between
| "homeless" and "unhoused", or is it just a rebranding attempt
| (like spastic, then handicapped, then disabled, then differently
| abled, etc).
|
| I suppose in certain circles "homeless" leads to connotations of
| drug use, dirtyness and crazyness, where as "unhoused" (to me at
| least) conjures and image of a regular person in a temporary
| situation.
| buckle8017 wrote:
| It's purely a re-brand, the re-branders say that the "unhoused"
| have homes they're just not houses.
|
| It's stupid.
| pkkkzip wrote:
| if you look at the NGO that receive government grants they
| have been doing quite a bit of renovation. Simply changing
| their brand from "homeless industrial complex" to "unhoused
| industrial complex" they can bank on slow bureaucracy and
| continue to pay themselves tech salary to perpetuate the
| exact same situation that ultimately provides no uplift.
|
| There's a correlation between "sanctuary ciies" and NGOs that
| ultimately hire based on political ideology rather than
| pragmatic policies.
|
| If you do not remove the drugs from the equation the overall
| situation will not improve. There's a big contrast between
| homeless population in Japan vs West Coast America and the
| obvious reason is access to drugs.
| buckle8017 wrote:
| SF should just buy some large area of land 2 hours away
| from the city and offer anybody downtown openly doing drugs
| free drugs if they leave.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| We have an immense amount of free space in CA, it's just
| nowhere people find desirable, or nowhere the local
| community would appreciate you parking the temporarily
| dysfunctional members of society. You could build a
| fantastic homeless campus in Lancaster CA, there's
| abundant space, real estate is about as cheap as it gets,
| you have access to an airport, LA is not too far, it's
| already practically Meth Mecca.
|
| There's fundamentally no reason for cramming 10k people
| in some of the most unaffordable NIMBY real estate land
| of one of the most expensive CoL countries in the world.
| Even if these folks were able to overcome years of raging
| addiction, what will they do in SF? Learn machine
| learning? Become a wealth manager? A teacher? A cop? How
| are they going to make enough to live in the city when
| even most regular middle class professions can barely
| make it there?
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I understood it to be two different categories.
|
| "Unhoused" being those literally without any shelter.
| "Homeless" can refer to anyone without a fixed address, but say
| couchsurfing.
|
| Most "homeless" don't actually sleep outside.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| It's the main branch of housing.
| sixdimensional wrote:
| A different org that is building small intermediate shelters that
| I think is cool is Pallet: https://palletshelter.com/
|
| I'm not affiliated with them, I just think it's a good idea and
| they are making some real traction.
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