[cambaceres]

The grandfathers point was that shared bathrooms would decrease costs of building new apartments, which is good for poor people with less income. Needing to share a bathroom with someone is no problem compared to not having a place to stay.

[vidarh]

So would sleeping halls. Both models exists, yet in the developed world we tend to see either as a worst case crisis accommodation not as a viable alternative for long term accommodation.

So yes, it solves problems in those places where lack of any accommodation is a big housing problem. That is important, but it affects a relatively small proportion even of the homeless (most homeless are not "rough sleepers" who end up sleeping outdoors, but people who bounce between temporary housing exactly or crash with people; e.g. in the UK rough sleepers seem to make up in the region of 5%-10% of homeless people).

It may vary by location, but at least in the UK, for most homeless and poor, the problem is not that they have nowhere to sleep, but that they have the kind of substandard accommodation that people in this thread seems to think will solve their problems, and that they lack security - e.g their accommodation is temporary etc. because even this kind of substandard accommodation is not easily accessible to them in ways they can afford.

[Grustaf]

Sharing bathrooms is not the same as "substandard accommodation". That's the point. You can (and do) build perfectly modern, clean, safe high standard living quarters with shared bathrooms. You can also find terrible slum apartments with private bathrooms.

[vidarh]

You can. You wouldn't find buyers or renters without discounts far exceeding the cost savings, because it's seen as substandard, however.

If anything, even places where space is extremely costly, one clear way of judging relative luxury level is the ratio of bathrooms to bedrooms.

[Grustaf]

"Substandard" is not the complement of "luxury". And nobody is saying that middle class people won't pay the extra cost of private bathrooms, clearly they are doing that. The point under discussion is if it's inhumane to give poor people free housing where they have to live like European middle class students and share bathrooms, and the answer is a very clear "no, it's not inhumane".

[vidarh]

No, substandard implies it's below the expected standard, and it is as demonstrated by the fact that the market expectation is to have bathrooms. How many places do you see on the market without a private bathroom exactly?

EDIT: In fact, many places you'd struggle to even get approval for places with communal bathrooms without special exemptions, as it's so far below expected standards that these expectations now often violate government set standards as it's come to be seen as entirely unacceptable to impose it on anyone. E.g. in Norway, the standard rules for a permanent dwelling requires a bathroom with few exceptions, and sets minimum requirements for the size of the bathroom.

[Grustaf]

> expected standard

The places you see on the market are not free housing, so it doesn't really say anything about what we are discussing.

> entirely unacceptable to impose it on anyone

This is just silly. Nobody wants to impose anything on anyone. We are talking about housing that is provided for free, I don't think anyone is proposing round up people and force them to live there.

[sol_invictus]

The question here is - is the cost difference of a shared bathroom versus a private bathroom the (or a) major factor in not building affordable housing and the answer is almost certainly no. If it's not, then this is just elitistic moralizing from the ivory tower.

Happy to be proven wrong by the way. (non-sarcastic)

[Grustaf]

Elitistic moralizing? The only ones moralizing here are those that think dorms are inhumane.

Anyway, in most countries we do build social housing, it's not a question of not building at all, it's a question of being able to build more if you spend less on each unit, and that is obviously the case. As you probably know, bathrooms and kitchens are by far the most expensive rooms, so you can definitely save a lot of money if you share them.