[ozten]

I’ve volunteered to build a tiny home in Seattle and have seen this deployed in my neighborhood and a few other sites.

It is a feel good thing, but the reality is…

These are a fraction of what is actually needed. It is symbolic.

The residents are removed from mental health and other services and plopped into a suburban neighborhood without community or resources.

The host families are not trained social workers, but they are forced into a tenuous management role between the tiny homes project and the resident.

The one I helped build is no longer enrolled in the program, due to these and more failures of not having a long term sustainable system.

[chrisco255]

Community First, which the article references, has hundreds of these tiny houses and homeless residents. They have on-site activities, farming, a clinic, an outdoor movie theater, and a rotating staff of volunteers that contribute time and assistance.

I volunteered there about 5 years ago. One of the residents I met told me not everyone thrives there and they churn out back to the streets, but it's still 400 fewer homeless people as a result.

[pyuser583]

“Housing First” is such a bit like communism - perfect in theory. The problem is you need “second” and “third” things too, and the political will often just doesn’t exist.

I lived near a “housing first” facility that was no better than a homeless encampment.

[cpursley]

I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum as communist but let’s be honest, the well run communist regimes got all their people housed, and quickly.

The real answer is not tiny homes, it’s prefabricated apartment blocks that can be put up cheaply (in master planned super blocks where people can walk to stores and work).

[lukas099]

It's hard to imagine a socialist solution working in the context of the United States of America, though. The more viable solution in this context is allowing the free market to build abundant housing.

[practicemaths]

How is the free market supposed to create an abundance of housing?

You need some sort of scarcity to increase profits. Building plenty of affordable housing works against that.

[cpursley]

Totally agree. This type of development would appear naturally if it weren’t illegal. There’s no middle housing in America because it’s not allowed by law.

[akira2501]

It's just like communism in that it entirely ignores the needs and capacity of an individual and makes them slaves to the idealism of the state.

They're no better than a homeless encampment because you can't give people a house and then expect them to act like a homeowner overnight. It was the wrong problem to solve, and I think people rush to solve it out of self conscious guilt and a desire to quickly make the _apparent_ parts of the problem disappear from common view.

It's a cruel and ridiculous strategy.

[wolverine876]

> slaves ... cruel ... ridiculous

Do you have any real-world basis for that? Have you heard unhoused people express that?

Reality is the other way: Research, and people with expertise that I read and talk to, say that what people need first is stable housing. When they have that, they can work on their other problems.

Imagine life is overwhelming for you, for whatever reason - so overwhelming that you haven't managed to hold a job, relationships, stay sober, etc. for many years. That's a pretty scary hole to find yourself in.

Then you lose your home. You have no shelter - you need to find some every day. You don't get sleep, you freeze, you overheat, you get drenched. You have no safety and no personal space. You already have problems in life, and now you have that burden.

Again, the research says so, but I also completely buy that without steady shelter, even healthy people will be under so much stress that they aren't going to straighten out their deep, long-term problems.

[NoZebra120vClip]

I have found that many people who receive housing benefits are very poor stewards of their personal resources.

The first thing someone does when they get housed is to invite all their homeless friends over, to shower, to eat, to crash, to do drugs, to play games, whatever.

So your typical Section 8 housing recipient is not just a single person/family benefiting from housing, they're dragging in their entire circle of loser friends who don't have those benefits, and so now you've got a cluster of mooches who aren't invested nor responsible for disruption or damage in that community.

It's really an unfortunate thing, and I just saw it over and over again. So many people lose their benefits very quickly because they can't resist helping other folks out, but that's not what you do with welfare and entitlements.

[wolverine876]

What experience do you have with that? I've known plenty of Section 8 beneficiaries and none matched that description. Particularly the description of 'loser friends' is sickening - a stereotype of poverty. The people I know hold down multiple jobs while raising kids, or are elderly and can't work; all just like you and me.

I also know people who work for urban housing authorities that administer it, and I've never heard them describe that problem (most problems seem to be with landlords).

IIRC, Section 8 has requirements for conduct (that is, as a tenant), but I'm not sure.

[NoZebra120vClip]

Oh, it happens all the time. My closest friends got on assistance and then got dumped because they couldn't resist flouting the simplest rules.

The places where I live are rife with crime, vandalism, and disruption, and it always turns out to begin with people who don't live here at all. They're just crashing at a friend's place.

The people who do get on federal assistance are the most stable and trustworthy. The people they drag into their lives are not eligible for that stuff, due to criminal records, mental illness, really intractable problems.

In the other place I lived, there were raucous parties, vandalised fixtures, scummy people just hanging around. One Holy Saturday I was about to leave for church, when someone was stabbed and left a trail of blood at my doorstep. There were numerous drug-related arrests. Once I came home around 8pm to meet a cop with an assault rifle, who advised me to hang back awhile because they were raiding the place across the way. I was eventually subpoenaed to a court case because I'd supposedly witnessed some dude damage property, who of course didn't live there.

The recertification process is full of checks on this behavior. Currently, they have a questionnaire with essay questions like, "What is fraud?" "What is the definition of a "visitor"?" and suchlike, because people just don't understand the difference between a temporary visitor and a live-in roommate who keeps their stuff there and sleeps on your couch or whatever.

It happens all the time, and in fact it's often the reason people become homeless in the first place, because they dragged over their loser friends, for a shower, a meal, some games, to crash on the couch, and the family of this person said to stop bringing drama and crime into our home. So the guy gets kicked out from an otherwise good home, because they are trying to keep the peace.

I was on the other end of this, in fact; when I was homeless, I would sometimes be invited over, you know, to shower, eat, crash or whatever, and my host would get in trouble, because I was not known and hadn't had a background check, or signed on to a lease or anything. Couch-surfers are often living in largesse of friends who informally vet them and those friends often risk eviction, because your typical lease agreement (not even Section 8, just a standard lease) prohibits long-term "visitors" who turn into "roommates" without legally signing on.

[jubalfh]

you americans are seriously fucked up.

[crooked-v]

> to shower, to eat, to crash ... to play games

I'm failing to see how those items in your list are supposed to be a bad thing for society.

[lukas099]

So your saying that even more people are being housed? I guess we need more Section 8!