[lolinder]

From a bit of googling I think that there are different conceptions of what a townhome is across different regions, so it might be helpful to describe exactly what you're referring to.

Where I live, a townhouse/townhome is more or less just a single-family home without space to the left and right—it has a front door and usually at least a second story (sometimes three), it most often has a garage, and the left and right walls are shared with the next unit [0]. Typical total living area between all the floors is 1000-1500 sqft.

Judging from the picture in the article, the kind of townhome that I'm thinking of would absolutely not be a more efficient use of land per housing unit than what they're doing here with these tiny homes.

I'm assuming that you're referring to something different?

[0] This is typical of what I think of as a townhome, if anything a bit more efficient than most: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2914-Yates-St-Denver-CO-8...

Edit: Here's a link to the property on Google maps so you can see the full scale of each unit: https://maps.app.goo.gl/cqLLmbU3Rtufkfx78

[crooked-v]

> absolutely not be a more efficient

The listing you linked looks like a much more efficient a use of land and resource than the tiny homes from the article: about the same amount of land per unit but able to hold substantially more people per unit, plus all the economies of scale that go with shared utilities, heat conservation from shared walls, and so on.

[lolinder]

Scale is hard to judge, but my gut sense is that land per unit is at least double in that listing—these units go back pretty far to make up for minimal street frontage.

Housing units is what matters for solving homelessness, not number of people housed. These tiny homes aren't intended to house whole families. Yes, you could fit 8 to 10 unrelated homeless people in a single family home or townhome, but there's a reason why that's not pushed forward as a solution—people don't generally want 9 strangers as roommates.

I definitely agree that the economies of scale that come with the shared walls make a huge difference for general practicality, but I was only speaking of land use per housing unit.

Edit: Here's a link to the satellite image [0] so you can see the depth of the property. The unit alone is about twice as deep as it is wide, and then it has a backyard per unit in addition to that. My very rough estimate with the Google maps ruler suggests about 1000 sqft footprint per unit.

[0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/cqLLmbU3Rtufkfx78

[dmos62]

Roommates? This discussion is perplexing. Don't you have apartment buildings where you're from? An apartment in a multi-story house is more space efficient than a single-tenant house is what the observation was, unless I'm missing something.

[lolinder]

Yes, we have apartments, but this conversation is about townhomes and the different definitions of townhomes people use. Apartment buildings are absolutely the most efficient use of space, but the original poster on this thread was arguing for townhomes, and what is called a townhome in my area is just a single family home with shared walls with the neighbors to the left and right.

Hence roommates—townhomes (by the definition in my area) are not an efficient solution for homelessness unless you have many roommates.

I have a suspicion that what OP calls a townhome is something I would just call a small apartment building.

[cglan]

Sorry, we definitely have different definitions of townhomes. Where I am from (NYC) a townhouse is typically a 2/3 story build, narrow. With 2/3 units or sometimes split down the middle giving you 4 or 6 units or as high as 12 usually, often with an english basement and a back yard.

This is what I am talking about https://streeteasy.com/blog/types-of-townhouses-in-nyc/

DC is full of them too, so is boston. Googling NYC Park Slope Townhouse would get you tons of images of nicer ones, but there's tons of cheap vinyl sided ones that are just fine.

[seanmcdirmid]

Tiny homes also work well for housing people that are difficult to house normally. Like, they have an addiction problem and are likely to trash or burn down a unit they are given, a tiny home isolates that problem a bit.

[AlbertCory]

Exactly. In CA, "townhome" just means "condo with no upstairs or downstairs neighbors, and shared walls."