[detourdog]

I live in a small New England town that definitely faces housing shortages. Our planning board (which I have served on) has occasionally blamed NIMBYism for poorly thought out housing plans. People trying to point out the short sighted thinking are easily dismissed as NIMBYs.

One example would be allowing mobile homes with HUD certification. Advocates for this idea would argue that it would provide affordable housing which is true if one looks at initial costs of just shelter. The problem is that currently HUD divides their housing standards by geography and north west Massachusetts and Virginia are considered the same region. This causes the insulation requirements are really inadequate for our winters. This was further complicated by mobile home providers supplying air sourced heat pumps as the heating and cooling. The mobile home was then able to marketed as energy efficient. The problem was that heating system would be completely inadequate without intense insulation upgrades.

The HUD certification comes along with the inability for any local building codes to be enforced. In 2006 as a town we voted to impose "Stretch Codes" for energy efficiency. We voted for that knowing it was going to add at 25% for any building project in town.

My opinion was that the result would unsustainable electric bills and inadequate heating for our vulnerable population. I believed that we would create a two tiered housing system and our vulnerable population would have inadequate housing. I have nothing against mobile homes and believed we could use mobile homes as housing under the current building codes if they had permanent foundation and were sheathed in an extra layer of insulation.

I saw the label of NIMBY as dismissive and distracting from actual issues and the conversation never developed.

I have experience with both air sourced heat pumps and insulation in our area. I have developed an abandoned school into studio apartments that use heat pumps exclusively for heating.

I find catchy labels like NIMBY and YIMBY close to meaningless and hamper dialog and the development of ideas.

Thank you for the comment I updated it to sound less conspiratorial.

Your mileage my vary.

[bombcar]

Mobile homes and their ilk are horrible in fifteen billion ways, and it’s not a NIMBY thing.

Maybe in Southern California they can work but most everywhere else you end up spending lot rent + heating and it’s more than an apartment would be.

[phil21]

They might be horrible but they are far less horrible than nothing.

Tenement housing is pretty horrible but way better than not being able to afford anything.

Boarding house rooms are horrible but better than not having a low cost/low commitment option while you figure things out.

Pretty much all of these existed a generation or two ago where I am from but are now completely gone and outright banned by city code. All done by supposed do-good era who had the best of intentions in mind.

We have completely removed the bottom rung of housing for anyone who needs to get started or fallen upon hard times. Once you fall you are simply not getting back up again.

Sometimes perfect is the enemy of good enough for now. I’d much rather live in a trailer home in Minnesota (and have!) than a tent or homeless on the street or in my car. There were very few other options available at the time. Less so now. Dealing with frozen pipes and only being able to afford to marginally heat one bedroom to 50 degrees during a cold spell is luxury to some folks.

[giantg2]

One scenario they're good for is if you own the land and need something to save up for a few years when planning/building your house. Although with the advances in modular and tiny houses, they don't seem to be the best option for that anymore either.

[bombcar]

They can work in some cases, but they should almost always be considered temporary housing (as they quickly cost more to maintain than they’re worth).

Of course some modular homes that have a technical mobile part are a different story.

Around here the “live while building” is usually done with a garage with a small apartment above it.

[detourdog]

The biggest drivers of housing cost from my POV is that our stringent building codes results(due to thorough inspections) in high quality homes.

The other driver is that there is plenty of affordable(good deals) in neighboring towns 15 minutes aways.