Reddit, I have an idea.
Build lots of "Tiny Houses" as you demolish the failing or condemned facilities in an area. Space for a sink, toilet, shower, wall-locker or small closet or drawers based on the space, desk, beds(TXL or Full size), and a small refrigerator, maybe a small oven with two-burner stove-top? I suggest houses rather than apartments as it gives a few feet between dwellings and better noise isolation. I seldom felt like I had my own space living in an apartment and yes it generated hostility. Every tiny sound is loud enough to be heard on one side or another. The goal is economical use of a small space that still leaves people capable of actually “living” in it. Living in a space does not mean your entire daily routine is spent there.
Make them like $100/month to live in. If it really needs to be done, give people a limit on how long they can stay and limit it to people making less than a living wage based on local COL. You can create a sense of comfort and even luxury provided just the basics and know-how and that, generally, generates a lot of gratitude in people who do not have much. A grateful population is more likely to be a productive one.
If it is possible to build them for the homeless then they should not be run like a shelter, one night and then out every night with no way to secure belongings, or they will fucking fail. The principle is to give people a sense of place and security and generate a desire to self-maintain or improve their situation. That takes time. Violent incidents lower when animals, and yes we are all animals, feel a sense of place and security. Substance abuse lowers when animals get above a certain amount of personal space, but I understand that is limited in large urban areas so “Tiny” spaces will have to do until people get on solid ground.
Next, stop wasting time and money with EBT cards. Install subsidized grocery stores, especially in food desert areas. Maybe require a unique ID to shop there. The state should not be capable of denying you one just because you have an outstanding debt that you are paying off. The items available should be limited but healthy. Foods with no or little processing, things that change an item’s chemical makeup, should be the main idea. This means mostly veggies, fruits, dairy, and meat. Obviously other produce, like rice and legumes, would be fine as well. Seasonings, condiments, and no-sugar-add-ins should still be sold, just because you are poor doesn’t mean your food should taste bland and undesirable. It also should not be poisoning you so I suggest very few foods with any kind of added sugar or made entirely from sugar.
These houses and grocery stores should be spread out rather than concentrated in only one area in any given city. Concentrating these areas would be problematic and counter-productive. Research the benefits of mixed-income areas.
I am sure it would also be possible to have some kind of small, open, green-space shared with-in these communities. I will not list the litany of reasons why green-space is beneficial to individuals and from there the communities they occupy. Just don’t try going against the land. Use plants that work well in and are natural to the local ecology.
Now, for those asking, “How the hell do we plan and implement this”, here is an answer.
So many schools would gladly assign their top graduating students a project like this as part of some kind of loan pay-off project or even for nothing more than a gateway to secured employment and you could get real advice and planning from people knowledgeable in environmental psychology, functional design and planning, and various types of engineering.
If that is too much to ask, then, simply stop listening to the lowest-bidders with weak or unrelated backgrounds that the government usually seems to consult on shit like this and typically results in an almost utter failure and huge cost overruns. Oh, and put someone in charge who isn’t just an accountant, lawyer, or failed MBA. You know, someone who has a chance of understanding the real-life importance of having living spaces that work for people. Maybe, “dare I say it”, a scientifically literate official with maybe an ounce of positive(meaning they did something that worked not sugar-coated-sunshiny-outlook) sociology or psychology experience?
For a few billion dollars, stop subsidizing oil for a few months, you can build more of these things than there are insecurely housed people in the whole country. Some people will try to use this as a launch-point in their lives or maintain a minimal lifestyle, whereas others will just try to milk the system. You get fewer of the latter and more of the former if you create a system people can trust.
Doing this might actually encourage people to start seeking out more financially stable living spaces and lifestyles and might even stabilize our economy a little as contractors look for ways to build homes people can afford, maybe not “Tiny Homes”, but still smaller, more space-effective(efficiency that works), and more affordable ones. Yeah, yeah, debt is good for capitalist economies. Unmanageable debt is not. So maybe, just maybe, we can give people the benefits of living comfortably with manageable debt as opposed to our current system of encouraging everyone to add crushing debt atop crushing debt.
This plan might actually work if the government went out and subsidized the building of these types of homes, rather than outright owning them and then renting them out, or homes that at least move in this direction. This would lower the cost of owning your home, maybe first-time buyers only, or maybe they could limit the sale to people who can prove poverty level employment.
After all, a homeowning soiety is a more stable society and a more stable society generates more taxable wealth for your social services such as FD, PD, libraries, etc. while also putting less strain on existing infrastructure.
Edits: some missing words and ideas
Submitted November 21, 2015 at 12:26AM by Stringfellow369 http://ift.tt/1S9k38F offmychest
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