From "In Portland, a fitful start to a new way to help the homeless: A village of tiny houses" in the L.A. Times.
Federal and state cuts to social services and affordable housing programs, combined with Portland’s growing homeless population — up 9.9% since 2015 — have spurred officials to look more closely at the village model....
The pods afford autonomy and privacy for less money than a traditional shelter, advocates say. “If you don’t like somebody, you can go in your own pod,” Ramirez said. “It is very democratic,” she said. “You get into your routines, you get to know each other and their boundaries. All in all, I think it is a very positive thing for me.”
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41 comments:
Nice mudpit. A few loads of gravel doesn't cost much.
"marrying public funding and nonprofit oversight"
What could possibly go wrong?
Cannery Row style housing. All they need to add is a set of window curtains on a fake window. Mack and the boys can enjoy life and get whatever they need using food Stamps at Lee Chong's Grocery.
A capsule hotel, also known as a pod hotel, is a type of hotel developed in Japan that ...is a modular plastic or fiberglass block roughly [6'7" x 3'3" x 4'1"]. The capsules are stacked side-by-side, two units high, ...
..and look like animal cages at a veterinarian's office.
"All they need to add is a set of window curtains on a fake window." I see a couple small windows on the one pod that is rotated to show a view of the back. Do they all have that? There has to be some kind of ventilation. Wouldn't you die in there in the summer?
Those capsule hotels make me think of the sleeping accommodations described in... Neuromancer, I think?
From the Article:
The village is “pretty cool,” said Noah Haskett, 30, “but every time I come around there’s always conflict with the women.”
Makes me long for a female boss.
When lefties say they want to leverage American ingenuity, what they mean is they want to make sure our favelas are produced quickly in factories.
I presume the photographer wanted to depict the camp in the most attractive light, but it looks bleak and sorry. Still, the huts do offer some degree of privacy for the rapists and will, undoubtedly, serve a useful purpose if there's a line at the port a potty.
One cause of homelessness is the gov't outlawing "chicken wire dorms". Old buildings would have their upper floors divided up into very tiny.....I suppose you could call them apartments. Basically 10x12 (or so) rooms made up of plywood and chicken wire. Bums could pay for them with their disability/VA/welfare checks and still have plenty of money left over for booze.
The blurb brought this to mind. I realize it's about California rather than Oregon, but the sentiment is the same:
John Mellencamp - Do Re Mi
And yeah, I could have used the Woody Guthrie version, but I like this one. Loved this album back in '88. My politics have shifted a lot since then, but the music still holds up. Little Richard and Fishbone's version of "Rock Island Line" is incandescent.
Matthew Sablan said...
Those capsule hotels make me think of the sleeping accommodations described in... Neuromancer, I think?
Japanese capsule hotels go back to the 1980's. That's where Gibson got the idea from.
So they bring in gas stoves or other cooking devices and fuels. AH, BBQ.
> Federal and state cuts to social services and affordable housing programs
What cuts?
Lying arseholes.
Mobile Loaves and Fishes has something like this, but nicer and on a larger scale, in Austin. I've been out there a few times on Boy Scout Eagle Projects.
It seems it might be a good fit for the segment of the homeless population that can keep it together enough to live in a community. So not a solution for the homeless population as much as a solution for part of the homeless community.
Also seems to be quite resource intensive, but it does provide a way to effectively channel resources that were previously untapped. And there is where I think it is innovative. People who want to help without becoming totally involved have a way to do so -- like the Eagle projects, which put up a clothesline or built a picnic area. Or you can give some money and be confident it is not going to drugs or booze.
It is also out in a rural area, served by a bus line, but rather isolated. There are a few suburban neigborhoods nearby, but they are separated by fences and space.
And the on site managers seem to be pretty no-nonsense when it comes to cracking down on anti-social behavior.
Here is the link to the Mobile Loves and Fishes Austin community:
http://mlf.org/community-first/
Windows? First you add windows, and then you need burglar alarms and a Police Patrol. Back to the fake windows.
The "homeless" problem dates from the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1960s when mental hospitals were closed and the psychotic were turned loose on the streets after "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" convinced enough people that mental illness was a myth.
I used to take my medical students to the area of LA where the shelters were and have them talk to the people that ran the shelters.
They told us that 60% of the homeless (That was about 1999) are psychotic and 60% are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Half of each group is both.
I know of psychotic people who own homes and sleep in the street, There are SRO hotels in LA and special shelters for families with children who are whisked off the street the same day they are found.
The schizophrenic don't take their meds and the "pods" are not going to solve a problem.
I live in Portland and this is the first I've heard of this* but it doesn't surprise me. Nor will it surprise me when this turns into a complete clusterf**k. That's how Portland rolls.
"It is also out in a rural area, served by a bus line, but rather isolated."
That's a problem for the substance abusers who have a chance of getting clean. No jobs.
One of the big shelters we used to visit is an armory that was part of an army base in LA. It is in an industrial district but close enough to bus lines. There were probably a thousand people living in that shelter and the meals were sort of like mess halls in the old military,.
Some of them had jobs they could do and came back to the shelter after work.
The psychotics are hopeless in present circumstances.
Supporting the homeless will attract more of them. That's Portland all over.
But they do have health insurance.
I chuckled at "community garden".
I love the 'tiny house' idea! Everyone needs and deserves privacy.
It's better than putting the pods in your own backyard, as Althouse blogged about earlier this year. As illustrated in the story, these people have problems.
Tiny houses are perfect for hardcore heroin addicts. You don't need any space for the personal possessions you're not going to have, they might be a little claustrophobic for methheads, better to get an old RV trailer with better windows in a more remote area.
"One cause of homelessness is the gov't outlawing 'chicken wire dorms.' Old buildings would have their upper floors divided up into very tiny.....I suppose you could call them apartments. Basically 10x12 (or so) rooms made up of plywood and chicken wire. Bums could pay for them with their disability/VA/welfare checks and still have plenty of money left over for booze."
AKA "flophouses." Bluntly, they were just semi-private cubicles where drunks and the down and out could get off the street.
Has the government outlawed them, or is it just that owners of real estate have decided they can find ways to make more money than maintaining flophouses? There were some still extant here in NYC within the last decade or so, I believe, but I don't know if any remain.
“There are dominance issues” among residents, Birkel said. “Who’s going to rise to the top; who’s going to be the alpha? We’re monitoring that carefully.”
Communists rediscover biology.
R Cook....I talked to a former drifter a while back. He said the flophouses kept him and many others like him from being homeless. He said due to many hazards they were outlawed, putting these people on the street.
In Minneapolis they were demolished as part of urban renewal in the early 1960s.
Great setup for drug users.
No plumbing huh? What is the over under until the tiny house becomes the shitter? I'm giving it 72 hours.
"Wouldn't you die in there in the summer?"
Only if you stay inside.
A Pick 5 win: the LA Times, The Guardian, The Isthmus, Madison, and looking down at bowling....
Clyde,
Have you listened to the Ry Cooder version of Do Re Mi? That's the one with which I'm most familiar. Sorry, but the Mellencamp cover is too busy for my taste.
Studio version.
This reminds me of an episode of the show Michael Moore had decades ago where he suggested housing homeless people in self-storage units. After all, where else should you store yourself?
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
--Malvina Reynolds
Levittown for the less prosperous.
CWJ said...
Clyde,
Have you listened to the Ry Cooder version of Do Re Mi? That's the one with which I'm most familiar. Sorry, but the Mellencamp cover is too busy for my taste.
Just pulled it up on YouTube. I still prefer the Mellencamp version. That's how music is; one person likes one thing, another likes something different.
Clyde,
Yep! That's how it is. Great renditions either way.
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