From "Can a Big Village Full of Tiny Homes Ease Homelessness in Austin? One of the nation’s largest experiments in affordable housing to address chronic homelessness is taking shape outside the city limits" (NYT).
January 8, 2024
"Around 55 residents, including 15 children, live in the village as 'missionals'..."
"... unpaid neighbors generally motivated by their Christian faith to be part of the community. All missionals undergo a monthslong 'discernment process' before they can move in. They pay to live in R.V.s and manufactured homes distinguished by an 'M' in the front window. Their presence in the community is meant to guard against the pitfalls of concentrated poverty and trauma.... Though the village is open to people of any religious background, it is run by Christians, and public spaces are adorned with paintings of Jesus on the cross and other biblical scenes. The application to live in the community outlines a set of 'core values' that refer to God and the Bible. But Mr. Graham said there is no proselytizing and people do not have to be sober or seek treatment to live there.... 'This is absolutely not nirvana,' Mr. Graham said. 'And we want people to understand the beauty and the complexity of what we do. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else on the face of the planet than right here in the middle of this, but you’re not fixing these things.'"
From "Can a Big Village Full of Tiny Homes Ease Homelessness in Austin? One of the nation’s largest experiments in affordable housing to address chronic homelessness is taking shape outside the city limits" (NYT).
"Mr. Graham" = Alan Graham, a real estate developer who raised $20 million to build a village to house the homeless on land near Austin, Texas where there are no zoning laws.
From "Can a Big Village Full of Tiny Homes Ease Homelessness in Austin? One of the nation’s largest experiments in affordable housing to address chronic homelessness is taking shape outside the city limits" (NYT).
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26 comments:
Nothing else is working, maybe this will.
This is what Christians do.
where there are no zoning laws
Yet.
But are they evangelicals, and was that NYTimes story referenced?
Better there than near me.
I like my property value to rise...
A home for the weary, a suitable religion to temper their divergence, and a community to oversee their development... in a private enterprise of charitable faith. Fair winds and following seas.
Doesn't matter, now that it has come under scrutiny, the village will be sued for discriminating against atheists.
Seems like a great target for gentrification.
If you have any rules for conduct at all, what happens is that people who can follow rules will rationally take advantage of lower rent.
If you don't have rules for conduct, well, we know what happens.
If you really want to solve the problem - amongst the tiny houses- create and build a little town center with places and stores for loitering, shoplifting, and drug-dealing.
those drug habits don't support themselves.
Sigh.
OK, people of America, here's the deal.
If your behavior is middle-class, you'll attain middle class status. That's why people move here from all over the world. People come here with nothing and their children go to college. It happens millions of times a year. I'm continually amazed that people on the liberal side support immigration but simultaneously believe our system is racist and unfair. Why the hell would you want people to come here, then? Holy shit, it's insulting to all the people who come here with nothing and struggle to make it to say that they have to put up with raving assholes, meth heads, trash, and threats of violence on their morning commute.
I think the system is so fair and so just that the biggest variable is what individual people decide to do. We even bend over backward to help people survive choices that in other parts of the world result in death. Conversely, if you simply go to work and follow some simple rules, you'll be fine.
What rules?
Graduate HS. Stay employed. Don't do drugs. Don't have children when you aren't married. Don't break so many laws that you end up incarcerated. Sorry, I have enough experience to know that you don't shoplift once and end up in prison for 20 years. That's some Les Miserables nonsense. You have to work at it.
If nothing else don't do drugs. Just that one thing will put you ahead. You'll be bored enough to do something productive.
It ain't that hard. Millions of people do it. Billions around the world. If you are homeless, the person who most needs to deal with it is you. If you are in America, you are in one of the best places to do it.
Background: Enlisted USN sailor, pizza cook, sandwich maker, kitchen manager, CSR, delivery driver, tour guide, GM receiver at Wal Mart, etc. I know what I'm talking about, and I've never, ever been unable to pay rent.
The left tells a good story, but it's nonsense. It's not helpful and it encourages people to piss their life away instead of living.
Christians have successfully navigated dark and roiling waters before. If anyone offers a viable alternative to the status quo, it is they of Jesus's character. Bon voyage.
Boy that is going to turn into a ****hole. Think a very run down trailer park with people who:
- Don't own it
- Don't pay to keep it up.
- Don't pay the utilities.
- Don't pay for groceries.
- Drink a lot of alcohol and do lots of drugs.
Hell of a plan.
This is what 'stepping up' looks like. Of course, their vocabulary is all wrong, so they'll probably come under attack for it.
“The single biggest issue for people is the cultural change,” Mr. Graham said...."
Consequences, what a concept.
"The evil and the good living side by side
All human forms seem glorified"
but.. Do we WANT to live in a world, where Christians are permitted to exist?
Shouldn't WE, as the progressive queer left; support Islam in it's world purge of infidels?
I mean, they're going to take over the world anyway; since they're the only ones breeding..
And IF we Help them in their Jihad, i Think we can get them to agree to kill us last..
And since WE won't be having kids... We'll PROBABLY die out before they get to us.
Seriously.. IF you're NOT Breeding.. WHY are YOU concerned about things like global warming?
Well, good luck.
The problem is most homeless people are homeless because they are (a) mentally ill, (b) drug addicts, or (c) both. These sort of people are innately irrational, and trying to help someone who is innately irrational is difficult. There is a fringe of homeless not in those categories that can be helped and some of the non-insane drug addicts can be rehabbed, but the large majority of these people are lost causes without mandatory commitment, something which "enlightened" societies refuse to do. At least this project realizes that some people cannot be helped without harming everyone else. It probably will do some good.
"The left tells a good story, but it's nonsense. It's not helpful and it encourages people to piss their life away instead of living."
The left thinks you can give a person middle class things and that will make the person middle class. In other words, they're (the left) not very bright.
I worked for a public housing authority in the late 70s. It was quite successful, because it had fairly strict rules, including cleanliness checks. Burly men from the Central Maintenance Division would inspect every unit every month, and create a punch list for clean up and repair. The tenant was required to do everything on the list before the next inspection. The Authority would provide any needed supplies, such as paint, at no cost to the tenant. Failure to put in the labor required for the punch list meant that CMD would do the job instead and send the tenant the bill. Failure to pay the bill could result in eviction. The wait to get one of these apartments was measured in years.
Unfortunately, Congress passed the well-intentioned Brooke amendment, which stated that public housing rent could not exceed a stated percentage of income. That meant that for most tenants, fines for cleanliness failure were no longer allowed. So they stopped doing their part to keep the places orderly. And all the inspections had been a bluff, because CMD never had the manpower to do all the maintenance.
Some tenants can take care of their property, but they require that Big Daddy makes them behave.
The globillionaires have sucked the American people dry since the early 70's mostly by driving down wages and increasing the cost of living, especially housing. The explosion of homeless is but one externality.
i'd like to see a graph, of sq. ft. of the average house in the 1960's vs now
also, attached garage stalls, bathrooms, AC, etc..
ALSO, boring things like: High Efficiency Furnaces, Refrigerator sizes, kitchen layouts in general..
People KEEP going on and on (and on (and on)) about HOW EXPENSIVE housing is now..
Serious Questions:
What size house did your parents have when you grew up? Bedrooms? and the above stuff?
What size house do you have NOW?
finally, what would Your House have costed in the 1960's?
{gilbar writes this sitting in a house built in 1894 (i think) that's about 900 sq. ft. (i think)}
I bought this house six years ago, for about $30,000.. It was completely renovated 9 years ago
The left thinks you can give a person middle class things and that will make the person middle class. In other words, they're (the left) not very bright.
I'm sure some very intelligent (mainly but probably not exclusively indigenous) people have been taken in by cargo cults. The problem here is that the left appears to have been taken in by its own good intentions and desire to feel good about itself - the cult is coming from inside the house, so to speak.
Howard believes the cost of housing creates homelessness. Fault of billionaires. Howard if we took all the wealth of American billionaires: their cash, homes, stocks, bonds, yachts, planes, offshore accounts, bitcoin, watches, jewelry, shoes socks, shirts,the lot and divided the proceeds among the 300 plus million Americans we would each receive around $20,000. And that would be that. No more billionaires.
Most of what they are doing would be illegal in any big city.
What Austin needs is starter houses, on a subdivision located along a commuter rail route, for inexpensive individual houses.
An 1000 sqft single story, 2 bedroom, vinyl sided frame house on a 3" slab foundation with a kitchen and a single bath, with 100Amps in the circuit box, minimal wiring and no AC and single pane windows that match the inexpensive houses built in East Austin from the 1940s- 1960s basically isn't allowed to be built in Austin any more. Building codes require more expensive and complex roofing, framing, attic and wall insulation, more complex wiring, more expensive insulating windows, specific types of doors, costly materials of subflooring & flooring, better foundations, better braced and wind resistant wall construction, termite proof framing & siding and so on and so on..... Current building codes keep people safe and comfortable and save $$ on running an AC. But people can live just fine with the safety kept and most of the extra, modern comfortable gone.
0.05 acre lots, 800-1000 sqft 2 bedroom houses of cinderblock on slab foundation, small windows, gas heat, gas tankless water heater, no AC, limited storage or cabinetry, a single bathroom, and you're talking affordable low income housing for a family up to 2 or 3 kids until they're ready to move somewhere larger. And it doesn't cost half a million dollars per unit, unless the city government is involved in the project. But that will never be permitted to be built today in Austin. Or most other cities in the US.
Building inexpensive houses is simple, just like building inexpensive vehicles. The problem lies entirely with government regulations and requirements. Look down at the ground the next time you are flying over the US (especially Texas!), and you will notice that there is no shortage of vacant land.
Allow builders to build to 1950's standards, and eliminate land use restrictions, and just like magic you will have affordable housing. Toyota is building a bare-bones 3/4 ton flatbed truck for the rest of the world that sells for $17,000 dollars brand new. Here in the US, it cannot be sold. We get the Tundra priced between $43,000 and $70,000.
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