Can we please call this what it is: "tiny homes" are custom made wooden trailers. I've known a lot of people that lived in aluminum manufactured versions, you know, trailers. Hell, I've lived in trailers parked in trailer parks and camp grounds. When I was 9 years old, we lived in a tent in a campground. The neatest man I've ever known lived in a "tiny home" aluminum trailer at that campground. He was a Vietnam Veteran. And, now that I'm old enough to understand, I recognize that he was likely suffering from PTSD.
That this is a now classified as a "movement" is disturbing. Poverty isn't a movement it's a problem directly related to shitty economic policies that give subsidies to the rich and penalizes the poor; failures at the educational level to teach fiscal management; mental health issues; and a political system that undervalues human beings. Yes, making these homes available to the homeless is a good idea, but a homeless person doesn't have $10k - $25k to spend on a house. Quite frankly, a homeless person most likely doesn't have $250/mo to spend until it's paid off. It seems like $250/mo is a great price, but it's still cost prohibitive to the very people who have relied on this type of housing for over 50 years.
Please don't get me wrong, this is by no means an attack on your post @doitvoluntarily, I think you've done wonderful work on this post. I just get really pissed off when I think about the reality of poverty and the absolute fact that "popular movements" frequently make things unaffordable to those people who relied on them before they became popular.
What's even more disgusting, is that while a poor person can buy a VERY nice mobile home, starting at $18,000 or so, for a one or two bedroom, and still only $60,000 for an amazing 4-5 bedroom... the cost of LAND RENT is so absurd, that it basically eliminates the savings of the super cheap housing, or renders it unaffordable to those who are extremely poor.
So there are houses poorer people can afford! They just cannot afford the land to put them on!
Your comment makes me think of the Tent Cities that have been razed by police rather than patrolled by them.
Yeah. I get that there are safety issues, but something is wrong when people don't have anywhere to go. As for homeless shelters, there are horror stories about those places, so no, that's not always the answer.
You can build some pretty neat (almost hobbit style) houses out of DIRT if you possess the knowledge to do it safely, and you can give them as many rooms as you want! How much does dirt and knowledge cost? And yet somehow there are still homeless people.
It's really tragic, because it doesn't have to be this way.
Had a homeless friend explain that he felt safer under a bridge than in a homeless shelter, which said a lot to me about the conditions of shelters. He also explained that some nights he couldn't get in...if he was late or if they were full up, so most nights he stayed away from them.
Saw a YouTube video about earthships in New Mexico, they seem awesome. The architect had to fight with the New Mexico congress to get them classified as experimental housing because the first neighborhood he build got shut down for not meeting the housing guidelines (meant for traditional structures).
So many options available, but government ties our hands or forcibly removes us. You're right. It doesn't have to be this way.
Based on the things I read, it sounds like your friend is probably very right in thinking so.