Are tiny homes the answer to the homeless problem

[Texashiker]

Another retarded TH thread.

Retarded because I think society can do better for the people who need help?

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

How many of these illnesses are passed on via genetics?

It's hard to say. There's been a lot of work in the past couple decades with genetics and physiology of mental disorders. We're still in the very early stages of mental illness research (pretty much where most other medical sciences were 50-100 years ago) but we're starting to get away from pure descriptions of syndromes to the physiological underpinnings of these disorders.

However, it's still hard to say exactly how much is due to genetics, but it's probably a mix of genetic predisposing factors and environmental triggers, as with most other complex diseases.

How do these people support themselves and their children?

They don't, really. In New Zealand they have social support at home and they get help with money, groceries, cleaning, etc - a lot of these people have disorders that in some way or another prevents them from driving, shopping, etc. so we have people who once or twice a week come by to help them try overcome that and in the meantime give them the means to continue living. Living by yourself and not being able to take care of yourself is a sign of self-negligence, which is one of the eligibility criteria of the Mental Health Act, so they can be committed until relatives/friends can be found or until they improve medically.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Retarded because I think society can do better for the people who need help?

No, that tiny homes is the answer to the homeless problem.

 

[poofyhairguy]

The other option is to warehouse them?

Isn't that what an apartment is, a warehouse for people?

No, an apartment is not a warehouse. I am kinda disappointed, as a Texan I would think you have seen many warehouses even if only off the highway.

 

[Scotteq]

Ah yes - Internment camps for ReEducation.

Maybe we could out up a sign to remind them of the importance of their studies - "Working for Freedom", or something similar.

What do you suggest? Keep doing as we are doing now?

Perhaps if you would be so kind as to provide clearer lists of which of our citizens - (or non citizens, as the case may be) - should be imprisoned. I'll guess it'd have to be an administrative process. Cos, after all, it wouldn't be fair to overburden the court system with six hundred thousand cases when there are real crimes to handle.

Oh - that number includes a million and a half children, in case you care to adjust it.

 

[Texashiker]

No, that tiny homes is the answer to the homeless problem.

For areas who have a small homeless population why cant small homes be an option?

For large urban areas like LA or new york there is no chance.

No, an apartment is not a warehouse. I am kinda disappointed, as a Texan I would think you have seen many warehouses even if only off the highway.

Yea, I know what a warehouse looks like. I have seen them from the highway, and some of the welding shops I worked at had a warehouse section for parts.

I stand by my opinion, apartments are like warehouses. Putting homeless people in an apartment is no different that putting a part on a shelf.

 

[Moonbeam]

There's a tiny little home up the street about 5 doors that's worth about a million.

Some years ago I read that Egypt was going to create a social nightmare by stopping folk from building homes of mud on free land. They want everybody to have a mortgage.

 

[umbrella39]

If the homeless were in a centralized location health workers could provide care to the people who need it.




Did you read the opening post?

Did you see the part where I mentioned providing job training and health care to those who need it?

If the homeless were in a centralized location health workers could provide care to the people who need it.

But we already used to do things like that, at least here in Michigan before we didn't any longer. Who is going to pay for that? We already used to shore up and keep the mentally ill off the streets and in facilities getting care where they belong. Not out in the street which puts not only them but all of us in danger. They eventually end up dead or in jail. We could go back in a time machine, at least in Michigan... and undo what Engler did. By the numbers, Engler closed and shut down 10 of Michigan's 15 state-run facilities in the 1990s. Sorry, but 210 beds in ann arbor for this area is simply not enough to deal with that kind of problem. A 2010 U of M study claims that more than 20% of Michigan's massive prison population are severely mentally ill. It also claimed that nearly 2/3rds of severely mentally ill prisoners had not had any sort of treatment within the past year. \

From the first google study I found and these are now 8 years old, I am sure there are even fewer beds now:

Since the 1960s there has been a mass exodus of patients from public psychiatric
hospitals. Data are available on the number of patients in such hospitals in 1955 and in 2004–2005.

The data show that:
• In 2005 there were 17 public psychiatric beds available per 100,000 population compared
to 340 per 100,000 in 1955. Thus, 95 percent of the beds available in 1955 were no
longer available in 2005.
• The states with the fewest beds were Nevada (5.1 per 100,000), Arizona (5.9), Arkansas
(6.7), Iowa (8.1), Vermont (8.9), and Michigan (9.9).

Face it folks, there are far too many crazy people roaming the streets (and posting here wink wink). Until we address that you can't address homelessness effectively. There is a reason why in the late 1800's huge (and rather nice looking) buildings were built where we put the mentally ill people instead of leaving them out in the streets. We knew way back then shit wasn't working. Why don't people take the people they elected to task when they started shutting down all the hospitals?

 

[umbrella39]

No, that tiny homes is the answer to the homeless problem.

This. Tiny homes is the solution to overcrowding... someone who longs to be a minimalist... but not homelessness (though I would love to and could totally deal with and live in one of those cool 400-600 sq ft homes.)

 

[poofyhairguy]

Yea, I know what a warehouse looks like. I have seen them from the highway, and some of the welding shops I worked at had a warehouse section for parts.

I stand by my opinion, apartments are like warehouses. Putting homeless people in an apartment is no different that putting a part on a shelf.

As you know from seeing them, a warehouse is a big open building, usually with few rooms or dividers, where items are stored. Compared to apartments they do not have separate units that provide privacy nor protection for their personal items.

By your reasoning the multi-million dollar condos I drive by in downtown Austin are the same as living in the back of a Wal-Mart. I would rather live in a condo or apartment than a trailor park, which is what a bunch of small houses for poor people basically is.


I think what you are trying to say is that it is better for the homeless to have more privacy and space than regular people? But then you are basically advocated the mass forced migration of homeless people as land in urban areas is too valuable to give to homeless people to use in such a wasteful manor.

 

[Blackjack200]

This. Tiny homes is the solution to overcrowding... someone who longs to be a minimalist... but not homelessness (though I would love to and could totally deal with and live in one of those cool 400-600 sq ft homes.)

Are you serious? Solutions to overcrowding are things like mass transit and infrastructure investments, and hi-rise apartment buildings. Not a bunch of dog houses.

 

[werepossum]

Military Barracks and Dining Facilities. Don't ever give them any money. It is good enough for the Military.

Short term, I think that's a good solution. Give them a place to be safe, warm, and clean, with phone service. It's expensive, but worth doing. Problem is, any place that does it first gets swamped with everyone's homeless people.

Ah yes - Internment camps for ReEducation.

Maybe we could out up a sign to remind them of the importance of their studies - "Working for Freedom", or something similar.

Not an internment camp if you are free to leave.

I'm not sure that many people are mentally suited to live in 196 square feet. Maybe 350 - 600 square feet, if they are well-designed tiny homes. Kind of like Habitat For Humanity with the rent-to-own contracts they use now, you don't own it and therefore can't mortgage it and lose it, but you can work into ownership with no interest and some mix of sweat equity and payment. Pride of ownership goes a long way toward preventing the severe decline common to "public housing". Couple a cluster of such homes with a small police annex, a free clinic, and a Dollar Store and you have a workable village.

Obviously you'll never save all the homeless people, but surely some significant portion could be saved thusly. Being homeless (and therefore nasty) makes it very difficult to get work and probably contributes significantly to the mental illnesses common among the homeless.

This could work for a faith-based non-profit like Habitat For Humanity, but given that it's probably much more difficult than building a functional website, maybe not so much for the federal government.

 

[Moonbeam]

Are you serious? Solutions to overcrowding are things like mass transit and infrastructure investments, and hi-rise apartment buildings. Not a bunch of dog houses.

If ever an avatar fitted a post, this has got to be it.

 

[umbrella39]

Are you serious? Solutions to overcrowding are things like mass transit and infrastructure investments, and hi-rise apartment buildings. Not a bunch of dog houses.

I'm speaking of my own overcrowding having 3 grown ass kids now still living in my house and on my land Seriously.

 

[moonbogg]

If the homeless were in a centralized location health workers could provide care to the people who need it.

That's a nice idea actually, but here's the thing. Most of them who need help don't really want it, so they can't be helped. They will take the free stuff and take advantage and abuse the kindness of others. Of course, some of them would benefit from this and they would actually be helped, but by and large I don't think enabling them is the way to help them.

 

[umbrella39]

If ever an avatar fitted a post, this has got to be it.

... remember the mirrors sir ...

 

[Texashiker]

I think what you are trying to say is that it is better for the homeless to have more privacy and space than regular people? But then you are basically advocated the mass forced migration of homeless people as land in urban areas is too valuable to give to homeless people to use in such a wasteful manor.

Part of the opening post mentioned using land seized from past due taxes. This is usually land that nobody wants, land in a poor part of town, crime ridden, poverty,,, its not like we are talking about land next to a shopping mall or down town.

The land is not being used anyway. So why not put it to some good use?

And yea, providing a small piece of land and a small home to a mentally ill person might serve the greater good better than giving it to someone who functions well in society.

If society can provide a mentally ill person a small home, a small piece of land (just a few square feet) to have a garden, be close to nature,,, and allow them to live a somewhat normal life, why not?

 

[Moonbeam]

All the disaster we see in the world is caused by self hate, children raised in a world full of put downs, beautiful love filled children stomped to death by violence and hate, made to feel the worst in the world. Each of us passes out hate for ourselves to the next generation. We psychically murder our children to mold them in to zombies that words will no longer harm, monsters in a state of denial, the truth we will never see. If they have no self love give them houses, anything, but do not allow them to show me myself. I hate and despise the weak, the sick, and the poor, because they remind me of me, of how I was made to feel. And I hate you because you will not see what it takes to fix it.

But to hate is to perpetuate no matter the object. The only respite for the tortured mind is on the cross. Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Part of the opening post mentioned using land seized from past due taxes. This is usually land that nobody wants, land in a poor part of town, crime ridden, poverty,,, its not like we are talking about land next to a shopping mall or down town.

The land is not being used anyway. So why not put it to some good use?

I think your theory is sound, as the government has created projects in such areas in the past. But usually in that case the housing is for the people living in that area already.

Often the homeless "live" in busier commercial areas to live off of handouts. I know here in Austin you can't hit a major intersection downtown without a "homeless" person on it. Since where their "marks" live and work won't be near these small houses, how do you plan to get the homeless to do this?

Some sort of homeless busses that take them downtown to beg in the morning and back to their small houses at night? That won't fly politically. But if you cut them off from the handouts then the government has to be the handout, and even then some won't accept that.

It seems like putting more into mental facilities could be money better spent.

And yea, providing a small piece of land and a small home to a mentally ill person might serve the greater good better than giving it to someone who functions well in society.

Is that just a gut feeling or you have some sort of peer reviewed data?

 

[bshole]

If society can provide a mentally ill person a small home, a small piece of land (just a few square feet) to have a garden, be close to nature,,, and allow them to live a somewhat normal life, why not?

Meh, who's to say the homeless aren't happy just the way they are? There is a bit of freedom in it if you think about it. No bills, no taxes, no job, no boss, no more tedious years on the treadmill of material acquisition.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

All the disaster we see in the world is caused by self hate, children raised in a world full of put downs, beautiful love filled children stomped to death by violence and hate, made to feel the worst in the world. Each of us passes out hate for ourselves to the next generation. We psychically murder our children to mold them in to zombies that words will no longer harm, monsters in a state of denial, the truth we will never see. If they have no self love give them houses, anything, but do not allow them to show me myself. I hate and despise the weak, the sick, and the poor, because they remind me of me, of how I was made to feel. And I hate you because you will not see what it takes to fix it.

But to hate is to perpetuate no matter the object. The only respite for the tortured mind is on the cross. Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.

This explains a lot.

 

[moonbogg]

All the disaster we see in the world is caused by self hate, children raised in a world full of put downs, beautiful love filled children stomped to death by violence and hate, made to feel the worst in the world. Each of us passes out hate for ourselves to the next generation. We psychically murder our children to mold them in to zombies that words will no longer harm, monsters in a state of denial, the truth we will never see. If they have no self love give them houses, anything, but do not allow them to show me myself. I hate and despise the weak, the sick, and the poor, because they remind me of me, of how I was made to feel. And I hate you because you will not see what it takes to fix it.

But to hate is to perpetuate no matter the object. The only respite for the tortured mind is on the cross. Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.

What is this self hate you are talking about? Did someone teach you this or did you discover it on your own?

 

[Texashiker]

Is that just a gut feeling or you have some sort of peer reviewed data?

Gut feeling.

I have a theory that cramped living conditions like our modern cities drive people insane. For tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years people roamed the wilderness looking for food.

We were never meant to be living on top of each other, or our houses touching each other.

Everyone one of use yearns for peace and quiet. To listen to the wind blow, the listen to the birds and watch the squirrels. That yearning that is never fulfilled slowing drives people in the inner city crazy.

Meh, who's to say the homeless aren't happy just the way they are? There is a bit of freedom in it if you think about it. No bills, no taxes, no job, no boss, no more tedious years on the treadmill of material acquisition.

Kinda like the movie "into the wild"?

 

[bshole]

Kinda like the movie "into the wild"?

Yep.

PS. I would like to personally thank all you Texans for that epic meltdown yesterday. Perhaps the best Packer victory ever.

 

[Texashiker]

PS. I would like to personally thank all you Texans for that epic meltdown yesterday. Perhaps the best Packer victory ever.

You are welcome.

Glad we could be of service.