Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics Universal Basic Income? Guaranteed Job?

Where YOU are is the West Side, Phil.
It is understandable that land is scarce there.
It's second only to San Jose and San Francisco in terms of living expenses.
Homeless working poor will NOT be able to afford to live in your neck of the woods.

But Downey? Norwalk? Whittier?
All kinds of extra land around these parts.

And right now we're desperate because homeless working poor are already living in a Hooverville tent city right next to the San Gabriel River, a full on homeless encampment.

So clearly the tiny house solution would be much more preferable.

But where you could put 48 tiny houses, you could house 400 people in a four story building! And you could build a lot higher than that.

Even in the most occupied areas of Southern California you have individual houses on 1/4 acre lots. We could easily afford buying 10 adjacent ticky tacky single story houses at over-market cost, tear them down, and put up a building that houses 1000 people. And that building would require much less heating and air conditioning than 250 individual houses.

We have done just that with public housing projects in the past. We can still do it, and supply modern security with video cameras and microphones in the halls and common areas. That stuff is dirt-cheap now, and you can hire some residents to monitor the cameras.

I'm not saying Tiny Houses aren't cool but they are very impractical unless you use them as a rural cabin. And then you might as well just build a cabin.

So, at 400 per month that's 4,800 a year. Over 11,700 is 41% of total income (assuming that 11,700 is net, which it certainly would not be). Thus leaving you to eat garbage for the entire year and not a penny left for anything else.

It does

Only $132 per week left for food for a single person? Pretty expensive garbage. Pinto beans and rice go for less than $1 per pound around here. Can you eat 132 pounds of rice and beans in a week?

Not that anybody would actually buy nothing but beans and rice, but the point is that you can live with roommates, buy cheap basic food items you cook yourself, not use air conditioning, use public transportation, etc.

It's too little. Period.
And you do need some minimum of clothing, electricity and gas. So your 132 ( which isn't 132 because the 11,700 is gross not net) is whittled down to nothing. Suppose the person doesn't like beans? Or rice? Or can't eat them for some medical reason?
C'mon PIA, unemployment in NYC can reach 23,000 a year .

LA bus pass 122 per month which is cheapest way around town

Well, first off, I WAS referring to a dozen here and a dozen there, forty eight IN TOTAL.
Putting up forty eight units together equals something called "low income housing".
In Los Angeles that equals, "da projects", and the projects are a very bad idea.
Now, put up a medium density building for twelve units here, and a medium density building for twelve there, and you have something.

But my original idea was to make use of temporarily empty land the kind which exists where I live, the former Caddy dealer, the teardown site for the greasy spoon, etc.
Read the ENTIRE post, I am talking about temp solutions for temp homeless. Long term homeless require a different solution but for working poor staying in homeless encampments, tiny houses set up on land which is going to lie fallow for three to five years is a great idea.
And when the land gets sold and the developers rush in, move the tiny houses somewhere else.

Hey, we're already doing this anyway, under a slightly different name...FEMA trailers.

I lived on nothing but red beans and rice, an occasional tomato, instant milk and frozen OJ, maybe a tin of canned fish once in a while and iced tea for almost two years.

I also looked FABULOUS. Karen said I looked "trim".
Now, I'm a beached whale but people say it's the sign of a happy marriage and a faithful husband.

Uhhh yeah, who would want to fool around with a water buffalo anyway?

Good question