A plan to build “tiny homes” for San Jose’s homeless residents passed its first major test Tuesday, and now the city must answer the most difficult question — where to put these micro sleeping cabins.
After a heated debate, the City Council voted 9-2 to approve a yearlong pilot program to build one tiny home village comprised of 40 units. Elected leaders by next month will come up with three potential sites for the tiny homes and eventually want to place a tiny home village in each of the city’s 10 City Council districts.
If they are spending the whole $2.3M on the project, then that’s $57,500/unit. You can’t come close to get cheap in MFH construction. That one in SF was $900K/unit.
Now the real battle begins, because even as liberal as SJ is and as much as people say they want to help. No one wants this in their backyard. The NIMBYism will be in full force.
I think part of the cost problem comes from the misguided belief that poor people must have things as nice as richer people.
Why can’t we build some barracks to house the homeless? And give them tools and training to get them onto their own feet? In Asia it’s widely accepted we can’t cretae this kind of moral hazard by giving poor people the same things as rich people. It may sound callous but there is certain logic to it.
I agree 100%. Why should they have private homes? There are much cheaper ways to house them. I don’t see why military style barracks housing isn’t an option.
We’ve spent decades creating more programs to help the poor. We haven’t moved the poverty rate since 1970. It goes up and down with economic cycles. All we’ve done is make local, state, and federal budgets grow much faster than inflation.
For one, i actually liked the pipe-apartments. As much as I appreciate big ass craftsman/colonial houses, small apartments have their place too.
Many european cities live in tiny apartments. American dream mandates large lots and stuff, but with jobs getting concentrated i can’t see a way. Similar reason why mobile parks exist.
