Homeless Housing: Community Village

[wmw999 2,295]

Storyhttps://www.citylab.com/design/2018/11/community-first-village-homeless-tiny-homes-austin-texas/575611/
When I lived in Houston, I volunteered at a homeless shelter; I’m interested in the issue. This is one of the coolest ideas I’ve seen for dealing with the issue, particularly the community nature of it.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[BIGUN 1,229]

That is a solution that the VA is also undertaking for homeless veterans. I think it's a great idea, myself.

EDIT: "...particularly the community nature of it."

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[tkhayes 246]

everyone thinks it is a great idea until they want to put one close to your house....

we see the same thing here in Z-Hills. Pasco County has very high homelessness

item one on the agenda is supporting the homeless with community ideas. money, ideas for housing, food drives, etc and lots of speeches

item two is almost always - not in my back yard.

And then nothing happens.

[base283 0]

The real challenge is integrating them into society. Isolating them in their own community won't help. Look at what happened with the low income public housing projects. Good try, but created worse problems than low income.
The only networking that was available was with other low income tenants. They become known in the US as their ghettos.
Mixing them as much as possible in normal society with people from all walks of life would be brilliant if we could find a way to do that.
I don't have any answers. It is just something that is clear to me that group isolation generally causes worse problems than it solves.
Take care,
space

[wmw999 2,295]

It’s a slow process. So many of the homeless that I volunteered with are ADD/ADHD to the extent that fitting into a normal working day would be very difficult. A variety of smaller jobs (like on farms, or as a cowboy, etc) fits better. This is a good start, especially with the opportunity to do stuff and start fitting in, and seeing that working community is community too.
Finding others to move there, too (which having the ultra cool tiny houses can help with) is another challenge.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[wmw999 2,295]

Quote

everyone thinks it’s a great idea until they want to put one next to your house

Yup. The shelter I volunteered at in Houston is having to move after 17 years due to neighborhood pressure.
There isn’t a perfect place, and “somewhere else” just turns it into someone else’s problem. Unfortunately, mental illness, addiction, and issues like ADHD won’t go away just because we don’t like them. Locally, the homeless encampment is in a forest about 1/2 mike away.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[yoink 321]

Here’s another solution being taken to Thailand by a young engineer.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46300790