"A 99-square-foot house built through the nonprofit Occupy Madison Build, or OM Build, run by former organizers with the Occupy movement. The group hopes to create a cluster of tiny houses, which cost about $5,000, fits a double bed with overhead storage, a small table, and a small room with a compostable toilet. The houses don’t have electricity, water, bathrooms, showers, or kitchens, but separate shared buildings do."
Remember the old tenements you read about in school books? They are coming back!
"Tiny houses help address nation’s homeless problem" by Carrie Antlfinger | Associated Press, March 02, 2014
MADISON, Wis. — While tiny houses have been attractive for those wanting to downsize or simplify their lives for financial or environmental reasons, there’s another population benefiting from the small-dwelling movement: the homeless.
Good, because there are more of them every day even if the coverage has stopped.
Related:
Boston 4th for income gap between rich and poor
Luxury businesses find fertile ground in Boston
Protesters highlight Chinatown’s affordable housing crisis
I guess that ought to clean up a few things.
Also see: Second Grade Protest Was Controlled Opposition
And now Occupy has been co-opted.
Btw, I noticed the only place where downsizing is not popular with my pre$$ is the concentration of wealth at the top (they scaling back their mansions and property holdings in the name of altruism, too?).
There’s a growing effort across the nation from advocates and religious groups to build these compact buildings because they are cheaper than a traditional large-scale shelter, help the recipients socially because they are built in communal settings, and are environmentally friendly....
I'm so sick of the agenda being shoved in our faces. What about all the foreclosed homes that are empty? Couldn't put 'em up there?
Harold ‘‘Hap’’ Morgan is in line for a 99-square-foot house built through the nonprofit Occupy Madison Build, or OM Build, run by former organizers with the Occupy movement. The group hopes to create a cluster of tiny houses like those in Olympia, Wash., and Eugene and Portland, Ore.
Nonprofit, huh?
"nonprofits provide new ways for corporations and individuals to influence"
And I was already suspicious seeing this cheerleading piece on all the "good work" Occupy is doing.
Of course, none of this is addressing the root of their complaints, the wealth inequality that has only grown since the movement was shut down over two years ago.
Many have been built with donated materials and volunteer labor, sometimes from the people who will live in them. Most require residents to behave appropriately, avoid drugs and alcohol, and help maintain the properties.
Still, sometimes neighbors have not been receptive.
Friendly Amurkns, right?
Linda Brown, who can see the proposed site for Madison’s tiny houses from her living room window, said she worries about noise and what her neighbors would be like.
Organizer Brenda Konkel hopes to allay concerns by the time the City Council votes in May on the group’s application to rezone the site of a former auto body shop to place the houses there. Plans include gardens, a chicken coop, and possibly beehives on the grounds, as well as showers and bathrooms in the main building.
‘‘ I think there is some ways we can be a real asset to the neighborhood,’’ she said.
The group has already built one house that’s occupied by a couple and parked on the street. A volunteer moves it every 24 or 48 hours as required by city ordinances.
The house, which cost about $5,000, fits a double bed with overhead storage, a small table, and a small room with a compostable toilet. There’s no plumbing or electricity, but the home is insulated and has a propane heater to get the residents through harsh winters.
Organizers want to eventually add solar panels.
Morgan, who has struggled with a spinal cord surgery, alcohol addiction, and unemployment, lives in a trailer provided by OM Build. He hopes to work as a cook again.
‘‘My goal is to go back to that and get my own place, but it’s really nice to have this to fall back on,’’ he said.
The tiny house effort in Eugene, Ore., sprung up after the city shut down an Occupy encampment that turned into a tent city for the homeless.
Yeah, and drug addicts and all sorts of stinky people (but not violent, like brave Ukrainians). That's why they needed to be shut down. That Occupy movement wasn't real Amerikans, it was the dregs of our society -- like college kids.
Andrew Heben and others worked with the city, which provided them with land for the project.
Heben wouldn't be Hebrew, would he?
Opportunity Village Eugene opened in September with little resistance, said Heben, 26, who is on the board of directors....
The houses don’t have electricity, water, bathrooms, showers, or kitchens, but separate shared buildings do.
They’ve done it all for less than $100,000, all from private donors.
Ministries in Texas and New York also are developing communities with clusters of small houses....
Yeah, that's the answer to the problem of homeless in our country. Sardine 'em up in a cell of a home.
--more--"
What a wonderfully positive story about well-meaning Occupy, huh?
Related: Senior Citizen Cell
The wealthy need more room for their mansions.
