An abandoned office park in Sacramento will be the site of the first group of 1,200 tiny homes to be built in four cities to address California’s homelessness crisis, the governor’s office announced Wednesday after being criticized for the project experiencing multiple delays.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is under pressure to make good on his promise to show he’s tackling the issue. In March, the Democratic governor announced a plan to gift several California cities hundreds of tiny homes by the fall to create space to help clear homeless encampments that have sprung up across the state’s major cities. The $30 million project would create homes, some as small as 120 square feet (11 square meters), that can be assembled in 90 minutes and cost a fraction of what it takes to build permanent housing.
More than 171,000 homeless people live in California, making up about 30% of the nation’s homeless population. The state has spent roughly $30 billion in the last few years to help them, with mixed results.
Plus modularity. If something goes wrong in an apartment building, the units tend to have a shared fate. With tiny houses, if something goes wrong, replace the tiny house and it’s unlikely other units are affected collaterally.
I would say mobility is the main positive. We have endless parking lots everywhere, so these can be moved as needed for different populations. That and NIMBYS complaining.
I can just see them “solving” the homeless problem by waiting until they fall asleep in the tiny home and then towing it away.
Mobility can be useful, but once it’s up, the odds of needing to move it are generally going to be low. But it definitely can help a lot in certain circumstances.