Yesterday I learned that our local Congressional representative has proposed a Cabin project to help the homeless in our community.
We hear from ‘people’ constantly about how ‘bad’ the homeless situation is and if only there was something that could be done. However, something has been proposed in our neighborhood and now the residents have formed a neighborhood committee objecting to the project and want it put in another neighborhood instead!
Whatever happened to compassion for our fellow human beings? Perhaps it went away long ago and I just haven’t caught up with the times.
I was very curious, so I began researching homeless cabin projects and was amazed at what I discovered. There have been numerous proposals, studies, and discussions of these type of group encampments for many years now.
On March 23, 2017 in an insightful article by Paul Lewis in The Guardian he questions whether homeless cabin projects actually reduce homelessness by getting people off the streets, or does it merely encourage growing ‘shantytown’ communities? Apparently this discussion has persisted for decades and there are two very compelling sides to this highly contentious issue.
On the one hand there are those that ask why in the United States should we reduce people to living in dwellings that have no water, electricity, heat, or sanitation facilities? The funds would be better spent on constructing permanent shelters and affordable housing. Tiny houses, as they are often referred to, are no better than tent encampments. They increase crime, drive down property values, and do not address the actual homelessness problem.
On the flipside, many of the homeless are very grateful for a lockable door to safeguard themselves and their possessions, some privacy that’s not available in community shelters, an actual bed to sleep on at night, and a sense of stability and empowerment at being part of a community. Another advantage to these tiny house communities is that they are exempt from most local building codes due to their size and lack of permanence. Thus they can be constructed quickly at very little expense and put to immediate use without months or years of zoning, planning, permitting, and other legal paperwork and entanglements holding up the process.
Ideally the cabin projects are meant to be temporary shelter until their occupants can be moved to more permanent housing facilities. However, there is such a shortage of permanent housing and such a high price tag that accompanies it that this simply is not viable as a ‘short-term’ solution.
What then is a workable solution? How do we provide housing for our homeless population in Southern California and around the country if no one is willing to have a Cabin Project in their town?