Tiny Homes for the Homeless Now Under Attack in California

Isaac Davis, Staff
Waking Times

Personal liberty is under attack in so many areas of American society, and combined with a faltering economy, people are in greater need than ever of finding ways to survive economically while still maintaining basic freedoms.

The tiny house movement is one of the many creative ways in which people are out-smarting the matrix of consumerism and debt. Recently, however, we reported on the federal government’s attempts through the Department of Housing and Urban Development to make owning and living in a tiny home more difficult for those who wish to do so.

READ: US Government Declaring All Out War on Tiny House Living

It seems this is an important issue for many, and even the infamous website Snopes, in it’s typical mainstream, ‘nothing to see here folks,’ fashion, has chimed in on this debate claiming that concern over the HUD’s updated regulations are simply false, citing various interpretations of the new HUD regulatory changes to make their case.

Well, not so fast. We know how government works to corral people into compliance and conformity with it’s ever expanding rule sets, and however you interpret the HUD’s intentions over the regulation of tiny homes, there is more to this story, as state and local governments are themselves making it more difficult than it should be in some areas to choose this type of simple, affordable lifestyle.

Case in point: California, where Los Angeles city council member Curren Price recently requested that sanitation officials confiscate and destroy a number of tiny homes owned by homeless people.

Tiny homes for the homeless are an idea started by long time L.A. resident Elvis Summers who wanted to help a 60 year old homeless neighbor who was always sleeping in the dirt. The movement has been gaining momentum in the L.A. area as way to extend compassion to the city’s least fortunate. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been donated to this effort, and dozens of tiny homes have been built and donated by caring residents who have worked hard to see to it that the most down-trodden in their communities have some type of basic shelter.

“Since establishing the My Tiny Houses for the Homeless in Los Angeles (MYTHPLA) project and Starting Human nonprofit last year, Summers and his volunteers have built and placed 37 tiny homes between Inglewood and Van Nuys.” [Source]

The homes take up very little space, but offer a tremendous amount of dignity and peace of mind for those fortunate enough to have one.

“The homes, which are about the size of a parking spot and come equipped with lights, windows and doors that lock, are designed to offer a safe space for some of the city’s tens of thousands of homeless residents. They have been funded by nearly $100,000 worth of donations since last April.” [Source]

The bureaucratic reasoning for outlawing and confiscating these structures is typical of big government, and citing safety concerns and general disgust for something that does not fit in with the established paradigm, city sanitation officials have been stealing these properties from the less fortunate and destroying them. For their own good, of course.

“Unfortunately, these structures are a safety hazard,” says Connie Llanos, a spokeswoman for LA Mayor Eric Garcetti. “These structures, some of the materials that were found in some of them, just the thought of folks having some of these things in a space so small, so confined, without the proper insulation, it really does put their lives in danger.” [Source]

Really, their lives are in danger not from being homeless in a city that spends millions in subsidies for higher socio-economic groups, but from having a make shift roof over their head? Typical.