Posted on 10/30/2017 3:18:30 PM PDT by Jagermonster
PATHS TO PROGRESS Residents, who include formerly homeless people and those who were in foster care, pay low rent on houses that range from 250 to 400 square feet. After paying rent for seven years, they will be given the deeds to their homes.
DETROIT—In 2013, when Keith McElvee got out of prison after a 12-year stint for a drug conviction, he returned to a neighborhood in northwest Detroit that he didn’t recognize. “This is like Beirut,” he thought. “Like a war zone.”
Mr. McElvee is naturally gregarious and social-minded. Out of prison he struggled, but then found work doing homeless outreach at Cass Community Social Services (CCSS), a nonprofit. Four years later he’s a full-time employee tasked with helping more than a dozen clients secure housing and jobs, and speaks proudly of success stories, like the man he helped to curb alcoholism and earn his truck-driving license. “My passion is people,” he says. “I like to help people.”
But McElvee’s background and low salary meant his own housing was precarious: His apartment in the same neighborhood cost $450, nearly half his monthly income. In August, he moved into a new place, a “tiny house” that costs him significantly less per month – and that he’s on track to actually call his own.
“That’s the key,” McElvee said of his projected home ownership. “That’s a beautiful thing.”
Detroit’s Tiny Homes Project, run by the same organization, represents an innovative approach to low-income housing: Instead of high-density apartment buildings, residents pay low rent on well-constructed tiny houses that range from 250 to 400 square feet and include kitchens, washer/dryer units, and heating and cooling.
Tiny homes are a popular housing trend, popularized by shows like HGTV’s “Tiny House Hunters,” and have been . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
The mindset of people who have never had to pay to maintain a house due to renting, never knowing anyone who has done anything but rent, is hard on a house. You see this to lesser extent in any entry level neighborhood with new homeowners, the maintenance on many of them is spotty and neglected. This effect is greatly magnified when the parties “buying” the house are not particularly responsible, not really all that interested in being a homeowner other than somebody told them they’d have more money, and not attuned to paying for home maintenance at all.
Kind of the opposite of the libs’ ideas about immigration.
Do you know real estate professionals call “rent to own”?
The “Never Never” plan.
ha, that sounds like my plan. Wish me luck, gonna build an out building that will double as my office.
looks a lot like what I was gonna build, 750 bucks for a drawing, wow.
I am guessing this works because a non profit is involved that is not subject to property taxes... which are insane in Detroit.
There are still a few low income shotgun shacks in Jacksonville, FL. I drove down a street of them when I went to the Department of Revenue building.
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Don’t try to wake up, you’re fully hypnotized.
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Just be sure to calc the rafters before you cut wood!
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Yep. I talked to this black lady who had one of these charity homes built for her back in the late eighties. I said “wow must be nice to have a brand new home.” She responded “not really; there’s no landlord to call when something breaks.”
Homeownership isn’t for everyone. Tiny house? Where will they put the 8’ flat screen TV?
Oh and I actually moved into one after the previous charity home owners destroyed it through neglect, bankruptcy and foreclosure.
But they had every premium cable channel known to mankind.
If you are raised for generation after generation with ill placed priorities, that mindset seldom goes away.
Construction costs come out to about $50,000 per house?? wow. I thought some recent tiny houses that were going for $30K were expensive. $50K is double, maybe triple what it should cost to build. And they’re going to tack seven-years of finance fees on top of that? Do they get the land or will there be a space fee like trailer parks charge?
If I were going to spend more than $30K, I’d be going with one of these, where everything is complete:
and if I were restricted to wood construction, then I’d start with the building plans for one of these, add some two-by-fours, hardware, electric, plumbing, insulation and drywall to bring up to code. It can be built on a car hauler trailer or skids and voila - portable tiny home. I’ve even seen two barn-style units merged and the roof raised four feet by an enterprising couple who lived in that and rented out their front home.
$50K is a rip-off.
Good luck.
Consider “Post & Beam” construction if you aren’t doing cement block. Cheap, easy to erect, and strong as heck, especially if you use screws and urethane glue as I did.
Built my three storage sheds, my ‘loafing shed, and my workshop that way too, and have been very pleased with them.
Ran my tractor (front end loader bucket) into one of the sheds at about 5mph and it just bounced off, although I did punch an easily patched hole through the siding.
Except that they are bringing in senior citizens and foster care kids (who have aged out). I think if the process is selective, there’s a better chance of success.
Elvis???!!!
Where you been man?
I have a tiny house in my back yard. Cost almost $5,000. All electric. Bought the shell, did the rest ourselves. No bathroom as it is 500 feet from my home. I use it as a she shed.
Notice Pope Al Gore and Rev. Leonardo DiCaprio don’t squeeze their fat asses into tiny homes.
They have massive footprints.
Why is it that we now only aspire to tiny homes? What happened to the American Dream?
They could have had a program similar to this one for decades with the new owners first getting low interest financing to pay off the tax lien and then having to regularly pay the property tax in return for living there with the city retaining title for ten years or some period of time so the new owner could prove they'd keep the property up and pay the taxes.
As it stands now, it sounds to me like the companies that the City or State government pays to tear down abandoned houses turned into crack dives and other now collapsing dumps have run out of buildings they can bill taxpayers for tearing down and want to start all over again.
JMHo
All electric and no bathroom would definitely simplify things.
I’m completely off grid though, and solar cells / wind power is not a very energy efficient way to heat a place.
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