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 ...
If needed a tiny outhouse would suffice. Cost, about 15 bucks as we would use left over lumber and siding from former projects. Have to buy nails and a bit of hard ware.
I had a big house in a nice resort town. Owned it outright. Pretty much the "American Dream". Eventually it dawned on me that I spent 90% of my time in my bedroom or down in the garage-workshop, and I really resented paying about $700 -$1000 a month just in utilities, insurance and property taxes just for the 'privilege' of owning the place and listening to noisy neighbors and traffic and having to put up with all the rules and regulations of living in 'civilization'.
So I built a place that provided all the room and comfort I actually need, and cut the bills and taxes I pay to about 15% of what I was paying before. So I would wonder which really is more of an 'American Dream'.
Cool! Yet another example of why Free Republic needs a "like" button.
There's some good stuff here: http://www.countryplans.com
Thanks!
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Yep!
Probably a good point. I’d make them electric too, but that’s a personal preference developed over my years of property ownership/management.
You and I are pretty much the same as you describe. But you are not living in 300 sq ft tiny house, right?
Living in it and loving it.
What are you talking about?
From the looks of Detroit the existing shacks do not command much rent and they are ready trashed. Even mini houses will have to be trashed to fit in
I’ve admired this one for packing a lot into a very small square footage with everything looking pretty usable and functional as far as layout, and it’s fairly pleasant to look at from the exterior as well:
https://www.houseplans.com/plan/777-square-feet-2-bedroom-1-5-bathroom-0-garage-cottage-39316
If cost to build is the primary consideration, though, you’d want a simple rectangular foundation and a simple roofline with no added gables. A shed roof is cheapest and simplest, although it only lends itself to contemporary or very, very rustic.
That one was originally from the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. They used to do both small houses (like the one you linked) and trailerable tiny homes. Now they just do the trailerable ones, and the plans for the small houses are sold online.
I have no idea of the rights to the plans were sold outright, or whether they get a license fee.
All their plans are fairly good looking, I think. The show their other small house designs here:
https://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/pages/cottages/
I've been considering using their 'Whidbey' or 'Harbinger' plans to build an ADU on my property.
If you scroll down to the bottom of the plan I linked, they have a link to the whole collection from Tumbleweed Tiny House Co. there.
I’d sacrifice a little overhead cabinet space in the kitchen to open it up to the great room on that Whidbey plan, sort of claustrophobic. Otherwise a very nice plan, especially that front bedroom. If you didn’t need two bedrooms that would be a great office, den or even sunroom if the exposure was right.
In addition to the Tumbleweed Tiny Homes plans, there is another architect who has some very nice small house designs: Ross Chapin Architects, although IMHO I don't think they are all quite as well thought out as the Tumbleweed designs. Perhaps less experience fitting things into trailerable spaces shows up in the larger products.
Just what I was thinking.
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