> Being made primarily out of wood it was cheap and easy to build, but it was HEAVY.

I'm not overly knowledgeable about the weather in Toronto, but heavy snow and heavy windows typically require things to be heavy so they don't get pushed by snow or wind. Maybe this is actually a feature of these type of huts.

> without power or plumbing its not clear to me how actually livable these things would be.

What I've seen in my country (Spain) is that homeless tends to resolve to using tents, so if it's at least the same liveability but a little more protective against the elements, it sounds like an improvement.

The root issue of course isn't just that these people cannot find housing, but something about the reason why they aren't able to use the existing empty housing and how they became homeless in the first place. Be it because of costs, health, housing requirements or whatever.

It is certainly not solving the problem. It is probably perpetuating it. Without the other complementary life-critical facilities, nothing changes.

These are useful for solving one particular facet: people die from exposure in Toronto. If this did anything to address the actual problem, then there would be no homelessness problem in LA.

Quite a few cities have actually solved this problem. They provide housing and all of the additional services, like hygiene facilities, food, and security. Granted, they only solve it for certain cohorts, but it demonstrates that it is rather trivially solvable. That's going to lead to hot political quarreling, so it's a good place to stop.

There is no chance that these can provide the full spectrum of services required for a person to thrive. We absolutely can't handle the upkeep on 100,000 one-person boxes. We need to make the shelters better. Many are terrible, but there are better ones, and a lot of that comes down to who is working there. Everyone who is able should make time to volunteer, even just a few shifts, to see what it is and how it can be improved. (It's also a good way to meet people in your city.)

>Quite a few cities have actually solved this problem. They provide housing and all of the additional services, like hygiene facilities, food, and security. Granted, they only solve it for certain cohorts, but it demonstrates that it is rather trivially solvable. That's going to lead to hot political quarreling, so it's a good place to stop.

Most of those services are available AFAIK, there's charities in most major Canadian cities that provide those basics. Without them the homeless population would probably be triple what you can see, and from what I've heard the majority just need it short term to get back on their feet.

But they can only offer those to people without substance abuse problems (drugs and alcohol are banned in those shelters), and those are the folks you'll mostly see out and about. You'd need some sort of institution with far greater resources to handle those, like an asylum. North America just seems to have a sordid history with the like.

> You'd need some sort of institution with far greater resources to handle those, like an asylum. North America just seems to have a sordid history with the like.

Does anywhere not have a sordid history with asylums? I'm genuinely asking as it seems like such facilities always devolve into pseudo-prison for the undesirable no matter what.

The thing about asylums is that they're always going to be terrible, but the standard isn't good, it's better.

Is a terrible asylum better or worse than living on the streets?

Worse for the inmates, better for the general public.

Shelters in Toronto are full and unable to house everyone in need on a daily basis

While I agree with your general points,

> These are useful for solving one particular facet: people die from exposure in Toronto.

They are also useful because human beings need shelter, whether or not the exposure is life-threatening. They can't wait for your more ideal solutions.

You're a sitting duck for people who want to attack you when you're inside one of these.

Has someone said that's a risk or an issue for the people who use them? They probably also are bad in a flood, but is that a real risk? Isn't that true of most shelter?

Yes, I said it in the comment right above yours. In a conventional homeless shelter there are more people around and staff, meaning you're at least not alone with an attacker. Homeless people do get attacked by other homeless and street thugs.

I have a solution for that. No shelter.

I mean, is there evidence that this is a concern - your comment isn't evidence.

> In a conventional homeless shelter there are more people around and staff, meaning you're at least not alone with an attacker.

I don't know if it really works out that way - plenty of homeless people say the shelters aren't safe - but regardless, it isn't working.

As opposed to a tent?!

Clearly much better than a tent.

> Granted, they only solve it for certain cohorts, but it demonstrates that it is rather trivially solvable.

Those cohorts being women and children.

It quite literally does solve the problem of people being unsheltered. It doesn’t solve the problem of people being effectively unable to care for themselves, but that’s a separate (and intertwined) problem from homelessness itself. You don't need to solve those problems at a shelter per se, and from what I recall only about 1/3 of homeless people are too addicted/mentally ill to care for themselves (these are just the most visibly homeless and the most likely to sleep rough), in which case this actually seems like a preferable arrangement compared to a group shelter for the 2/3 of homeless who literally just need a place to live.

> We can’t handle the upkeep

The main benefit of these is that they are effectively disposable, and they’re dispersed enough that you don’t have to deal with one person starting a flood or fire and wrecking a whole building.

If I were ever to become homeless I would much rather live in a tiny home than in a shelter, even if I had to go to a shelter or gym or something to take showers and interact with social workers. I feel like I’d never feel a sense of safety, privacy or autonomy in a shelter.

You can’t separate the services problem from the housing problem. These tiny houses need additional services for bathrooms showers and food nearby and for that you be viable you need 25-50 units near each other.

Much starts from shelter, food, and safety.

You have a very good point that further supports are needed, however living in an urban area, I don't know if I can watch another 20 years waiting for the entire chain of everything to be setup before starting.

THese types of solutions from the private/volunteer sector do things that can't be unseen and often initiate conversations about what progress looks like.

The new types of shelter buildings with integrated services right in them, like other things are postive beacons.

If something cna improve the day to day, it's hard to say I'm against it when I'm sitting inside and someone who I might be saying it about isn't sitting inside.

cf. Portland's Safe Rest camps composed of one-room tiny shelters with similar accommodations as the article's tiny houses (locks, bed, power, storage, water, in some cases mini-split heat/AC) but not built to be as mobile, as they're clustered in camps with centralized shower/toilet bathrooms and laundry, and also built with ADA-compliant ramps.

$17-24k each per city/county documents: https://www.portland.gov/shelter-services/city-shelter-villa...

The price sounds about right. The Oakland mayor was recently investigated for paying 800k each for a similar solution from a campaign donor.

People try to tell me that it was a good deal because houses are over a million, but those include the land

For point one, it being so heavy, why not build each on the trailer so it doesn’t have to be moved on to it? Then when it’s ready it can simply be driven to its destination.

It may be impractical I realize but since the trailer has to fit it anyway, perhaps not

Not a bad idea if you have a flatbed trailer laying around unused

Trailers are useful and thus expensive.

General assumption maybe I shouldn’t be making, is that the trailers are already owned by the organization responsible for this and would already only be used for this purpose.

Perhaps the fact that you could build these theoretically faster than doing on a trailer makes it a moot point, then again if trailers are your bottleneck maybe it’s possible to schedule building around that to keep delivery smooth

Trailers generally require vehicle registration to be towed on the road, and tow vehicles are relatively expensive. Despite already being on wheels, individual residents would still be unable to move their shelter themselves in response to being told to move on. And any organization that helps out with tow vehicles creates a centralized target to attack.

The solution in the OP of building this as part of a dedicated tricycle is pretty damn slick. "Yes of course officer I am moving along, as fast as I can"

Of course they're not solving the root of the problem. The issue of homelessness is not caused by a lack of homes.

I believe current research says the root cause of homelessness is lack of affordable housing in a city. Drugs and mental illness are important, but still secondary factors.

It sure seems like the places with the most homeless have the most expensive housing markets.

Because those are the most desirable places to live. Homeless people move too.

Granted, there are homeless people who have a stable life but work a job that just doesn't pay enough to afford a home, or people who are between jobs and are temporarily homeless. But those people generally sleep in a car, cause few problems, are largely invisible, have most of their needs met in some way, and are generally not the people we are concerned about when talking about "the homeless".

The Homeless™ usually have more complex issues like untreated psychological issues, drug problems, etc. And while the previous group would rejoice about small cheap housing, it does little to solve the issues of The Homeless™.

Most expensive homes yes, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of livable homes and apartments that are _empty_ at any given time. Canada has a lot of vacant houses.

Canada has one of the lowest home vacancy rates among the OECD countries and currently at the lowest rate it's been in 40 years:

https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/data/datasets/affor...

That paper doesn't disprove my point. It indicates ~7% home vacancy, which means the total number of vacant homes is higher than the number of people without homes.

You need some sort of light shelf or clerestory for those but I’m at a loss as to how to incorporate one cheaply. The clearance wouldn’t be good enough to bring the ceiling down and keeping the whole envelope water tight would be tricky.

> Overall I think these types of houses are not solving the root issues

I don't think anyone has a solution to the root issues. At this point, the fastest way to fix homelessness is to let the currently homeless people die out, while trying our best to prevent people from becoming homeless.

> I found out that primarily people wanted security from other homeless rather than even shelter

This is one of the main reasons that many homeless people refuse shelter beds unless the weather makes it absolutely necessary. Phones and other important personal items get stolen constantly.

It’s because the hard “problem” isn’t the shelter piece.

The hard problem is how do you house a lot of mentally unstable people who can often be a danger to themselves and others at the same density as the rest of the city and at an affordable cost.

I don’t think it’s generally possible because as soon as you hit any kind of density with these you get problems, but you need a minimum density to provide bathrooms showers and services. The best solution that I’ve seen is forcing builders to incorporate 1-2 subsidized units into every new building, as that distributes the problem around in a manageable way. Still that likely will not yield a quick solution and may never hit the required number of units.