5 ms·

Can someone help me understand why the city confiscated some of the houses, then returned them damaged with the solar systems removed? This makes no sense to m

by milesf 10y ago

Can someone help me understand why the city confiscated some of the houses, then returned them damaged with the solar systems removed? This makes no sense to me.

eyelidlessness 10y ago
Because try and stop a city from fucking over homeless people.
- deftnerd 10y ago
  I assume a group within the city unilaterally decided to confiscate and destroy the tiny houses. They seem to think that if you make being homeless more uncomfortable, then the homeless people will just eventually give up "slacking" and go and get a job and rent an apartment. When the people who raze homeless camp sites or "tent cities" do it, they usually say that for their safety and public health reasons, they have to destroy everything. With that usual behavior, I wouldn't be surprised if a random employee saw the sheds with the solar panels and said "It'll be a shame to let that go to waste" and took them off before the sheds were supposed to be destroyed. I hope the guy running this project finds a good place to keep the tiny houses in the future. I'm disappointed in LA for passing the laws to try to prevent homeless people from having semi-permanent structures rather than tents. What I don't understand is how it's legal to park a trailer on a street, but not a shed on a trailer frame.
  - Semiapies 10y ago
    "Group", nothing. That's SOP for cities. And they don't care about anyone getting a job, they just want homeless people to disappear, whether that's to leave, to be less visible, or to die.
CPLX 10y ago
We don't just let people put up houses on random pieces of land they don't own and live there. I don't see anything remotely surprising or controversial about the basic concept, though clearly it seems more productive to channel the energy of this project into something workable rather than dismantle it.
- whybroke 10y ago
  >We don't just let people put up houses on random pieces of land they don't own and live there. The current lack of any serious action or even any real interest in solving the now generation old homeless problem makes shanty towns eventually inevitable. I know it will be embarrassing to have them scattered outside the richest cities in the country but for some unfathomable reason that is the economic path we chose. I suggest Mt San Bruno will make a fine favela for what is already the world's richest 3rd world city in all but name.
- gravypod 10y ago
  The city shouldn't do things that the people who live in it disprove of. If you can find me a majority of local people who agree with this then I'll buy this answer. This is a bit different then most other situations though. This is genuinely effective activism that will improve the quality of some people's lives. I don't see what's wrong with this especially if no one is harmed and no one's private property rights have been encroched. From what I understand this was done on public property that was "unattended" until the law was changed to exclude this practice. From this statement: Since the city changed its [unattended property] ordinance, barring me from putting them on public land, I can only go with private land I also see no valid reason to allow the government to damage property that is confiscated without paying them back. That's insane in it's own right.
driverdan 10y ago
They were ending up on sidewalks or in the street. You can't put a 6'x8' home on public land without permission.
- aaron695 10y ago
  > You can't put a 6'x8' home on public land without permission. The article implies you could? Some sort of loophole they had to close down?
  - sologoub 10y ago
    The city treated them as abandoned personal property (as opposed to abandoned real property), probably because they could move it. The people behind these homes then made it politically costly for the city to keep doing it, so they returned it. I suspect they could sue the city for the solar kits and win, but then you are tying up more resources that could be used to help people. That said, I'm skeptical on how this will work, in large part because of the heat here - LA saw over 100F today. These could get as hot as a parked car and cook the occupants. (Hoping I'm wrong, but friends "tough shed" sure got scorching in SFV.)
pkaye 10y ago
My guess is it is due to permitting. Is most of California, you can put up a building smaller than 150 SF without permits assuming no plumbing or electrical.
chubot 10y ago
My guess is that they were trying to find something illegal in the solar electronics, i.e. Something not up to building code. If the house is that simple, that's the place to look. Either they found something and removed them or they didn't and were too lazy to put them back. I guess since they removed all 3 instead of just 1 of 3, you charitably interpret it as the former.

by milesf 10y ago

Can someone help me understand why the city confiscated some of the houses, then returned them damaged with the solar systems removed? This makes no sense to me.

eyelidlessness 10y ago

Because try and stop a city from fucking over homeless people.

deftnerd 10y ago
I assume a group within the city unilaterally decided to confiscate and destroy the tiny houses. They seem to think that if you make being homeless more uncomfortable, then the homeless people will just eventually give up "slacking" and go and get a job and rent an apartment. When the people who raze homeless camp sites or "tent cities" do it, they usually say that for their safety and public health reasons, they have to destroy everything. With that usual behavior, I wouldn't be surprised if a random employee saw the sheds with the solar panels and said "It'll be a shame to let that go to waste" and took them off before the sheds were supposed to be destroyed. I hope the guy running this project finds a good place to keep the tiny houses in the future. I'm disappointed in LA for passing the laws to try to prevent homeless people from having semi-permanent structures rather than tents. What I don't understand is how it's legal to park a trailer on a street, but not a shed on a trailer frame.
- Semiapies 10y ago
  "Group", nothing. That's SOP for cities. And they don't care about anyone getting a job, they just want homeless people to disappear, whether that's to leave, to be less visible, or to die.

CPLX 10y ago

We don't just let people put up houses on random pieces of land they don't own and live there. I don't see anything remotely surprising or controversial about the basic concept, though clearly it seems more productive to channel the energy of this project into something workable rather than dismantle it.

whybroke 10y ago
>We don't just let people put up houses on random pieces of land they don't own and live there. The current lack of any serious action or even any real interest in solving the now generation old homeless problem makes shanty towns eventually inevitable. I know it will be embarrassing to have them scattered outside the richest cities in the country but for some unfathomable reason that is the economic path we chose. I suggest Mt San Bruno will make a fine favela for what is already the world's richest 3rd world city in all but name.
gravypod 10y ago
The city shouldn't do things that the people who live in it disprove of. If you can find me a majority of local people who agree with this then I'll buy this answer. This is a bit different then most other situations though. This is genuinely effective activism that will improve the quality of some people's lives. I don't see what's wrong with this especially if no one is harmed and no one's private property rights have been encroched. From what I understand this was done on public property that was "unattended" until the law was changed to exclude this practice. From this statement: Since the city changed its [unattended property] ordinance, barring me from putting them on public land, I can only go with private land I also see no valid reason to allow the government to damage property that is confiscated without paying them back. That's insane in it's own right.

driverdan 10y ago

They were ending up on sidewalks or in the street. You can't put a 6'x8' home on public land without permission.

aaron695 10y ago
> You can't put a 6'x8' home on public land without permission. The article implies you could? Some sort of loophole they had to close down?
- sologoub 10y ago
  The city treated them as abandoned personal property (as opposed to abandoned real property), probably because they could move it. The people behind these homes then made it politically costly for the city to keep doing it, so they returned it. I suspect they could sue the city for the solar kits and win, but then you are tying up more resources that could be used to help people. That said, I'm skeptical on how this will work, in large part because of the heat here - LA saw over 100F today. These could get as hot as a parked car and cook the occupants. (Hoping I'm wrong, but friends "tough shed" sure got scorching in SFV.)

pkaye 10y ago

My guess is it is due to permitting. Is most of California, you can put up a building smaller than 150 SF without permits assuming no plumbing or electrical.

chubot 10y ago

My guess is that they were trying to find something illegal in the solar electronics, i.e. Something not up to building code. If the house is that simple, that's the place to look. Either they found something and removed them or they didn't and were too lazy to put them back. I guess since they removed all 3 instead of just 1 of 3, you charitably interpret it as the former.