Scrolling through my explore page on Instagram, I came across a video about tiny homes being created in Detroit for the homeless. I was instantly intrigued by the video and proceeded to watch the entire thing, and even do a little research afterward. In these tiny homes, rent is $1 per square foot, and after residents pay rent for 7 years, the home is theirs. They range in size from 250 to 400 square feet and come furnished with all major appliances. The residents living in the home also agree to take financial literacy classes. These homes are reasonable and manageable for residents making as little as $9,000 a year. They provide a efficient and new solution to a huge issue throughout the country. After watching the video, I looked up these homes on google and found out that they are being built in several other cities as well. On this website, several different types of tiny house communities are shown in cities across the United States. The first community mentioned is the one in Detroit, which the video focused around. Besides that, tiny houses are being built in Seattle, Nashville, Los Angeles, Dallas, Portland, as well as several other cities. This goes to show that tiny houses are spreading and becoming an effective solution to fight homelessness. Giving people a place to live at a low cost allows them to jumpstart their lives and get a better grasp on their goals. This research, along with the video, helped me decide that I would like to focus my research project, for my composition class, around homelessness and poverty. Previously, I had been struggling to come up with an idea that I felt passionate about and interested in. Seeing this video, and realizing my interest in this idea, prompted me to choose the issue of poverty as my topic. Homelessness is spread across the world, and is certainly evident in the United States. Around 500,000 people, only in the US, are without a place to sleep, eat, and have a life. Different programs, such as tiny homes, are beginning to be implemented in order to reduce this number.
Furthering my research on tiny homes, I found that Utah was able to reduce their homeless population by 91 percent in 2015. Despite this, they still have around 14,000 homeless people. Utah is using an approach called “Utah’s Housing First.” People chosen are asked a few simple questions and are then housed. Residents being placed in homes will have to still pay rent around $50 per month, but this is still much less than an average apartment rent. Not all homeless progams are perfect, and are often hard to fund. Throughout the United States, projects, such as Utah’s Housing First, are being started up as an attempt to combat this overwhelming problem.
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AuthorMy name is Alyssa MacDonald, and I am a senior at Dunlap High School. I will be writing about some of my exciting travels that I have been able to experience! Archives
April 2018
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