LUXURY shelters for the homeless?

Alexandria Park Tiny Home Village in Los Angeles is an $8.6 million development of 103 micro units that serve as temporary homeless shelters.
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:31 Features
2:45 Hope of the Valley
3:22 Drawbacks
4:01 Vertical density
4:33 Costs
5:41 Proposition HHH

The modular units are designed by Pallet Shelter. They measure 8’ by 8’ and are composed of a simple, steel frame and lightweight insulated panels of varying thicknesses. These components can be flat packed for easy storage and transportation. 30 shelters can fit on a single truck. The parts are durable, lightweight, portable, customizable and easy to assemble. They don’t require a foundation because they have an in-built sub structure. They can be assembled in under 1 hour with minimal tools since the parts lock together with nuts, bolts and pins. The entire Alexandria Park Village was built in 13 weeks.

The units can withstand winds up to 110 miles per hour, snow loads of 25 lb/ft2, and temperatures as low as -40 F. If a panel is damaged, it can be easily swapped out for a new one. These units can be connected to the city’s power grid, a generator, or solar panels. The interiors are utilitarian, but purposeful. They can sleep 2 people, and hold their belongings under the bed and on a shelving unit. Each unit has a smoke detectors, carbon monoxide monitor, egress door and fire extinguisher.

The flat pack nature of these units is very important because the more you can transport on a single journey, the lower your costs are going to be. One of the many hurdles of using shipping containers as emergency or temporary housing is their size and weight.

The gaudy, childish colors are a questionable design decision. Humans also need a sense of ownership, a feeling that something is theirs. It might be beneficial for them to work on their housing unit, build it themselves, or engage in community projects, even if it’s for a short period of time.

Additionally, this design is lacking vertical density, which, in turn, increases the cost per unit dramatically. If you’re paying to run utilities to a particular site, water, electricity, sewer, etc. The more units you can comfortably fit on the site, the people you house, the more cost efficient a project like this is going to be. The Alexandria Park Tiny Home complex cost $8.6 million to build. At 103 units with 2 beds per unit, that’s around $42,000 per bed. The cost to operate the campsite is $3,300 per person per month. These tiny homes cost more than the monthly mortgage payment on a median-priced LA home.

So, what’s going on? The units themselves are relatively cheap.
LA is paying Pallet Shelter about $8,600 per unit. = $885,800
Land acquisition is only about 11% of the budget, about $1,000,000
Underground utilities cost $122,000
Concrete foundations cost $253,000
Office and staff restroom cost $312,000
Mechanical, electrical and fire alarms cost $1,100,000
Permits, fees, designs, project management, inspection cost $626,000
Initial site work $1,500,000
The rest goes to “soft costs” including consultants and financing.

This project is not an isolated case. In Los Angeles, voters approved a $1.2 billion bond in 2016 for building housing for the homeless. Proposition HHH was supposed to have moved 10,000 homeless people off the streets into new housing and included funding for counseling services. Delays and bloated budgets have reduced the goal by more than 20 percent, down to about 7,300 persons. According to Mayor Eric Garcetti’s website, only 14 of the 111 total HHH projects are in-service. 804 out of the 7,300 people have been housed.

The average cost of homeless shelters in California is $700 per square foot, as much as luxury housing costs. Something is terribly wrong. Frustrated Californians believe that the local and state government must be held responsible for their failure to complete projects on time and within a reasonable budget.
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SOURCES
   • Alexandria Park Tiny Home Village  
   • Pallet Shelter Tour  
   • Pallet Shelter 100 Sq. Ft. Assembly Timelapse  
   • Powering a Homelessness Shelter Village wi...  
   • First Prop HHH Housing Opens  
   • Affordable units for LA homeless 1st to us...  
https://www.hoover.org/research/700-s...
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#homelesssness #tinyhome #shelter #losangeles #tinyhouse #california