Below is a link for an Interview between the Tiny Home Builder, Elvis, and a TV show, Good Morning Britain (GMB). A few key quotes from the interview, where Elvis tells GMB about how he started by building a homeless woman named "Smokie" a tiny home on wheels.
GMB: What made you decide to help?
Elvis: It's what we should do.
Elvis (later in interview): That's not the world I want to live in [where we let people live in destitution on the mean streets).
Project: Tiny House - Huge Purpose
This project is taking place in the county of Los Angeles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OZEwWjkKUY
http://www.gofundme.com/mythpla
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/04/29/man-builds-a-tiny-house-for-a-homeless-woman-and-made-a-big-impa/21178121/?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00001348
Here is a pitch to help the homeless with affordable housing here in SLO County. Start by contributing to the "Tiny House - Huge Purpose" project in Los Angeles (I did) and maybe it can spread here to SLO, where the need is great.
One of the most basic fundamental necessities in life is shelter. At any given time, there are well over 2,000 women, children, veterans and families homeless just in SLO County. With numbers growing daily it's becoming much more difficult to stereotype our homeless as just drug addict bums who "chose" to be or "did it to themselves". Among us are thousands of Human Beings who have ended up on the streets with nowhere to go. Once they get there, they are often treated as trash and not like humans but more like criminals or animals. Many believe we have criminalized being homeless here in SLO County.
Being homeless is NOT a crime - even though the local powers-that-be seem to treat it that way. The true crime is how we as human beings look at and treat people that are homeless. A wise person once said: “we judge the goodness of our society by how we treat the least amongst us”. By this yardstick, we are failing - badly. All homeless people want help to get off the streets, though many have given up hope and live in utter despair: dying, homeless, friendless and hungry.
How can a person begin to hope and raise themselves up if they only have the dirt beneath their feet to rest their face upon? If they are ticketed and pursued by law enforcement at every step? You can help. Every $1 makes a difference and can save a person’s life.
The "Tiny House, Huge Purpose" Project builds tiny house's for homeless Woman, Men, Children, US Veterans and Families. Please open your hearts and lend a hand by donating whatever you can (even if it's only $1). Help build a tiny home for someone's child, someone's mother, someone's brother, sister, cousin, someone's grandma or a US Veteran. Give hope, purpose and a chance back to someone who has lost everything and desperately needs a little help.
Check it out:
Tiny House - Huge Purpose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OZEwWjkKUY
http://www.gofundme.com/mythpla
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/04/29/man-builds-a-tiny-house-for-a-homeless-woman-and-made-a-big-impa/21178121/?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00001348
Strangely, I tried to get some folks who are sympathetic to the plight of the homeless to consider something like this here in San Luis Obispo County - they weren't interested. Here was their response:
The powers-that-be consider this to be a "shed" or a "shed on wheels" and thus illegal. Code prohibits a homeless person from using it as a sleeping quarters. The shed must be on a trailer with a trailer license from the DMV. This will make the unit a Traveltrailer and therefor legal to occupy and sleep in in a campground, but not on private property or on the street.
This was a disappointing response. That's the problem with those involved in trying to "end homelessness": there is no sense of urgency - I don't get it. Building these "tiniest of homes" would get the attention of the public, politicians and the local media, and emphasize the size of the problem. It would also get some of the people out of the unhealthy creaked areas and under the overpasses, where they are now.
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