The $200 Microhouse


Photo by Boston Photographer Erik Jacobs


The 24-square-foot house pictured is named the Gypsy Junkard. It's the largest of Derek Diedricksen's tiny house designs. Diedricksen has always been fascinated with tiny architecture, and once challenging himself to build a homeless shelter for less than $100. He accomplished that by using scavenged and recycled materials -and imagination. The four tiny structures he built in his backyard cost an average of $200 each in materials. Outside of his building hobby, Diedricksen is a building inspector who lives with his family of four in a 950-foot house. A fixer-upper, of course. Read more, and see his other constructions, at the New York Times. Link

(Image credit: Erik Jacobs/The New York Times)

So as a building inspector, would he ever give his designs permission to be used? Or how about getting approved by the Area historical Commission, the Home Owners Association, and the local Economic Development Board.

I love the ideas (see inhabitat.com) but this is about as practical as a cardboard refrigerator box...
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Anyone with a library card and a few hundred bucks could build a comfortable abode to sleep in. The real problem is finding a place to put it. Japanese society seems to respect small shelters for the homeless:

http://www.treehugger.com/japanese-homeless.jpg

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/55603/55603,1190159288,2/stock-photo-homeless-people-apos-s-shelters-along-the-sumida-river-in-tokyo-japan-5487439.jpg

I don't think this concept would be successful in the West though.
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The elites are just trying to warm us up to the idea of Hoovervilles once again because that is where they are taking this country. Let us see if they can make it look cool or "green" enough to convince most of us to voluntarily move into FEMA trailers.
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Laugh if you will but a shanty is preferable to abject homelessness or even the vehicle-based living I prognosticate so many of the working-poor class will have to resort to; especially when we are dependent upon the meager amount obtained via Social Security.

Many USA citizens never had access to employer-provided pensions and as the years sped by even more jobs scrapped pensions and said "tough luck."

Of course, the presence of multi-millions of illegal aliens competing economically in so many ways harmed us while assisting the tightwadness of employers.
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