Skepticism over Seattle council member’s ‘tiny house’ for homeless idea

City Council member Sally Bagshaw believes that if the Seattle homeless crisis truly warrants a state of emergency, than the city needs to start acting like it.

The Seattle Times reports that Bagshaw is proposing the city provide the homeless with disaster-relief style pods, or 96-square-foot “tiny houses,” in all seven of the city’s districts, not unlike what the European Union did in response to the Syrian refugee crisis.

Related: Seattle police face constant rejection in efforts to help homeless

The districts would be asked to host 100-150 units each — about 1,000 new units total — with volunteers building the tiny homes, according to The Times. At an estimated $2,400 per home, the $2.4 million needed is only one-third of what the city has already appropriated for the homelessness emergency, the Times reports.

KIRO Radio’s Tom Tangney is intrigued by the idea, but sees how, even if the city found the money to spend on this idea, the neighborhoods would quarrel about placement of the sites.

“It would be NIMBY times seven,” Tangney said.

Beyond the potential for conflict, co-host John Curley said there is also the question of how these state-sponsored homes would be treated.

“It’s the same way that nobody washes a rented car,” he said. “So if you’re placed in government housing, can you imagine how quickly the place would look like a dump?”

Tangney noted a common idea for providing people their own home is that once they have been given a lock and key, they are more likely to keep the place tidy.

Curley wasn’t so sure.

“You think so? Go into any housing project in a major city and find how people keep the place,” he said. “Because when you don’t work for something…”

Curley added his own proposal to Bagshaw’s.

“We’ll give you a house and here’s a key, now go outside and pick up garbage over on 4th Avenue and then go over here and do this, and report to this location and show up sober and apply at 9 a.m. and we’ll give you a job to do,” he said. “You do the job and then you get the house. And that would be a nice exchange.”

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