Most of the documentary focused on that, however, I was surprised by the statistics that were mentioned at the end of the film regarding many of these veterans’ homelessness status. It stated that, to my dismay, over 300,000 veterans in the United States are homeless. As your book states that oversized houses have exorbitant property costs as the #3 cause of homeless after mental illness and substance abuse, I would like to know if there could be a program could be started that could connect homeless veterans with Tumbleweed or other small house building projects that could employ out-of-work residents and citizens to renovate partially abandoned or neglected neighborhoods.

For example, the city of Detroit has recently made plans to demolish over 6,000 of 10,000 abandoned and homes in what is probably becoming the largest urban prairie in the United States. If leaving the prairie alone to allow the city and the environment to recover itself, then perhaps a “tiny” house rebuilding program might not be a good idea there. But I do not support the further development of natural land for the purpose of building small houses. Rather, I am in favor of the systemic (in terms of fluidity of parlance) and systematic (in terms of legislative and building constructive privileges) downsizing of of unsustainable housing subdivisions over time. If for example, a very flexible amendment to the international building code was made that allowed small 1000 square feet+ neighborhoods, then foreclosed and abandoned lots could be purchased and used for tiny homes that would slowly replace the large homes, by reusing some of their materials (except where can you fit a jacuzzi in a tiny home ? Kidding . This alternative would be slightly better in terms of environment, because a) not everyone wants to live rurally, and b) just because this movement is literally on the spatial fringe doesn’t mean we have to be the primary group culpable for the expansion of land development for housing, when suburbs have already done the bulk of this infringement onto farmland for much of the 20th century and to this day.
In summary, I am interested in two main things, which are connected:
1) An employment program that could provide opportunities for the large homeless population that would be interested in transforming the urban and suburban landscape towards urban renewal in a similar way that FDR did with by restoring rural areas and national parks with the Civilian Conservation Corps. This would be done by replacing foreclosed and inefficiently constructed homes with a smaller one or left clear for urban or suburban prairie renewal. To be clear, I am not in favor of additional housing development into rural lands any more than a sustainable ecology can handle. And, with today’s population, I would like to be cautious on favoring any type of expansion that would not be sustainable in the long term.

This could solve America’s unemployment problem, meet sustainable standards of living, and improve neighborhoods by even reducing the need for excessive commuting (by removing roads that are no longer needed) if development can be planned to serve local needs first in a wonderfully downsized, fit, and apt ecosytem.