Subscribe to Receive the Daily Report

Friday, December 7th, 2018

How Temporary Tiny Homes Could Solve Dutch Cities’ Housing Crises

Author:     FEARGUS O'SULLIVAN
Source:     City Lab
Publication Date:     NOV 26, 2018
 Link: How Temporary Tiny Homes Could Solve Dutch Cities’ Housing Crises
Stephan:   Study after study has shown that getting homeless people off the streets and into a private personal space is actually not only the option producing the greatest wellbeing, it also is much much cheaper than leaving people on the streets. A proof once again of the Theorem of Wellbeing. Other countries seem to be able to learn this, as this good news from Holland describes, but in the United States the usual option is to punish them for being poor and homeless; the nastiest and most expensive option a society can choose. When do, if ever do you think we will learn this?

The Heijmans One “Tiny House” prototype has been installed in Nijkerk and at sites across The Netherlands
Credit: Heijmans

There’s a distinctive twist in Rotterdam’s latest push to build more public housing: most of the units constructed shouldn’t be around for very long.

The Netherlands’ second largest city is going big on temporary homes with a new promise to start construction and installation of up to 3,000 mobile housing units. They’re designed to help manage emergency needs while the city continues to build more permanent public housing.

The idea of shoving low income residents into makeshift homes built to last no more than a decade or so might sound dystopian, but Rotterdam is merely following a national trend. As the country struggles to keep up with the pace of delivery it needs for new housing, many cities have sprouted temporary micro-neighborhoods of mobile prefabricated housing, normally located on brownfield sites that are often vacant and on the far edges of city limits.

Rotterdam is merely following a national trend.

To meet demand, the Netherlands will need to construct an […]

Read the Full Article