3D Printed Homes May Lead to No More Homeless People in the US

This is a very good piece written by Alan Gardener at 3dPrint.com. He discovers that if the United States Government set aside just 15 days worth of interest payments on their national debt, that they could construct homes for every single homeless person is the nation. Pretty incredible idea for sure. The idea utilizes cheap concrete 3D printing technology that the Chinese are already using to construct homes for those unable to afford traditional houses.

http://3dprint.com/2040/3d-print-hom...-homelessness/

What are your thoughts? Is something like this feasible? It's remarkable how little such a project would add to our already high national debt.

Theoretically it would be possible to construct a 3D printed house (or a conventionally built house) for every homeless person by throwing money at that part of the problem. However you have to overcome big social constraints.

Firstly, where are you going to get the open space upon which to erect these houses? You couldn't find it in Brooklyn.

Secondly, the people themselves would be reluctant to move from their "homelands" to these "communities for the previously homeless". If you asked a homeless person from New York what they consider themselves to be and I'd bet they would say, "I'm a New Yorker". That's their homeland, in the same way as a Navajo from Arizona is likely to say that is where their homeland is. People don't like to be moved from their homelands even if it means satisfying some of Life's necessities.

There is a third problem which has been experienced in areas established for the particular socio-economic classes. If you pile them into an area, the area gets a reputation which feeds certain types of social behaviour. This applies to the filthy rich; the well-to-do middle classes; blue-collar workers as well as the poor. If you are considering the homeless, unfortunately, putting poor people all together and branding the area they live in as "below acceptable standard" then you are putting these people behind the eight ball from the start.

Sure. Use money to 3D print housing, but plan for the social consequences that will follow.

Old Man Emu

You also must calculate all the other expenses of owning a home, furnishing the home, using electricity, plumbing, etc. Is the government going to pay all these people to sit on their butts in their free homes?

Plus, sadly, we probably have enough foreclosed-on houses in America, sitting empty and depreciating, to house the homeless already.

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Originally Posted by Davo

Plus, sadly, we probably have enough foreclosed-on houses in America, sitting empty and depreciating, to house the homeless already.

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Far more than enough actually. There are enough vacant houses in the USA for every homeless person in the USA to have 22 houses.

For most of the US, people don't actually "own" homes. Rented, via property tax payments. No payment, no ownership. You don't actually have any "right" to be anywhere in the US, unless someone is being paid. Think about it.

Would work for other parts of the world though.

NYC is a bizarre dysfunctional city configured and operated for the benefit of the 1% and would warp any solution perfectly effective elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by old man emu

Theoretically it would be possible to construct a 3D printed house (or a conventionally built house) for every homeless person by throwing money at that part of the problem. However you have to overcome big social constraints.

Firstly, where are you going to get the open space upon which to erect these houses? You couldn't find it in Brooklyn.

Secondly, the people themselves would be reluctant to move from their "homelands" to these "communities for the previously homeless". If you asked a homeless person from New York what they consider themselves to be and I'd bet they would say, "I'm a New Yorker". That's their homeland, in the same way as a Navajo from Arizona is likely to say that is where their homeland is. People don't like to be moved from their homelands even if it means satisfying some of Life's necessities.

There is a third problem which has been experienced in areas established for the particular socio-economic classes. If you pile them into an area, the area gets a reputation which feeds certain types of social behaviour. This applies to the filthy rich; the well-to-do middle classes; blue-collar workers as well as the poor. If you are considering the homeless, unfortunately, putting poor people all together and branding the area they live in as "below acceptable standard" then you are putting these people behind the eight ball from the start.

Sure. Use money to 3D print housing, but plan for the social consequences that will follow.

Old Man Emu

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The concrete house shell itself is the least part of it. I'm sure these structures would not meet current uniform building codes, which are written to ensure a high minimum standard of housing. If the US allowed squatting or shanty-towns, like many other countries do, then the homeless would find or build their own shelters and that problem would be solved. Of course, these places have other problems, like sanitation - I doubt that indoor plumbing is printed into these Chinese "houses".

Homeless people live primarily in large urban areas because it's possible (although not easy) to survive on the streets there. In an unincorporated rural area where the land is cheap enough and regulations are lax enough for this sort of thing to be conceivable, there would be nobody to beg from but other destitute people, and recyclables would be scarce, as well as other services and resources that the homeless depend on. Anybody put there might have housing, but they'd have little else unless it was provided.

The Chinese require expensive and difficult-to-get residency permits from people wanting to live in their larger cities, and tend to forcibly displace people from their rural habitations to make room for real-estate developments. These 3D-printed concrete sheds might be where they'll end up putting them, and they'll have little choice but to live there. But I don't see this as a solution for homelessness in the USA, unless things change a lot here.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

A thing to consider is that while shanty towns aren't explicitly legal in the US, they're certainly allowed in many places. The building codes have to do with being able to sell a dwelling, rather than just to live in one. The homeless do often build their own shelters, though they're legally still considered homeless.

In fact, a large percent of the estimated homeless in America aren't in Urban areas, but in remote areas in the midwest and in the trecherous portions of the smoky mountains in the Southeast living off trapping and hunting. In general they actively avoid census takers, and pretty much anyone from local and federal government, so there's no clear number on them. These folks wouldn't set foot into a 3D printed house, or any kind of shelter that would be provided for them. Not because they dislike the concept of having a 3D printed home, but because they don't want to owe anything to the government.

Also, many urban homeless could live in existing project housing if they chose, but for their own reasons avoid it. Not because of money or availability but out of other reasons, often being on the run from someone, or believing they are on the run from something. Trying to get them into provided housing has already failed, no matter what it's made of.

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Originally Posted by awerby

Of course, these places have other problems, like sanitation - I doubt that indoor plumbing is printed into these Chinese "houses".

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I don't imagine it would be difficult to print concrete pipe into the structure. Just leave open tubes where you need them.

Have you been to NYC? It smells like a toilet. In the subways, on the streets. It already has a sanitation problem. So 3D shelters will not solve nor "create" that problem.

With the overabundance of foreclosed homes NOT going to homeless people (or the people on whom they were foreclosed) I seriously doubt they'll do anything like this. The end result will most likely be just a cheaper method of producing homes to sell to the same people who have been buying them before.