Policy Bites: Affordable Housing

The stigma of living in caravan or trailer park only exists because of bad, anti-social attitudes, and bad, greedy, selfish behaviour. It doesn't have to. Especially with the amazing new modular home technology on the market today. This technology not only makes nice homes vastly more affordable, but removes the stigma of very cheap home ownership. Modular home designers have excellent ideas and technology.

There is no need for anyone to have, nor to promote, the perception that such homes would bring down the value of a neighbourhood. They look fantastic, and are, in many cases, easily able to be extended and moved around.

Many of them do not even require foundations. They can literally be erected with a garden underneath them.

Moreover, there is NO construction noise and clamour. Full assembly usually takes only a few hours.

You can see why certain greedy, sociopathic people would not want these homes to happen. Let's stop them from stopping it.

Developers and the real estate industry are already wealthy. In most cases they're very wealthy. It is in their best interest to keep the prices of urban properties and housing elevated and inflated. One way of doing this involves the ongoing process of gentrification. Another way of doing it involves imposing strict conditions on what kind of homes are allowed on urban lots. There are lots of other nasty tricks.

This approach is dumb, and associated with the worst anti-social attitudes. It puts everything backwards. If people were able to afford their homes more easily and with less burden from building costs, bank loans, mortgages, and the entire big, fat, ugly, greedy industry surrounding them - then more people would have more time and freedom to better educate themselves in tertiary institutions like colleges and universities.

This is far superior kind of 'gentrification'. It involves increasing upward mobility, not effectively BLOCKING upward mobility.

Less people would be stressed, and society would thus be less dangerous and unpleasant. Financial stress has long been know to cause most social ills, and pscyhologists and social psychologists have known this for decades (as has most of the medical profession.)

Back me for the senate. I will push hard, and unrelentingly, for AFFORDABLE (not boutique) modular, foldout, tiny, and 3D printable homes to be made legal on any and all urban lots. I will petition for the introduction of legislation to prevent developers and the real estate industry increasing the cost of such homes, and of land, in response (which is what greedy sociopaths who don't want a better society would likely try to do!)

- Dr Bruce Long.

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