Check out this guy, proudly living in a mud hut in somebody's back yard in Kenton. Complete with a composting toilet. Ya think it was permitted?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/msstarryphotos/sets/72157618072170466/

I remember reading about this in 2008:

http://articles.cnn.com/2008-05-19/living/homeless.mom_1_parking-lot-middle-class-golden-retrievers?_s=PM:LIVING

...There are 12 parking lots across Santa Barbara that have been set up to accommodate the growing middle-class homelessness. These lots are believed to be part of the first program of its kind in the United States, according to organizers.

The lots open at 7 p.m. and close at 7 a.m. and are run by New Beginnings Counseling Center, a homeless outreach organization.

It is illegal for people in California to sleep in their cars on streets. New Beginnings worked with the city to allow the parking lots as a safe place for the homeless to sleep in their vehicles without being harassed by people on the streets or ticketed by police....

Just call them "accessory dwelling units" and you're good to go from the city's perspective. It's rather downscale densification, but densification nonetheless.

yesterday in lower SE PDX I observed people cleaning out their cars that were so obviously also their homes. There were several cars parked next to each other-a little neighborhood in a way. Really sad.
Meanwhile the streetcar/lightrail madness continues.

Can you say "OBAMAVILLE"?

"Interpretation"!

That is the catch word for Portland Planning.

We've got Jails being called Offices in SoWhat.

We've got residential backyard squatter campers being called accessory dwelling units.

We've got lots next to 6 ft wide public walkways being called "corner lots" allowing for two homes on R5 lots.

We've got cell towers in residential neighborhoods.

We've got a French School dropping into an R neighborhood without proper zoning.

It's become interpretation, selective enforcement and squeaky wheel time in Portland.

yep- perfect name for this era. Meanwhile the CEO of GE when not shipping jobs to China is in charge of fixing our economy? Yow.

Those folks in Santa Barbara would never get a ticket here, where you can store a vehicle on the streets for up to two years and never get a ticket. The city told me the money for the ticketing program had gone to streetcars. I figured it was also a way to manufacture more street congestion to force us all to use light rail. But clearly Eric is on to something, that it is also a way to promote density. Obviously it's a win-win-win from the city's viewpoint. It's just too bad if the stored vehicles are in front of your property, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Don't get me wrong. I feel very sorry for people with nowhere to live but their cars, and I applaud Santa Barbara for trying to do something about the problem.

More tales from the Republican Recession. Official definition is "A recession is when you neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours." Our last Republican lead big time recession, 1929-1941, was hampered, like this one, by the Republicans trying to prevent the clean up from hurting their pocket books.

So George, if your economy was roaring would you give GW the credit?

Indie: If the GW economy was roaring, Obama would not have been elected.

Living in that mud hut would be pretty depressing come about February or March. It might not be so bad in summer time but I would be reaching for the razor blade after a long dreary Oregon winter.

If they aren't already calling it "housing insufficiency" they soon will be, which would be silly since there's no insufficiency of housing . . . just of people who can afford to rent, lease or buy it.

Or maybe "Housing Insecurity"; the government likes to tack that second word to "Food" as well to soft-pedal the problem.