SUVs For The Homeless
A modest proposal addressing homelessness, bored aerospace engineers and
obscene SUV tax breaks.
Basic Premise
- The
IRS Section 179 loophole now allows up to a $100,000 tax break for SUV's
over 6,000 pounds.
- $100,000 is enough for a down payment on a nice house. It's enough
to buy an entire house in many parts of the country, especially out in the
boondocks.
- Many people end up living in their cars at least for a little while
after getting down on their luck. Sometimes that luck involves getting
caught in a bad snowstorm or getting hopeless lost late at night. Sometimes
it's more involved, like losing a job.
- At the same time, many people living on the streets would love having
a car to spend the night in. It's dry. There's air conditioning
and a radio. There are locks on the doors, and the horn to scare off
unsavory characters.
- Many large SUVs are large enough to seat an entire softball team. Lose
the wheels, replace the back seats with futons, convert the drivers
seat into a bathroom, and add an efficency kitchen in the rear, and you've
got yourself something a hell of a lot better than a heating grate for you
and your family.
- So, let's convert SUVs into 'housecars' and loan them to the homeless
instead of giving them to business owners who should be earning their own
keep.
Benefits
Creation of a new 'housecar' renovation industry
One of the main problems with the housecar concept is that
while the SUVs are huge, they are still pretty cramped as far as living space
is concerned. Luckily NASA should be able to come to the rescue here.
After all , they are experts at stuffing people into tiny capsules
for long periods of time. Imagine an entirely new industry of housecar
renovation, where ex-NASA geeks and other similar crusty engineer types figure
out how to maximize all available SUV space in order to achieve a comfortable,
dignified living space.
This works out for the NASA engineers as well, who by now are probably pretty
sick spending all their working hours trying to figure out why last-week's
project (what it was) ended up exploding. By now, the post-disaster
root cause analysis probably needs to start before lift-off so there isn't
any schedule slippage. All that must wear on the creative soul after
a while. These poor engineers need some constructive work, which won't
involve the entire nation flying their flags at half-staff when they screw
up.
The housecar industry would be great place for these engineers to move to.
Seven deaths is more of a monthly rounding error for national SUV-related
deaths, and the housecars would are grounded, so that's even less chance
of accidents. And it'll be helping out the homeless at the same time.
More than just engineers will benfit. it's obvious no one will want
their housecars to actually look like an SUV. Neighbors don'y want
SUVs littering the streets. Parents don't want their childrenbeing
mocked by classmates if they find out Little Suzzie comes from an SUV home.
All this should give rise to a new breed of designers who's speciality
will be fixing the SUV image problem inherent to the new housecars.
More Jobs / Good for the Economy
Once in a housecar the previously homeless occupants don't have to worry
about shelter as much, so they can focus on getting their lives back together.
Part of this will be getting these folks back into the job market, where
they'll be earning money to spend, spend spend, possibily buying the housecars
from the government and upgrading them, or moving on to more traditional
housing.
More engineers and designers will be working on housecar renovations, and
they'll need things like coffee and janitorial and management support in
order to get things done. This means more jobs for all these folks
further down on the creative food chain.
SUV manufactures also end up with a fine secondary market for last week's
SUV models. And if the idea catches on, possibly even a new straight-to-housecar
market will emerge.
Compare this with the existing Section 179 rule - the only new jobs created
are auto mechanics for the SUVs when they break, and possibily minimal extra
jobs in the insurance, medical, and legal industries to handle the increase
in SUV-related accidents and resulting lawsuites
Better Environment
More SUVs used as housing means less used as commuter vehicles, which means
better air quality for everyone, and less SUV-related traffic fatalities
to boot. Less SUVs also mean less dependency on foreign oil and
all the death and bad karma resulting from "interventions" resulting from
this dependency.
Questions/Concerns.
"The homeless person would just sell the SUV housecar for beer
!"
Possibily, but with all the empty cans of beer, they could then make themselves
a sweet beer
can house. $100,000 buys a lot of cans.
"I don't want homeless people as my neighbors !"
Well, once the homeless are living out of their housecars, they're not homeless
anymore, now are they ?
Anyway, most of the homed people are a lot closer to being on the streets
than they'ld like to admit.
How many missed mortage payments until you'd be asking if their was extra
room in your neighbor's housecar ?
"But I don't want SUVs in my neighborhood !"
This is a totally valid concern, and one which admittedly the wizards in
back office have not quite figured out yet. We are hopeful that the
housecar renovation industry will address this problem, possibily using packed
earth construction and thatched roofs to give the housecar a quaint English
cottage look. In the meantime, think hedgerows, and maybe bamboo. Ivy
is also an option, though you should be aware that many forms of decrorative
ivy are actually invasives.
"My town has no extra lots for housecars."
Then set up a Doubyaville on the brownfields outside town, and plant your
housecars there. The Doubyaville: where the hoboerotica of the Hooverville
meets the community spirit of the Levittowns. It may be a little dingy
today but start saving you pennies, for tomorrow you'll be paying big bucks
for it's gentrification. It's only a trumpted-up trailer park when
your town's PR firm is blowing it's retainer on crack and gas.
"Hybrids kick ass ! Why not a "Hybrids for the Homeless"
project ?"
Yes, hybrids are all the rage now, and "Hybrids for the Homeless" does have
a catchier name, but the current hybrid model are just too small to live
in. Though I suppose for $100,000 you could fit five hybrids together
in a pentagon configuration and end up with a nice sized housecar with an
atrium. However, consider this for a moment: A drooler, or worse
yet some stressed-out bedwetting kid or incontinent grandpa spending the
night on top a huge whopping electrical source.
"Jeepers. This is the sweetest idea since that Hybrid Thank
You Card Project.
How Can I Help ?"
Write to your elected reps and tell them you'ld rather able-bodied, well-off
Americans paid for their own transportation without any sort of government
kickback. Ask them to redirect the $100,000 reserved for SUV purchases
towards homeless shelters, drug prevention programs, public transportation,
and other worthwhile programs normal Americans can benefit from. Barring
that ask that an SUV worth $100,000 be made available to families falling
into homelessness, as described in this proposal.
You can also leave your comments at the PwanWiki at
SuvsForTheHomeless
Credits/References
The Be Good Tonya's website for the excellent
word "hoboerotica".
bolo'bolo (P.M., Semiotext, 1995) fasi and gano sections.
Harold and Maude for the scenes involving Maude's bus.
How Buildings Learn, (Stewart Brand, Penguin Books,
1994), especially the "houseboat" content.
Pattern Language, A (Christopher Alexander, Oxford University
Press, 1977), especially pattern 113 Car Connection: 'making a room out of
the place for the car' :-)
Change Log
05-30-02003: Initial Release.