I appreciate you taking the time to treat my writing with real respect. It has been a long time since I had such a high quality discussion on HN. So, thank you.

But, I don't believe true universal income will ever happen. I think that if it gets implemented, it will basically be the new welfare.

Second, no, I have no desire to get government backed mortgages as the "solution" for affordable housing. I want an actual solution. I want more housing that is under 1200 square feet but not a trailer and not a Tumbleweed house on wheels.

In Japan, few homes have ovens. When I lived in Germany in my twenties, family homes all had refrigerators the size of what Americans put in dorms. These are first world countries with high standards of living, but they do not shackle their people with crazy "minimum" standards that cause the kinds of problems we have here in the US.

Tumbleweed houses -- one of the earliest companies in the tiny house movement -- were put on wheels as an end run around housing requirements that are supposed to prevent slums but just end up pushing people into trailers or out in the street. Our default expectation is a home so large as to fit a nuclear family, along with a giant fridge, a four burner stove and an oven.

When I got divorced and went from a family of four to a family of three, we began storing sodas in the fridge so the milk would not spoil. I assure you, a single person not only does not need a twenty cubic foot fridge, it is actively a burden for them.

Why are we more okay with the rising levels of homelessness than we are with small spaces with (say) a dorm sized fridge, hot plate and microwave? Your typical single person living alone has zero need of a four burner stove. Even with cooking for a family of four, I rarely used the fourth burner. I typically used two or three burners at one time. The result: The fourth burner became covered in grease and would smoke when I turned it on.

Why should I be saddled with a fourth burner I do not need and which will become a potential fire hazard if I do not clean it regularly, in spite of not using the damn thing? How does this prevent my home from being a slum? For me, a fourth burner is nothing but a headache.

And I cooked from scratch so much that the cashiers at the grocery store would say "I need you to talk to my wife. She never cooks. She's a microwave queen."

I was a full-time wife and mom at a time when that was out of fashion and I and my sons and husband all had special dietary needs. I cooked constantly. But I still only rarely used the fourth burner.

The housing standards we have are simply crazy. They are a burden for Americans, not something that protects us from abusive slum Lords. And they are increasingly pushing people out into the street.

I don't want a financial solution to this problem. I want a real solution that involves building more actual small spaces with basics instead of more and more McMansions while homelessness continues to rise.

And I think what this exchange tells me is that if I want to see real change here, I have my work cut out for me. Because even someone who will take the time to read my writing and treat me with genuine respect cannot immediately grasp that I am not talking about a fiscal solution. I am saying: We need to build millions of smaller homes with fewer amenities that ordinary people can afford without working three jobs and/or having roommates they don't really know. Because currently, the solution for unmarried individuals is rent a three bedroom place and get two roommates. And it simply should not be that way.

Thank you for engaging me in discussion.

Take care.