On Wednesday I published What The News & Fishwrap Never Told You About Tiny Houses Greensboro: Part 2. There I uncover the fact that Tiny Houses Greensboro Director, Scott Jones, has had a somewhat checkered business past of his own. Scott hasn't been as successful as he would like for you to believe he has been.
I get it, I've failed at business too. Lots of people have. But honest people don't go changing the name of their business 3 or 4 times in a decade or so. Honest business people spend lifetimes building up the names of their businesses and when things go wrong they do whatever it takes to restore their good names so that their customers will always remember them as having done their best. Are the type of business people who hide their mistakes the kind of people we want controlling public and private donations?
What I wrote in What The News & Fishwrap Never Told You About Tiny Houses Greensboro: Part 3
was completely unplanned. How was I to know that Scott Jones would attempt to have me removed from Facebook? That, my friends, is surely the act of a desperate man.
When I was growing up, the students in the drafting, carpentry, plumbing, masonry, and electricians classes at Northeast Guilford High School completely designed, built and sold at least one new house every year. It was the best way to teach new home construction to teenagers.
All the proceeds from the sale of the house went back into the program making the program self-funding for the Guilford County Schools.
Susan Ladd of the Greensboro News & Record calls Tiny Houses Greensboro, "A creative solution for housing the homeless" but is it? As I pointed out in Part 2, tiny houses for rent are different from other failed housing projects only in appearance. No one wants more rental public housing projects built in their neighborhood and the poor don't want to live in them.
And if Scott Jones thinks he can get the support of east Greensboro to put them here.... Well look out folks because I'm betting lightning is about to strike because for the first time in history Billy Jones and Goldie Wells are set to agree.
Not that I've talked to Goldie about it but being she and I both live almost next door to Claremont Courts I'm sure she has had enough. A route to home ownership with a stipulation that the tiny houses always remain owner occupied will be the only way East Greensboro will accept tiny houses. When Claremont Courts were built, we were promised by the Greensboro City Council that East Greensboro would get no more low income housing projects. Put them in Irving Park if you think you can. A low income rental project of any kind will be the end of any east Greensboro politician who supports it and everyone knows that to be true.
It's a route to home ownership for the poor or nothing at all. You've abused them long enough.
Then there's this little tidbit I found on Google:
The page had been removed from the Guilford County Schools website but right there on Google it says:
"Tom Bader and his students are currently building a 'tiny' house as part of a shop class project. The project was funded by Guilford County Schools."
Now compare that model to the model that was used at Northeast High School throughout the '50s,'60s and '70s and you'll begin to understand why everything must cost so much. Same school system, different model-- why?
A link in this article from the News & Fishwrap explains: Students at Guilford County's Weaver Academy to build 'tiny' houses:
"Bader, who has taught at Weaver for 13 years, said he was introduced to the tiny-house concept through the Interactive Resource Center of Greensboro. Some local organizations and individuals are embracing tiny houses as a possible solution to homelessness."
Wonder why the reporter at the News & Fishwrap decided to call Tiny Houses Greensboro a "local organizations" using the plural and linking to only one organization in the link?
And yes, while building tiny houses allows students to see the project through until completion why are the Guilford County Schools giving them away? Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not helping our already overburdened school funding problems.
Hey Scott Jones, are you beginning to understand how much damage your stupidity has caused.
I've proposed a factory located in East Greensboro where jobs are needed most to build tiny houses to be sold and or given to anyone who wants them. They could also be sold and shipped to communities hundreds of miles away. Greensboro's non profits and the City of Greensboro should be using their energy and resources to end the cycle of poverty and homelessness by doing what is know to work instead of repeating decades old mistakes by dressing them up in new packages. Rental properties are not now and will never be a creative solution to housing the homeless and in just a few years they'll all look just like every other low income housing project in the nation.
And they must remain forever owner occupied.
Please continue reading What The News & Fishwrap Never Told You About Tiny Houses Greensboro: Part 5
