Tiny Homes — Sparking Change
The following quick statements are based upon my thoughts and opinions I have formed from my research and experiences.
Tiny homes spark change. Good change. Social change.
Tiny homes can help to solve one or more of the many problems we have in our world. For example, they may be able to help solve the affordable housing problem. Housing for the poor, homeless, and others in need of shelter. Tiny home communities could help take the homeless off the streets and bring them into encouraging and nurturing programs where they could potentially better themselves and their lives. If done right, this could do wonders for governments and municipalities all around the world in lowering crime rates, heightening education levels, and more. It could help build and bring together communities.
Tiny homes, as discussed in a prior post, also have a multitude of other benefits: Financial and Environmental. They help people lead more environmentally friendly, sustainable lifestyles and increase financial savings at the same time. Essentially, they help fight the battle against global warming, and open up conversations about sustainability goals, climate change, etc.
What’s more? As I said in one of my last posts, a tiny home is defined as any livable structure that is 400sqft or less, yet Americans are starting to consider anything below 1,000sqft a tiny home. While doing my research, I came across a quote from one gentleman who commented, “You Americans’ idea of a tiny house would be considered normal sized elsewhere in the world”. Interesting. First of all the fact that the definition of tiny homes has to be changed for Americans (bumped up to greater square footage) just shows how incapable — spoiled — we are. This brings up yet another social problem we should consider: Why do most Americans dream of having large houses and tons of materialistic items? It questions the American lifestyle of wanting everything bigger, faster, in surplus, and it makes us question why this is the standard we live by and how this came to be so.
People tend to assume that if you live in a smaller house you are poor or not-well off. Well that’s just not true and we need to stop thinking this way. People live in tiny homes because they value engaging their life experiences and freedom from materialistic values more than they care about what other people think. People live in tiny homes because they believe in sustainability, helping our environment and making the world a better place. We should be thanking all the people who live in tiny homes.
That brings me to what I believe is the root of this whole problem: we have bred a society of people who are more concerned about what people think about them and their “net worth in assets” that we completely forget about the most important things in life: priceless experiences that are once in a lifetime and quality time with friends and family.
We need to stop and reflect on why we are so uncomfortable about being ashamed of having a small house, a non-BMW car, non-designer clothing, shoes, or handbags. We need to stop being so materialistic.
I strongly stress that it’s time we re-evaluate and think about all the problems in our world and how and why they became problems in the first place. I do believe these conversations were, maybe not started by, but encouraged by the introduction of tiny homes and the tiny house movement.
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Thanks for reading! #TinyHomesForPositiveSocialChange
