The idea here is that people who receive welfare and EBT food stamps for most or all of their lives, who are able bodied and can manage a property like this, might be given the opportunity to receive one final lump sum payment from the state in the range of about $20-30K. Currently, it can cost the state that much each year to support a couple or family who normally would be in permanent need.
These folks - single parents, at risk women fleeing domestic violence, young families, homeless veterans, etc. - volunteering for this program, will be assisted in buying enough land to grow food, and participate in training about utility maintenance, even the design and construction of their very own houses. Once each individual case is complete, the participants are removed from all future state assistance (besides healthcare).
Not only will this empower participants, give them the dignity of truly being independent, and save the state thousands, maybe millions of dollars, it will also offer an opportunity for the establishment of micro economies knitted together by a cooperative of new entrepreneurships.
Someone who could might have been working minimum wage jobs full time, might now have the opportunity to work at an art or craft, maybe sell extra produce that they themselves have grown, or help train future participants in the self sustaining lifestyle.
Best of all, as I see it, these houses could go into already existing neighborhoods, remote regions (like Western or Northern Maine), or anywhere. They need not be separated from the rest of the world though. They would be particularly well suited for the development of small communities, where formerly a bunch of 3,000 square foot McMansions would have been built.
While I am not a big fan of so-called "intentional communities" (since some of them, I feel, are overly restrictive with their membership or limit individual freedoms), these houses certainly would be absolutely perfect for the physical development of whole neighborhoods--intentional or not.
I can imagine that certain properties in such a neighborhood would specialize in a particular crop, craft, or service, and a brisk trade could develop. In an age where technology now allows for such ease of long distance travel and facilitates such efficient means of worldwide communication, living and sharing locally could once again become the focus of community life--like it was in the 19th Century. Nevertheless at anytime, folks could hop into the car and drive wherever. Satellite internet could provide the entire neighborhood with WiFi. It would be the best of the old and new worlds.
Part of this concept allows for the elimination of commuting to work. Outside work hours in general could be greatly lessened since all utilities would be essentially free (water, heat, and electricity).
When I used to do personal financial counseling, the most important lesson I tried to relate was this: Give yourself a raise by eliminating regular expenses that you don't need--cut cable, use your cellphone and get rid of the land line, brew coffee at home instead of buying it on the road, eat in more and out less, weatherproof your home, think about adding solar panels, etc... Spending less money is exactly like making more. Except, that the extra money you have from eliminating expenses is something you never have to pay taxes on, since you already have--unlike the extra income of adding hours at work, for example.
I cannot think of a better scenario for saving money on expenses through the use of free and renewable utilities, and thus having more money and more time, than simplifying life with a smaller house of this self-sustaining kind.
Finally, and this might be an overly rosy or Utopian ideal, one can imagine a multigenerational pattern emerging...
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Meanwhile by the time a child reaches her teens, she has begun designing her own small house as fancy or simple as she pleases, and her parents have already begun securing an acre of land upon which she can build that house, whether on their own property or somewhere else.
By the time she is around sixteen the land for her house is entirely secured, new gardens are being developed; trees and bushes planted while she was a child are beginning to bear significant fruit; solar panels and/or wind turbines have been purchased with money saved by the parents specifically for this purpose from the time she was born, and work has begun on the construction of her self-designed house.
When she is eighteen, the property and house become hers completely and fully to do with whatever she wants. She has no debt, has been completely trained in this kind of life, has hardly any household expenses, and is safely settled and sheltered--ready to face adulthood with every possible social and personal advantage.
She may elect to go away to college, renting out the house whenever she is away. She could even sell it and take the money to travel, start a small business, or live in the city. All the while, she must be fully conscious of the importance of these adult decisions and accept financial responsibility for whatever consequences arise from these decisions. As a worst case scenario, she would only "fall down" as low as most young adults now start out.
Nevertheless, the knowledge she has gained--the physics, chemistry and electronics of renewable electricity, and architecture, along with all of it's associated math; the skills she has mastered--learning how to build with wood, solder wiring, garden, and most importantly, her creative efforts; the moral and parental support she has experienced--giving her confidence in herself; the work ethic she has trained herself so happily to accept; and receiving the monetary value (in real estate, for example) that she has truly earned already--right at the beginning of life, have given her a strong base with which to become a productive member of society. These are things she would feel natural about passing on to her own children someday.
For the community in general, a child was raised to adulthood with very little impact on the environment and few natural resources wasted. With the passing of generations, vast improvements in world-wide living standards could revolutionize society and culture.
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In the context of this blog, a family once in the trap of poverty and state assistance is now leading the culture and truly contributing to the betterment of life in Maine--and anywhere else where this systems might develop.
