ABSTRACT
Housing-poor city dwellers may easily have the intelligence, strength, even the time, money, or credit, but are stymied by regulations, bureaucreatic red-tape, and rigid building codes which have erased most, if not all, the low-cost options. Whether affecting the poor or nonpoor, the frustrated renter or the totally homeless, it’s disheartening to see well-meaning regulations inhibit people from even thinking about constructing their own shelter. Society should not discourage owner/builders, but instead encourage them. To improve the climate for building freedom, the people should allow for owner/builder amendments that would modify the rigid codes and the coercive city building inspection system while maintaining practical standards for sanitation, structural stability, and fire prevention. People have access to raw materials, often nothing more than poles, mud, and thatch, but also ingenious use of log slabs, tin roofing, plywood, chicken wire, reinforced concrete and other available materials. The County Extension Service has been an immensely successful program, indeed a popular program since 1914.
