Seized tiny homes saved from the dump can once again help homeless

Three structures donated to homeless residents and once set to be dismantled or destroyed by the city of Los Angeles were returned to the man who built them Friday.

The tiny homes, which were impounded for obstructing city streets in February, were returned to Elvis Summers on the condition they be kept on private property, Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation spokesperson Elena Stern confirmed to Mashable. 

"If they are put out on LA City public sidewalks or streets they will be tagged and removed again," Stern said. 

Summers, who used to be homeless himself, built the tiny houses to provide free shelter for those in need. 

"They paid their ticket," Summers said, of homeless veterans kicked out of their tiny houses. "They shouldn’t be homeless."

He has raised more than $100,000 in donations in the past year to build the structures and plans to continue his work. 

The structures were delivered to the Faith Community Church in Compton, but cannot be lived in until a more permanent location is found, Summers wrote on Facebook. 

The city had tagged seven additional structures to to be impounded in February, but they had all been moved by Summers to private property by the time the Bureau of Sanitation returned. Stern said the city has not encountered any other structures since. 

The Bureau of Sanitation, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and other city officials have argued that the structures, which under a city ordinance are not considered homes and do not require notice of eviction, pose a health and safety risk. Local residents have also petitioned for their removal, arguing the structures have encouraged drug use, prostitution and gang activity in their neighborhoods. 

The homes, which are about the size of a parking spot, had been situated mostly on freeway overpasses between Inglewood and Van Nuys. Summers has built and placed more than 30 structures around Los Angeles County, and told Mashable in February the homes tagged for removal by the city were the most visible of the lot. 

"These ones were kind of high profile," Summers said. "They haven't found my others ones, and they're not going to."

Summers has argued his homes, which each cost $1,200 a piece to build, are an economical solution to Los Angeles' homelessness crisis, which the city has estimated will require at least $1.8 billion in funding to address over the next decade. 

Los Angeles County has seen its homeless population increase for the past four years straight, with nearly two-thirds of the county's homeless — more than 28,000 people — residing in the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority announced this week.