Lustron Homes on PBS

[JNA]

Anybody watch the PBS program on the political/economic/corporate history of Lustron Homes.

http://www.lustron.org/

In my fair city, we have a few that are un-altered.

[Super Amputee Cat]

There were quite a few built here in Toledo. When I get some time, I'll try and post some pictures.

[giff57]

We have one here in town, and I know of one near the stadium in Iowa City.

[GeoTech]

There seems to be a lot of mistrust with manufactured homes in general. They seem to attract tornadoes wherever they go up.

We have a three manufactured home parks in our town, one park has 500 units. I'm not sure how many are manufactured by Lustron, but they still are one of the only ways to come close to "affordable housing" outside attached apartment units.

The new units going in the park can go for $70,000 - $100,000 depending on the features, and then you get to pay $350 month in rent. It's starting to get out of the affordable range in my book.

[Plannerbabs]

We have a couple of Lustrons here. They hold up well. I think I'd consider them more as "artisan" homes than manufactured, because a)there weren't very many of them built and b)they're unique (both floorplans).

[martini]

I stumbled into watching it last night too. PBS fockin' rules! Uber-geek TV right there. Then there was Globetrekker(my favorite show on TV right now) on after the Lustron show. That's another thread though...

It must've been divine providence or something for me to catch it last night. I'm doing my Alternate Plan Paper on affordable housing, and for the breif history part of the paper, this'll come in quite handy. I had never heard of these homes before this. I quite liked the potentail that they offered at the time they were 'produced'.

GeoTech, the Lustron homes and the manufactured homes that you're refering too are comepletely different beasts. The Lustron was built on a slab foundation, solidly attached to the ground. The manufactured homes(or rather {b]trailer homes[/b], I know that there are varying degrees of Manufacturness around, we can get into that later if needed) of today typically have no such attachment to the ground upon which they reside other than the wheels that they rode in on. Newer Mfrd units are indeed catching higher sums, but that because they're getting to be double and triple units, that's where the cost stems from.

Affordability on the other hand is quite subjective. It's typically defined as a family spending more than 30% of thier income on housing. Obviously, this can mean different things in different parts of the country. In Giff57's part of Iowa(or my part of Minnesota for that matter), that could very well be putting the binders on a factory worker with two kids and stay home mom(get mom in a job though...). In a larger metro area(say the hot housing market of Minneapolis), it could also very well mean a dual income family with two kids over extending themselves in a too-much-for-them-neigborhood.

[Diner]

Here are the details for the upcoming Lustron Convention

http://members.tripod.com/~Strandlund/index-10.html