A tornado in Indiana killed 22 residents of a mobile home community yesterday. It's safe to say that given a choice, most people wouldn't live in a mobile home, and so the residents lived there because of economic circumstances. My grandparents used to live in a mobile home due to the high cost of living in southern California, and it was quite nice, but probably not what they might have wanted.
The only way to prevent these tragedies, therefore, is to work for an ever-growing economy to make mobile homes obsolete. In economically advanced societies, houses don't have thatched roofs or walls made of bundled sticks; people also don't live in caves or mud huts. Those materials and structures are undesirable and often dangerous, so they aren't used anymore.
The more economically productive the lower segments of society are, the more wealth they can create and hang onto — including the wealth in the homes where they live. Creating wealth isn't seen as a social-justice issue, but it can frequently mean the difference between life and death.
Hmm. Was it poverty or was it a tornado? Even if you live in a brand spanking new Habitat for Humanity home a tornado walking up to your door and staying a while is going to kill you if you don't head to the basement in time.
When a tornado hits, would you rather be protected by bricks or sheet metal? And how many mobile homes have basements...?
I'vw lived in a mobile home for the past 22 years, and I hate it!! Thankfully, there haven't been any tornadoes round here (yet -- and please God, there won't be any). Why are we still here? Because my husband has this thing about money: he doesn't want to spend it. (BTW, he does earn a decent salary; I work part-time & support myself that way). I pray constantly for a change, but am growing discouraged. It feels like we're stuck here permanently. So perhaps most people in this type of housing feel the same way. It's no way for anyone to live in the 21st century. My younger son has moved out. The elder one spends most of his free time at a friend's. There is no room for entertaining anyone ... I could go on, but it wouldn't change anything. I just pray for the grace to keep going one day at a time...He reminds me of Ramses in Exodus -- no matter what gets thrown at him, he just digs in his heels deeper and refuses to move.