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Home » Family Articles » Housing For Alternative Lifestyles

Housing For Alternative Lifestyles

What are alternative lifestyles and why would they require alternative housing? To answer the first part it is easiest to give examples. Then the answer to the second part becomes self evident.

One winter we were camping in our conversion van at a hot springs area in Arizona. We met a man who sold stuffed animals on the side of the highway. Having been through a bad divorce, and having little money, he was living in the van at places like these hot springs. Every day he drove off to the nearest highways and set up his stuffed animals for sale. He claimed to have sold $4,000 worth the first month, so his low cost living meant he could save the money and get back on his feet.

Meanwhile, another neighbor at the hot springs was living in his old RV. He had a house, but he preferred to supplement his social security by renting it out. This meant he lived in his RV for a few weeks at each location, often for free, and spent evenings sitting around campfires talking to travelers like us.

A friend of ours lived in a shack that he built for $3,000 on a small piece of land he bought for $7,000. He was there for enough time to pay off the land and sell it for a profit. This is illegal in many areas, of course, because of things like occupancy permits and minimum square footage requirements. Usually, however, you can camp on your land, so a $2,000 used RV parked on your land makes for a cheap and legal housing alternative.

Other Housing For Alternative Lifestyles

Alternative lifestyle doesn't mean "low income" of course. There are other reasons for living differently and needing different types of housing. Whether to save money, to travel, to live creatively - there are many reasons why people choose to live in tents, RVs, cabins, underground homes, rental rooms and anything else that's less common than the houses, condos and apartments that most people call home. Here are a few more of these housing options.

- RV Boondocking. I've talked to people living in Rvs that cost $200,000 and ones that cost $600, so the selection of accommodations is varied, to say the least.

- Permanent travelers. Housing is whatever works for the moment for those who work various jobs as the travel.

- Houseboats. There are whole communities of people living on houseboats, and they usually don't have to pay property taxes.

- Basements. Even some people with good incomes choose to live in the basement as they build the house above for cash. No mortgage sounds nice, doesn't it?

- Log cabin squatting. Yes, there really are people living out there in the national forests, moving when they get caught every five or ten years.

- School busses. Apparently old busses sell cheap. We met three young men who lived in one in the deserts of Arizona, and anywhere else they could park it for a month.

- Offices. A couple I know almost moved into the office building they owned. It was on the river and had showers, so why not? One less mortgage too.

A national magazine recently did a write-up on people who lived in the jungles of Hawaii. Rents are high in Hawaii, and life on the beach is good - at least for younger people who can tolerate camping out for years. Alternative lifestyles and alternative housing are often more for the younger crowd. Then again, tell that to the tens of thousands of retirees living in RVs.

And here is another random article you might be interested in...

If Your PR Can't Do This, Bag It!

As a business, non-profit or association manager, why continue a public relations effort that doesn't deliver the key external audience behaviors you need to achieve your department, division or subsidiary objectives?

Time for a change. One that will base your PR effort on a fundamental premise that makes sense. And one that actually leads to outside audience behaviors like these: new proposals for joint ventures or strategic alliances, prospective buyers browsing your services or products, specifying sources or major donors thinking about you, more frequent repeat purchases or a substantial boost in capital donations.

So, you need two things. One, a really personal involvement with the public relations people assigned to your department, division or subsidiary. And two, a new foundation for your PR effort.

A foundation like this: People act on their own perception of the facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action the very people whose behaviors affect the organization the most, the public relations mission is accomplished.

It will give you a blueprint that will help you persuade your key stakeholders to your way of thinking. In turn, that should move them to take actions that lead to your success as a business, non-profit or association manager.

First and foremost, you need to know how members of your most important external audiences perceive you because those perceptions usually lead to behaviors that can hurt you or help you in achieving your objectives.

So, you and your PR team must list those outside audiences whose behaviors affect your unit the most. Then put them in priority order. We'll use #1 on your list as our target in this article.

Now, you can spend some real money on professional survey counsel, or you and your PR team can do it yourself by interacting with your target audience. Use questions like these to identify opinion, perception problems. "What do you know about our organization? Have you had any kind of contact with us? Was it satis- factory? Do you like our products or services?"

Listen carefully to the responses you receive. Stay alert for evasive or hesitant answers, and be watchful for negativity â€" especially inaccuracies, exaggerations, misconceptions or rumor.

These answers are your red meat, the input you need to create the public relations goal. For example, clear up a misconception, kill that rumor once and for all, or fix that inaccuracy. Each of which can lead to target audience behaviors you won't like one little bit.

Reaching that goal is another story. You need a strategy to do it and you have just three choices as you deal with your opinion/perception challenge: create perception where there may be none, change existing opinion, or reinforce it. But take care when you identify your strategy that it compliments your goal.

The heavy lifting in your public relations problem solving sequence will be done by the message you prepare designed to correct the negative perception you identified during your perception monitoring session. You must be very clear about the offending perception, particularly why it is untrue. Remember that you want to change what people believe and, thus, their behaviors so that you can achieve your unit's objectives. Which is why the message must be both believable and compelling.

Getting the message from your organization to the attention of members of your target audience is your next challenge. Luckily, there is a long list of communications tactics standing ready to help you do just that. They range from media interviews, personal meetings and speeches to press releases, newsletters, facility tours and many more. But check carefully that the tactics you employ have a proven record of reaching people similar to those who make up your target audience.

Inevitably, questions will be asked as to whether all this smoke and flame is producing any results. A question that can only be answered back out in the field interacting once again with members of your key outside audience.

While you'll be using the same questions used during your first opinion monitoring drill, this time you're looking for indications that the hurtful perceptions are actually changing, as will the inevitable follow on behaviors.

Incidentally, you can always put the pedal to the metal with additional communications tactics, as well as using them more frequently.

What you have, finally, is the blueprint you need to help persuade your most important stakeholders to take actions that lead to your success as a business, a non-profit or an association manager.

And your cost was "bagging" a PR effort that simply couldn't deliver the key external audience behaviors you need to achieve your unit objectives.

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