An Oklahoma lawmaker has proposed that his state begin allocating money toward 3D-printed homes, saying that it could help to create more affordable housing.
According to FOX 25, State Rep. Mickey Dollens plans to introduce legislation to expand the Affordable Housing Tax Credit to include 3D-printed homes. Multiple other states already allow 3D-printed homes to be built, Alper Real Estate Group told Oklahoma Voice.
The obvious benefits of 3D-printing homes are that they can be constructed quickly and cheaply, and elements of the design can even be customized to account for the severe weather-related risks that exist in Oklahoma.
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Definitely 🙁 The downsides include the fact that this is a new technology and could result in homes with design defects. There is also the concern that automating more jobs could lead to both a dropoff in quality and more skilled laborers being put out of work.
Dollens tried to settle some of those nerves. Per FOX 25, he said, "The last thing we want to do is displace more workers to automation. But we will still need skilled trades to pull the plumbing, to do the groundwork, the electricity."
One aspect of Oklahoma's growing affordable housing crisis that seems to have gone unmentioned in the coverage of the 3D-printed house proposal is that Oklahoma has no statewide rent control laws and basically no legal protections for renters.
According to the Oklahoma Policy Institute, Oklahoma is "one of six states without tenant protections against retaliation by bad actor landlords," as well as having one of the country's shortest eviction timelines that "[contributes] to housing instability [where] renters can go from being late on rent to evicted from their home in under two weeks."
Unsurprisingly, this has led to a lot of evictions for low-income tenants, and it is not at all clear that cheap, 3D-printed houses would do much of anything to address this problem.
As long as Oklahoma has laws on the books that are actively hostile to its poorest citizens, it seems inevitable that those citizens will continue to suffer for them.
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