While Utah legislators attempt, once again, to positively impact the homeless situation here and discuss funding costs so that first-time buyers can get into housing they can afford, that brilliant nutbag Elon Musk is easily 10 steps ahead of the state with his company Boxable.

You may not have heard of this firm, as it is relatively unknown in the Musk world of ventures like SpaceX, Tesla, X (formerly twitter), xAI, etc. But Boxable makes foldable homes that can be easily shipped anywhere, made of steel, concrete and EPS foam. They come already complete with HVAC, plumbing and electric systems and have solar panels that will produce more energy than the home can use and will store it for outages in its Powerwalls.

I've seen the mockup of these homes and am pretty impressed with the interior. They come fitted with all the appliances (oven, refrigerator, dishwasher), a nice kitchen, bathrooms and a 400 square foot living room. What's amazing is that these homes cost only $10,000 plus shipping!

Utah has a few tiny home builders—Anchored Tiny Homes, Zion's Tiny Homes specializing in Tiny House RV's, etc.—with certainly more to come. Washington County picked up on the need for tiny homes (known as "casitas") years ago and there are huge subdivisions down south of one-level homes with tiny add-ons in the backyard for relatives or caretakers.

Tiny homes are environmentally friendly. Obviously, less square footage means less pull on our energy grids and most builders are now using eco-friendly materials and will often include solar panels. The problem is, you have to find available land to drop that little home on, and land is a luxury commodity these days.

Salt Lake City, like many cities in Utah, has random pieces of government-owned dirt which could be rededicated and rezoned to allow for tiny home communities. And four of the city's elementary schools are slated to close in the near future, and those properties would make for perfect tiny communities that could be beautifully planned for folks who wanted minimalist living options.

Utah's first microshelter community opened this winter at 300 South and 600 West as housing options for 50 unsheltered folks. Sadly, this is a temporary solution, but city councils along the Wasatch Front are watching this alternative model and more are attempting to create new policies for shared housing options—think boarding houses—and tiny home building and zoning regulations.

The Legislature's $20,000 loans for first-time buyers, approved last year, helped many get into homes. But with products like those that Tesla offers at $10,000 a home, that program could go even further at getting different types of Utahns into new housing.

Let's keep putting our heads together, because Utah's population is expected to double by 2060, with almost 1 million folks moving here in the next decade and searching for a place to live that's affordable.