I know a guy who grew up in a van - 8 kids, father working odd jobs as they traveled America for 14 years, and the kids slept kneeling with their heads on the benches.
I wouldn't wish a life like that on anyone, and wonder if current housing prices won't push towards that.
these are definitely too cramped for anything more than a couple and probably a fit couple, chubbier ppl like myself will feel quite snug.
However, there are nice tiny homes you can hook up to a truck and are nearly as mobile with a lot more space and amenities. I wouldn't mind buying one for my wife and I and hooking it up to another for the kids rooms and play area. Similar idea could be done with container homes and earth bag homes. Those options could be done for 5k to 20k plus cost of land and running utilities.
I think people need to stop thinking of homes as status symbols, luxury, or investments and think of them more in the vein of utility, what's the bare minimum we need to support our lifestyle in comfort not luxury just comfort.
Reminds me of a very well done blog linked to me recently, where the author described building a simple house for his family, and it was small - only 2,000 sq ft.
You don’t need to drop to a 100sq ft house, but 2k is also quite large, even if you can use all the space.
New construction is like new cars, only relatively "well off" people buy new, so you can end up where there's an entire under-serviced market because the only people who buy X are people who buy used.
I wouldn't wish a life like that on anyone, and wonder if current housing prices won't push towards that.