Stepping Stone Subsidized Living – A Clever Way of Playing Apartment Life

This upload was awarded a Happy Llama Butt Achievement - felt for a truly great idea!

Hello:

Today I would like to introduce you a new and innovative way of playing Apartment Life, called Elise’s Subsidized Living Voucher Program, a form of government program similar to subsidized housing, assisted living, or welfare.

This idea of subsidized living was invented to help any adult or senior sim to get on the fast track to owning their dream homes. In real life, everybody wants to have his or her own house, apartment living was supposed to be a stepping stone to owning a house. If you work hard enough and know how to save money, you will eventually own a private home somewhere. But this does not happen in the sims world, because the landlords suck a huge portion of your sims’ pay check every week, the rent of a decent apartment unit can be as high as 4000 or 5000 simoleons! Even for a low class apartment, the rent ranges from 2000-3500 simoleons plus Tuesday and Thursday’s bills! Meanwhile your start up sims have a level one job earning 200 simoleons or so per day, that makes it impossible for them to save enough money in their lifetime to own their dream homes. Their dream home remains just a dream until the day they die unless you keep feeding them elixer of life or incorporate mods in your game play.

My Subsidized Living Voucher Program does not use any game mod or hack, it utilizes the ideas that common space is accessible to tenants, and the Tuesday and Thursday bills are based on the rent, and the rent is proportional to the size and furnishings of the unit. So, at Stepping Stone you rent an area of 12 squares but utilize the stuff in the common area. Your weekly rent is 251 simoleons, and it will be refunded to you through a voucher program, your sims will receive the cash by mail, twice a week on every Tuesday and Thursday, the amount your sims get will be more than enough to cover all their basic living expenses with a few hundred simoleons left. Basically, your sims will be able to save every simoleon they made and therefore can fulfill their dreams of owning a house within a reasonable time frame. Although my program was originally created for sims who were using the apartment living as a stepping stone to owning their dream homes, elderly, unemployed, and single moms definitely can benefit from this program.

Subsidized Living is a brand new idea that has never been implemented in any sims game. In real life, we have welfare, assisted living, shelter for homeless and the likes, it’s sad that there isn’t anything like that in the sims world, this was how Elise’s Subsidized Living Voucher Program came about, and it works, and it can only work with Maxis’ mailbox. If you have any type of custom residential mailbox (i.e. buyable or recolor) in your downloads folder, it will mess up the Tuesday and Thursday bills and thus mess up the voucher program. In order to play Stepping Stone the way it was intended to be played, you must not have custom mailboxes in your downloads folder. (Updated 5/20/2013: My Voucher Program still works as long as your custom mailboxes are Apartment Life compatible, i.e. have been updated to the AL EP).

The exact copy of the apartment building was used for testing and screenshots. I am showing here is an active apartment building, i.e. there are actual sims and pets living there, they are more than just tester sims, they are active sims that I care about. Because the idea works, sims (and pets) can gain skills, sleep, cook, and do basically anything in the common areas without any game mod. I thought maybe I could share it here to enrich your game play. (Note: The zip file I give you here is a clean original, never had any sims before, you will have to move your own sims in to play it.)

The building design: It is a post and lintel architectural style, the overall structure has a modern look and yet not exaggerated, the interior furnishings is simple and yet adequate, the lot size is only 2x2 and yet spacious, the landscaping is pleasing but not overdone, this is what I have envisioned what a modern assisted living should be. (Seasons players, see post #12 in the comment tab)

Car park area: The vehicle shown in the screenshots is not included in the rar file, your tenants can buy their own cars if they want. You will then need the ‘boolprop AptSubLotSpecificToolsDisable false’ cheat code to place a car there.

Note: You need Numenor's Color Enable Package (CEP) in order for the Maxis’ Embrasure by Ergo OFB window frame to show up in white color, if not, these window frames will be red, however, it won’t affect the game play at all.

Total Unit: 4
Rent: 251 simoleons, same for all 4 units before applying my voucher program, rent will be 0 simoleons after applying the program.
Tuesday and Thursday Bills: 0 simoleons.
Pets welcome.

Thanks for viewing, enjoy, and happy simming.

Custom Content Included:
Invisible Driveway & Extension by Roddyaleixo at MTS

Lot Size: 2x2
Lot Price: 130177

Custom Content Included:
- Simple Spiral Stairs - Left turn by marvine/modthesims2
- Edge Smoother by Ailias
- Glass Window by Cyclonesue special release
- Flower Box by macarossi
- Wood and Iron Spiral stairs matching fence by Marvine
- Simple Spiral Stairs - Left turn by Marvine
- Spiral Stairs - Railing - Right turn by Marvine
- Green Transparent Tile by RGiles