I've been in bankruptcy court with him, attorney's offices all over Hampton Roads, court rooms in 3 cities, seen him get arrested, evicted out of his house with only the clothes on his back and I've actually picked him up from the bus stop a few times (yeah, he doesn't even have a car anymore).

We would like to see if we can convert it in the following way, and perhaps make it a legal area:1) Remove the current bathroom facilities and turn it into a laundry room with washer and dryer.2) Remove kitchen sink, and rearrange the countertops so it can be used for folding clothes, etc.We would then rent the space as part of our 2nd rental unit, with of course  an increase in rent for the 2nd unit to account for increase square footage and laundry facilities the tenants would receive.  

Many people cannot afford to replace their collection of electronics, furniture and even replacing clothing is very expensive even if you are building a wardrobe at Wal-Mart prices.b.

A poor person spends their time looking for deals/sales on food, clothing, diapers, shoes, etc... which saves them money on purchases that take money out of their pocket.

People dont like to lug clothes up and down two flights of stairs.  

His meetings are free, provide great content and are much more inviting than the meetings where people with expensive clothes talk about their 4 million dollar homes and have to tell you what a great value their $1000 class is.

and saw him go from an incredible totally self made success story who in maybe 10 years, went from early 20's and trying to rub two nickles together to his newly built mansion on Lake Michigan, just down the road from my flip now, brand new Ferrari 430 spider in front of it, plus more nice cars in garage, etc and he said he was lucky as hell to have set up an IRA with a few hundred grand in it they can't get, other than that he had the clothes on his back when they were done there!

You will be able to cover your utility cost but you'll add a lot convenience to your housing offering.So, it's difficult to make a cut and dry decision just looking at the venture separate from the total housing service you're creating.Depending on the space, you could do some interesting thing to off set the remodel.Wild idea: consider creating a small office next to the laundry room (if there's enough space) then you could rent the office space to one of your residents.You could also create a small yoga/P90X workout area.

Everyone has to wash their clothes and many tenants are used to going to the laundry mat and spending a few dollars a week to do it and don't think twice about it.

I spend a good amount of my disposable income on travel, but I pinch pennies on food, clothes and, really, everything else.