By Stephanie Beasley
The Chronicle of Philanthropy

In response to a nationwide crisis that has left more than 650,000 people without housing, dozens of tiny home villages for the homeless have opened in the United States over the past five years.

The number has grown from just 34 in 2019 to 123 today, according to data collected by Yetimoni Kpeebi, a researcher at Missouri State University. At least 43 percent of these villages were privately funded through donations from philanthropists, businesses, and corporations, Kpeebi said.

Sobrato Philanthropies, run by billionaire Silicon Valley developer and philanthropist John Sobrato, and other groups such as the James M. Cox and Valhalla foundations have been helping fund tiny home villages in San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, and other expensive California cities. The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation is a key donor behind a 51-acre tiny home community in Austin, Texas. And in rural North Carolina, the Oak Foundation has supported the construction of a tiny home village for the severely mentally ill and chronically homeless.

As ambitious as these efforts may be, they serve only a fraction of the estimated homeless population. While tiny homes — typically 100 to 400 square feet, sometimes including a kitchen and a bathroom — can be built quickly and cheaply, the larger tasks of securing permits, financing, and local government approval can add big costs and delays.

Skeptics worry that the construction of tiny homes doesn’t remedy the bigger issue, which is the widespread lack of affordable housing.

At best, tiny homes are a short-term solution to the country’s long-term issue of insufficient housing and social services for low-income Americans, said Margot Kushel, director of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the University of California, San Francisco.

“I would say that tiny homes are an absolutely important part of the ecosystem, but they are not housing,” Kushel said.

Rural tiny homes

In Chatham County, North Carolina — where the median sale price for a home is around $690,000 — eight years were needed to open a community of tiny homes. The Tiny Homes Village at the Farm at Penny Lane was the brainchild of local health and wellness nonprofit Cross Disability Services, or XDS. It owns the 40-acre farm.

“We were providing all these expensive, great services for people, but they don’t have a place to live,” said Thava Mahadevan, executive director of XDS. “They don’t have anything permanent. And that’s a huge problem.”

XDS wanted to create housing that would rent for less than $400 per month and be located at the farm. The University of North Carolina’s School of Social Work joined as a partner in 2016. The Oak Foundation, a longtime UNC supporter, provided two grants totaling $1,050,000.

XDS’s first move was to ensure it could win county approval of the zoning for the village and that there was adequate underlying infrastructure, such as county water pipelines connected to the farm’s well. Construction workers then broke ground for the village in March 2020, but work was delayed by the pandemic.

The 15-unit tiny home village, set to open to residents in the fall, will provide affordable housing to people with serious mental illness. Each home will be about 400 square feet with a bathroom, kitchen, living area, and front porch. Medical and mental health services will be provided. And residents can live in the homes indefinitely.

The county is now looking into how it might encourage developers to build additional low-cost housing units for its population of roughly 79,000 as housing prices continue to climb, said Karen Howard, vice chair of the Chatham County board of commissioners.

Skyrocketing living costs have been especially tough for minimum-wage workers in rural areas like Chatham County. North Carolina has one of the highest eviction rates in the country, and more than 1 million of its households spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina have higher eviction rates than large cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, according to research from Princeton University’s Eviction Lab.

West Coast efforts

But nowhere is the housing and homeless crisis as severe as in California, where more than 181,000 people are without permanent housing. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed to provide 1,200 tiny homes for this population. So far, about 150 have been purchased and none have opened, CalMatters recently reported.

Philanthropists have backed efforts to construct the homes quicker, typically in partnership with local governments. Last year, the Sobrato Family Foundation said it would lease a two-acre lot of private land to San Jose for the construction of 75 tiny homes for $1 a year over the next decade. San Francisco-based nonprofit Dignity Moves is managing the development of the community and providing social services, with support from the James M. Cox and Valhalla foundations. The nonprofit was also part of the team that developed San Francisco’s 70-unit tiny home village and similar communities throughout the state.

“In our model, philanthropy pays for the construction, and then the expectation is that the city will pay for the ongoing supportive services,” Dignity Moves CEO Elizabeth Funk said.

This kind of interim housing is fairly new and different from the kinds of congregate homeless shelters that cities have typically funded, she said. With interim housing, everyone has their own room and can stay for six months to two years rather than for a night or two, she added.

Tiny home communities offer more stability and can be places where social services can be effectively administered “because people aren’t in crisis mode,” she said.

California, Oregon, and Washington are the states with the greatest concentration of tiny home villages, according to data compiled by Missouri State University. Some communities have also tried to deal with unsheltered homelessness in more punitive ways. The town of Grants Pass, Oregon, wants to fine and jail people found sleeping in public spaces and mounted a legal challenge to a court ruling blocking the policy. The Supreme Court recently issued a ruling that would allow such action.

Building tiny homes is better than penalizing people for living on the streets, but that isn’t enough, said Jesse Rabinowitz, campaigns and communications director at the National Homelessness Law Center.

“It’s good that cities and states are doing things to address the fact that people are living outside. Nobody should live outside, especially in the richest country in the world,” he said.

However, Rabinowitz added that he is “personally conflicted around tiny homes.” It seems to be a way of ushering people into interim housing rather than providing the more permanent affordable housing options that many homeless people want, he said.

Funk bristles at the criticism that tiny homes aren’t part of the housing-first approach that prioritizes permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness. Interim housing is a stage in that process, which is fundamentally about getting people off the streets and sheltered, she said.

“It is true that this is not a long-term solution; it’s a waiting room,” Funk said. “It is a dignified waiting room.”

Editor’s note: This article was provided to The Associated Press by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of a partnership to cover philanthropy and nonprofits supported by the Lilly Endowment. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content.

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Portland’s Kenton neighborhood saw its population jump a bit over the weekend. At the bottom of a hill north of Kenton Park, ringed by $400,000 homes, 14 tiny homes now cater to homeless women. They were built via the Partners On Dwelling () , which is geared to help designers and volunteers become involved in the effort to address homelessness.

The first residents of the moved in Saturday.

“We are excited about it and what it portends for the future,” said Michael Cox, director of communications for Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office.

After more than seven months of planning, the POD village is a first for the city. The one-year pilot project is providing temporary housing on city-owned land. Catholic Charities is overseeing the project, including selection of residents.

The search for space for the village largely fell to Ben Mauro, program coordinator of Portland’s Office of Management and Finance. The office coordinated with Catholic Charities and Village Coalition to find a suitable property.

“I spent a lot of time looking at property across the city,” Mauro said. “We came across this piece of land that was owned by (the Portland Development Commission). We came up with the idea of individual structures.”

LRS Architects is one of the firms involved in the POD design effort.

“The goal here was to make sure these weren’t a shack,” said Russell Wisniewski, design team lead at LRS Architects. “Even though these are temporary, it shouldn’t feel temporary.”

The POD homes are very small. The largest one is just 8 feet wide by 12 feet long, while the tiniest is 6 feet wide by 8 feet long. The tallest home stands just 10 feet, 8 inches.

They are not hooked up to water or sewer. A tank at the village provides water for cooking and bathing, and a separate tank collects gray water. Two shipping containers have been converted into a communal kitchen and a separate bathing facility; portable toilets are also at the site.

The North Portland property also provides easy access to MAX light rail and other services aimed at helping residents improve their lives.

“These (POD homes) give residents an opportunity from which to transition to permanent housing,” said Catholic Charities’ Trell Anderson, director of community development and housing. “A lot of it has to do with income – maybe they have bad rental resumes. We help them work through that.”

Part of the site selection process involved community engagement.

“It’s been quite the journey,” said Tyler Roppe, chairman of the Kenton Neighborhood Association. “Obviously not everyone, but the vast majority of the neighborhood is very excited.”

Kenton residents were generally receptive to the village concept. They voted 178-75 in favor of issuing their approval.

“There was less resistance than I would have thought,” Wisniewski said. “I was kind of surprised at how positive people were.”

A big selling point of the PODs is that they’re designed more like homes and less like the tents and ramshackle structures that often make up such camps. Another feature of the village will even benefit Kenton residents.

“One of the coolest parts is the community garden,” Wisniewski said. “It will be used by both campers and neighbors and (become) part of the neighborhood.”

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