Tiny Home communities are talked about a lot lately. The question is, Are they a viable long term option for people who cant sustain a normal house?
Lets take a look at an example to see what it is doing.
In Detroit CASS started a tiny home community in 2018 as more of an charitable outreach than a business. A majority of the materials and labor were donated and the money the residents pay is used to further the project and establish credit history for them. After seven years the residents will own the property.
Detroit has a bunch of extremely cheap land around old factories. It is a good location for cheap land, but is this economically sustainable?
A brief search didnt have any good updates three years later. I was able to find the location from the videos street corner sign at the beginning.
https://goo.gl/maps/9anUkvYv6tjFJrsA6
If you go to the Google Maps link and use street view then you can see progress from images captured in 2019. The CASS website has application information from Sep 2020. The website sells odd items from $5 keychains to $45 recycled tire door mats they make from tires they recover form lots. As can be seen from the street images, the progress is minimal. Tiny houses should have reduced construction time yet the highest number they were even working toward is 25. Also, in the images you can see fairly large solar arrays behind each row of houses. Solar has a high initial cost, but can save money in the long term this would be a good idea in this particular situation, but is there energy storage? The solar aspect wasnt mentioned anywhere.
More and more tiny home communities are popping up around the country as the pandemic is increasing economic strain. Here are some notable communities(Notice I dont have a "good" label):
Tiny homes by Settled - Minnesota (Homeless)
Mobile Loaves and Fishes - Texas (Homeless)
Escalante Village - Colorado (Profit)
River Ridge Escape - Georgia (Profit $20k-40k)
Simply Home Community - Oregon (Profit)
Spur Freedom - Texas (Profit) **The first official from 2014, but only 61 lots sold as of 03/2021
Orlando Lake Front - Florida (Profit)
Salida - Colorado (Profit ) **To be the largest Tiny home community with 200 lots planned
Bad examples:
Tiny homes by Rhianna - Michigan (Homeless) **building tiny homes for almost $60k What is the point?
Tiny Homes in North Hollywood - California (Homeless) **These are cheap plastic sheds not actual tiny homes.
Tiny Home Village by local government - New Mexico (Homeless) **I put this in bad because they started in 2016 have spent $3.3m and currently only have single digit occupancy and are opening the 2nd round of applications
Palm Canyon Mobile Club - California (Profit $700+ per month and rising) **Skeptical of this because it is just a mobile home park.
Canoe Bay Escape Villages - Wisconsin (Profit) **Glorified cabins. Most likely secondary homes.
Tiny Tranquility - (Profit) **Another trailer park with actual trailers
Delta Bay - (Profit) **Not much more than an RV park
Tiny Estates - Pennsylvania (Profit $50k+)
The Sanctuary - Minnesota (Profit) **Another glorified RV park
Home First - California Streetview from Dec/Feb 2020 but if you go away from the intersection you can see what it looked like before it was a "tiny home" area.
SquareOne Villages - Oregon It is a community/resident funded trailer park. Fees range from $35-$300+ per month and the amount of properties are growing.
One thing I wasnt aware of is the perversion of the tiny house ideal from an actual tiny house to an RV and the inclusion or reinvention of RV and trailer parks. We have a model that exists currently for both of those and they dont end well. They become low rent options ran by slumlords. Could you imagine willingly downsizing then realizing you are living in a glorified trailer park? It doesnt bode well for growth and it just convinces people to give up their house and later have to start over building equity in a new one. People who downsize willing and have mobility wont stay in that situation.
From the looks of it the "explosion in interest" is just that curious people. Of all if these lots available less than 1000 are occupied as a sole residence. Most of the occupants are unable to get residence in a normal house. The only way the movement can sustain is if it innovates. The communal aspect with shared garden spaces is one thing that can offer something of value, but that is dependent on the other people in that community. A more innovative approach would be a tiny home on a normal residential lot with the extra space turned into individual gardening areas for at least partial self sustainment this would provide a better use of the land and offer more green space even in an urban environment this model is currently nonexistent. There is a separate movement of urban farming that does great things with small plots with normal sized houses. Imagine what these two ideas together could do.
I dont think you will see tiny homes popping up in a neighborhood near you anytime soon. Local governments will be sure of that. Smaller house mean less value and less they can tax you for. Who is going to pay for all these teachers to not work during the pandemic? Did you get a refund for the time the kids werent in school these past two years? Ive heard of teachers not working and getting raises over that period. Ive seen empty buses driving around to maintain annual mileage. The kids arent going to school! Get ready for another property tax hike to pay for the news schools the teachers unions want.
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