Small homes offer more than a roof over their heads for the homeless

MADISON, Wisconsin.- Hidden within a residential neighborhood and surrounded by a fence of wood and plants, there are nine small houses. With multicolored coverings and ceilings, they look like birdhouses the size of a person. And they fit perfectly.

And Gene Cox, 48. It’s been more than seven years since he stopped living on the street. And that’s just the goal of this little development.

” This is the longest time I’ve been in one place, ” Cox said, drinking coffee outside his small home after finishing his second shift as a benefits administrator. “I’m very nomadic. I’ve moved around Wisconsin a lot in the last 22 years.”

After Cox divorced in 2009, he moved from one rental to another before living in his truck for a year. He tried a local men’s shelter. It lasted only two nights.

Then, in 2014, he found out about this community he was planning Occupy Madison, a derivative of the national movement against income inequality. Cox began helping with gardening, one of his passions. Months later, he moved into one of the 99-square-foot homes.

With rising housing costs, small houses are spreading as solution for the homeless in California, Indiana, Missouri, Oregon and more. Arnold Schwarzenegger gained considerable publicity in December when donated money for 25 small homes for veterans homeless in Los Angeles. It reflects a growing interest in innovative ideas to get homeless people off the streets, especially during winter in cold climates and in the middle of the covid-19 pandemic.

“Anything that increases the supply of affordable housing is a good thing,” he said Nan Roman, Executive Director of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “We have a huge housing shortage: around 7 million units affordable housing less than what is needed.”

Housing and health are inextricably linked. In a 2019 study with 64,000 homeless, those living on the streets were more likely to report chronic health conditions, trauma, substance abuse, and mental health problems than those who were temporarily in shelters.

But not all small houses are the same. They range from cabins with cot and heater to miniature cottages with kitchen and bathroom.

The communities themselves also differ. Some are simply “shelters run by agencies that use capsules instead of the traditional gym full of bunk beds,” said Victory LaFara, a program specialist in Dignity Village, a small house camp opened in 2000, in Portland, Oregon. Some are autonomous, such as Dignity Village and Occupy Madison, and a few offer a path to being small home owners.

However, many are located in remote parts of the city, away from jobs, supermarkets and social services. “There is a balance between the benefits you get from the improved structure and the negative factors from being in a worse location, ” he said Mr. Liuhuabing, housing researcher at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.

Donald Whitehead Jr., executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said he believes that small homes are a good emergency option to protect people from climate and violence, but they are not long-term solutions, such as increasing the number of jobs, the housing stock and housing bond financing.

” There’s been this issue since the ’70s, the idea that there are some people in society who deserve less,” he said. “And the tiny house fits into that mindset.”

Zoning regulations and building codes, as well as concerned neighborshave prevented small houses from being built in some cities. That opposition often disappears once communities are operational, according to organizers.

“Since we moved to Community First! Village six years ago, there have been no documented crimes by anyone on this property or in any of the adjacent neighborhoods, ” he said Amber Fogarty, president of Mobile Loaves & Fishes, a homeless relief group in Austin, Texas, that operates the nation’s largest minimum homes project.

Madison, which has about 270,000 residents and houses the Wisconsin Capitol and state university, has three different types of small houses displayed in three locations.

Occupy Madison’s newest town opened in late 2020 about a mile north of its original site. Next to a closed bar, 26 Conestoga cabins, resembling covered old west wagons, line up in a fenced-in parking lot. The 60-square-foot temporary structures will eventually be replaced by small houses, which occupants are expected to help build.

On the outskirts of the city, on an industrial development near an interstate route, the city’s new small home project features parallel rows of 8-square-foot white prefabricated shelters. Unlike the two Occupy settlements, Occupy has full-time staff, including a social worker and an addiction counselor. On a recent day, residents would walk in and out of their crowded office, either to use the phone or grab a muffin or cookies. Outside, people walked their dogs.

All 30 residents had previously been living in tents in Madison’s busy Reindahl Park.

” The city was solving, first and foremost, a political problem, ” said Brenda Konkel, president of Occupy Madison and executive director of Madison Area Care for the Homeless OneHealth. The facility cost about $ 1 million and its annual operation between $ 800,000 to $ 900,000.

The city’s director of community development, Jim O’Keefe, he said that housing people in a traditional shelter would be significantly cheaper in the short term. But small home facilities can often serve those who do not want or cannot stay in a congregate environment, because they have pets or partners, have serious emotional or psychological problems, or are prohibited from entering a system shelter.

“Anyone who has spent some time at Reindahl understands how unsafe it was for people to be there,” O’Keefe said.

For Jay Gonstead, a lifelong Madison resident who moved to the camp after it opened in November, the place has been a blessing. After a divorce, he lived in tents for seven months.

“Towards the end, it got really bad. I never thought in my life that I would have to use Narcan on someone, but I did, ” he said, referring to the treatment that reverses opioid overdoses. “I witnessed a man being shot. I witnessed stabbings. That wasn’t a good place.”

The 54-year-old regularly rides his bicycle to look for work. “I have a criminal record. I’m an alcoholic, ” he said. ”Makes it hard.”

But you’ve noticed the smiles on the faces of your neighbors for the first time. Electricity and hot showers, along with a sense of community, tend to have that effect, he said.

“When you have a roof and a door that locks, that’s your home,” he said, struggling to hold back tears. “We’re not homeless.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.