Another of my fellow panelists at last week’s Housing Land Advocates Conference in Portland was the Reverend Dan Bryant of First Christian Church in Eugene, Oregon. Bryant is the President of the board of directors of Opportunity Village Eugene or OVE. OVE is a village of very small houses organized as a community and built cooperatively by homeless and housed people from Eugene. Here is Seattle, of course, we have the Tent City movement as well as Nickelsville, both similarly organized communities.

OVE is a bit different because it is a permanent settlement on what is essentially donated land. The City of Eugene has approved of the the development that houses about fifty people in thirty small houses. The PBS video that I’ve featured above tells the story well. What’s notable is how safe, organized, and affordable the tiny houses are. From the PBS story:

Conventional development of low-income housing costs on average about $200,000 per unit.  They are a little larger, of course, and they have indoor plumbing, electricity.  But all the little houses here, all thirty of them added together cost less than half of one federally funded unit, and they didn’t cost taxpayers a single dime.

And how much does it cost to operate OVE?

The cost comes down to three dollars a night per person, and one of those three dollars is paid by the villagers themselves. They all pay thirty dollars a month for their utilities, for the water, and electricity and Internet service even. So we are running this facility for two bucks a head a night.

Are $250,000 units ideal for everyone? Maybe or maybe not. But Bryant’s point is that the OVE community is self-sustaining and therefore doesn’t rely on the many rules, regulations, and additional financing requirements of housing paid for or subsidized by the government. This goes back to what I’ve pointed out before, that higher costs and more regulation also make subsidized housing more expensive in the same way it increases costs and rents of market rate housing.  The OVE community acted quickly and addressed a problem more efficiently that if they tried to build 30 financed units.

We’ve been talking with Councilmember Sally Bagshaw and Real Change Director Tim Harris about whether and how tiny houses might work in Seattle along with other options. Housing supply in the years ahead needs to include housing and shelter options for people who arrive homeless or become homeless. The problem for a project like OVE in Seattle is likely the same as the one for other types of housing: neighborhood opposition.

We already know thees options can work well, the question is where should they go? And shouldn’t residents of these housing options have access to all the things people housed in conventional housing have access to like transit, grocery stores, and other amenities. That means building closer to single-family and multifamily neighborhoods. If neighbors opposed small-lot houses and microhousing developments will they welcome tiny houses for homeless people? There are about 3,000 people every night who would be interested in knowing the answer to that question.