‘Tiny home’ village plan taking shape
Working group intends to help the city’s homeless population
Before any “tiny home” village for the homeless is established, a lot of very big questions must first be answered including cost, design, siting and security.
About 75 people from across the metro area participated in a community meeting Thursday night to hear about the preliminary groundwork laid by the Tiny Home Village Ad-Hoc Working Group. Participants also broke into small groups to share their ideas.
For the past year, the ad-hoc group — composed of volunteers with expertise in housing, services to the homeless, architecture, planning, development and financing — has been discussing what a tiny home village might look like.
Tiny home villages have been popping up around the country as communities attempt to move homeless people off the streets and into structured living accommodations. There, caseworkers and those providing support services can work with them.
Some communities designate the homes as permanent housing, while others use them as temporary housing. Nearly all require that the residents participate in the governance of the village and some require that they pay a modest rent for their homes, depending on their sources of income.
During the meeting at the McKinley Community Center, participants broke into four groups to discuss governance and safety; design elements and siting; support services for village residents and micro-industries that might provide income to them; and opportunities for outreach and volunteering by people who want to provide support.
The meeting was hosted by Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley and Albuquerque City Councilor Diane Gibson.
O’Malley led the push among her fellow county commissioners to fund the pilot project, which appeared as a $2 million general obligation bond question on the ballot in November. Voters subsequently approved the measure.
Gibson said she was hopeful that her fellow city councilors would get on board with the project and vote at some point to provide the ongoing operational costs.
Ken Balizer, a member of the ad-hoc working group, said the group’s current recommendations include two tiny home villages with up to 40 homes in each, rather than a single large village. Where the villages would be located was not decided.
The villages would provide temporary shelter and a residential time limit of two years, though people who need to stay longer would be able to do so.
The working group will take the suggestions from Thursday’s meeting and incorporate them into a plan that they will share at a second community meeting Feb. 2 at 5:30 p.m., also at McKinley Community Center, 3401 Monroe NE.