Lodging with heart
Austin’s Community Inn offers stays in tiny houses, tepees and more in village for the formerly homeless
After a while, even swanky hotel rooms get boring.
And in Austin, where tourists flock for college football games, music festivals, Formula 1 car races and more, they get expensive, too.
But renting a tiny home for a night or two? Interesting. And a tiny home that’s part of a masterplanned community built for and occupied by formerly homeless people? Eureka.
Mobile Loaves & Fishes, a nonprofit organization that began delivering meals to people living on Austin streets and greenbelts 21 years ago, opened the Community First Village in late 2015. The village provides permanent, affordable housing — and just as importantly, a sense of dignity and a cozy sense of belonging — to people struggling to get a foothold. About 180 formerly homeless individuals currently rent RVs and tiny homes there, and construction has begun on an expansion that will add 300 more units.
The village also operates its own on-site “inn” — a collection of 16 funky tiny homes, RVs and tepees — that anybody can book by the night. Four more inn units, including a round yurt, will open soon.
The inn, which opened in
2016, attracts a clientele that includes youth groups, volunteers and folks just looking for a quirky place to hang their hat for a few nights. While they’re here, innkeeper Barrett Yeager says, they get a glimpse of a unique project that aims to help people facing homelessness.
“Lots of folks are just coming to visit Austin. We love that they’re able to see the village,” Yeager says. “Lots come and get to know the neighbors.”
Each of the units comes with a name. A bicycle with a toy dog in the front basket is affixed to the front of the Ruby unit, decorated with a “Wizard of Oz” motif. The sleek, modern Kasita features a glassed-in seating area. The Breezy unit looks like it belongs on a beach, and the three tepees sleep up to seven folks each.
The rental units form a semicircle around the neighborhood’s outdoor movie theater, where free movies are shown every Friday evening, weather permitting, year round. Guests are encouraged to explore the community, chat with the people who live there, grab a snack at the grill and even pitch in to volunteer.
“(Visitors’) hearts are expanded when they see the village,” says Taylor Graham, director of stewardship for the $18 million complex, which occupies 51 acres east of downtown Austin, not far from Decker Lake. It’s served by a bus line and bike lanes. “It’s an experience you can’t find anywhere else. It’s also quite affordable for something that is special and unique.”
I stayed in the Blue Aggie unit, designed and built by students in Texas A&M University’s construction-sciences class. The pint-sized home felt a bit like ship’s quarters, with a toilet and shower stall squeezed at one end, a kitchenette with a small fridge, sink and microwave in the center and a seating area at the other. A steep staircase led to a low-slung overhead loft with a bed. (Not all units have their own bathrooms, but a bathhouse is available a short walk away.)
The inn generates income that helps support the rest of the village and provides work opportunities for residents who serve as housekeepers and groundskeepers.
“It’s a model to help individuals lift themselves up,” communications director Thomas Aitchison says. “We’re a hand-up, not a hand-out model.”
The inn’s units rent for between $30 for a single person in a tepee ($10 for each additional person) to $120 for the most expensive tiny house. Book them at online or through airbnb.com.
For two weekends in December, Community First Village invites the public to its Village of Lights, a lighted holiday display choreographed to music. Residents will sell art projects at an on-site advent market, too. The event is scheduled for Dec. 6-7 and Dec. 13-14.