Tiny homes plans focusing on looks, cost
With final plans for San Jose’s tiny homes expected to come before the City Council during the late summer, new details about the pilot project are beginning to emerge.
The city’s Housing Department is finalizing what the homes — intended to provide temporary housing for homeless people and known formally as bridge housing — will look like and how much they will cost, said James Stagi, a member of San Jose’s homelessness response team, during a forum Wednesday on tiny homes hosted by the nonprofit SPUR.
Developed with support from the state, the tiny homes are considered a relatively inexpensive way to provide dignified, stable housing for homeless people in San Jose until permanent housing becomes available.
Right now, more than 4,000 people in the city don’t have housing, and the city only has about 1,000 shelter beds available on any given night. Around eight years ago, the city shifted to a housing-first approach and began trying to increase long-term subsidized housing for homeless residents that would include supportive services like counseling and job assistance. And while there are new projects in the works near St. James Park, there isn’t nearly enough housing available yet. At the same time, rising housing costs and low vacancy rates are forcing more people into homelessness.
Tiny homes, said Jennifer Loving, head of Destination: Home, an organization that fights homelessness in Santa Clara county, offer a faster, short-term solution in the meantime.
“We do have a massive homelessness crisis,” Loving said. “Folks are continuing to languish in our streets and they’re dying and suffering.”
But the idea, even as a temporary pilot program, has sparked a wave of criticism from residents who don’t want the homes in their neighborhoods and say they are worried about everything from safety to property values. Opponents in District Three, one of two possible locations for the homes, have staged several protests.
“We have collected more than 2,000 signatures from people who
are against this tiny home idea to be built in District Three,” said Pai-Chuan Chang, one of the protest organizers.
“I think there’s a lot of fear,” Loving acknowledged.
But Andrea Urton, head of Home First, the organization the city has tapped to run the tiny homes pilot, said her team has mapped out a series of steps aimed at making sure things run smoothly. Whichever site is selected is expected to house about 40 of the tiny homes. Initially, single adults who are working or have a strong work history will be chosen as residents. Every resident will need to have a plan for moving out and into permanent supportive housing, and people with housing subsidies will have priority.
Currently, Urton said, the plan is to have two fulltime staffers on site at all times, along with a fulltime maintenance worker, security and another parttime volunteer coordinator
to arrange meals and activities intended to build a sense of community. Home First will also offer residents resume building
and financial literacy information, as well as bus tokens and conflict resolution skills.
The homes are meant
to be sleeping cabins, said Paul Pannell, a senior design manager with Gensler, which is designing the homes for free, so
bathrooms and some living spaces will be shared. The homes for individual adults, designed with input from homeless people, will be around 80 square feet, although the firm has also designed a model in the 120 square-foot range for couples.
“It isn’t just a straightoff-the-shelf unit,” Pannell said.
The initial estimate for each home was $18,000$20,000, but Stagi said that depending on which materials are ultimately used during construction, that figure could go down significantly.
“We want to try to be cost effective,” he said.
Right now, the two possible sites for the homes — one near the overpass connecting interstates 280 and 680 and Highway 101, and the other along Mabury Road near Coyote Creek — are undergoing an environmental review. Then the housing team will make a final recommendation to City Council. If everything goes smoothly, the homes should be ready for residents by the end of this year.
“We know that’s aggressive,” Stagi said. “But we’re going to try.”