Tiny Homes

'Tent encampments' and 'tent cities' are terms commonly used to identify largely unofficial camp sites of people who are unhoused. It gives them a hint of permanence, though with...

Portland, Oregon shares with the U.S. west coast the brunt of America's homelessness. Other west coast cities have run through cycles of ignoring homeless tent encampments, harassing them, and sweeping...

Affordablehousingaction.org has done a number of posts about the potential of 'tiny mobile homes.' For example, try this pre-COVID one that celebrates tiny-ness while questioning just where it might...

While news of yet another collection of 'tiny homes' is becoming more commonplace in North America, they are by no means a standard method of community commitment to housing...

Over the past decade at least, it's been easy to view housing circumstances in Hong Kong as otherworldly. There, a combination of limited land and total devotion to free...

From . . . temporary affordable housing that isn't housing anyone at all while it takes a lengthy snooze. Read more in The Seattle Times: The story of Seattle’s homeless...

Tiny Homes? Hug 'em and Love 'em! The Media seems to, including us. They're forever popping up as cozy little bandaid stories about the housing and homelessness crisis in...

A recent winter offer to buy and donate mini-shelters to the City of Montréal for protection of the homeless has been turned down. There was no joy in being...

Sure, we get it. "Bunk" and "Cabin." Put them together and you've got cute little Bunkabins, small, private, inexpensive shelters for people who are homeless. But we're talking the United...

How do tiny homes fit into a country's affordable housing scheme? The attraction of tiny homes is undeniable to certain kinds of imagination, impractical as they might seem to...

Just over two years ago, we reported on tiny home communities that were being built in Seattle and other cities across the United States. Today, we're checking in again,...

How to explain what seems to be a middle class romance with the idea of getting away from it all by hiding in your own closet — one transported...

North America is a land of large housing lots. Not surprising therefore that their potential for doubling density causes affordable housing activists to pump their fists in the air...

In a lengthy, entertaining and informative article, Miles Howard explores the past, present and future of one form of dinky living. He focuses particularly on high tech gingerbread cottages...

From California comes word of more, not less, zoning restriction. That's rare good news for existing affordable housing in America's rapidly-declining stock of trailer parks. Governments from the feds (think...

Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), grannie flats, garden suites, call them what you will, can be highly affordable. Better still, in a crowded urban landscape they have a residential footprint...

Spacious countries not lacking in wealth — the United States, Canada, Australia and other roomy elsewheres — dreamed big in the twentieth century. For many successful individuals, those lifestyle...

A Ketchum, Idaho April Fool's Joke this past April 1, 2019 saw a number of local dumpsters dressed up overnight as tiny homes, making a pointed statement about the...

When a car is your shelter, parking is critical. It has become a particular problem on the US west coast, where the high cost of housing is forcing more...

Do you want to help out the Extinction Rebellion by reducing your fooptrint on our planet? Have you no ambition to live in a multi-thousand square foot home...

Okay, so you don't want to live in a maxi-cupboard on a parking space foorprint, a.k.a  a Hong Kong apartment. But on the other hand you don't need a...

As cities grow and grow, there are only two solutions to supporting new population. One is familiar to many: suburb-surrounded cities with ever longer commutes from a hinterland stretching...

In the tiny, affordable house department, shipping containers seem to be always the bridesmaids, never quite the bride. The public is periodically introduced to intriguing new designs based on...

By all means, let's hear it for true YIMBY. Hold that thought. We'll be coming back to it. True YIMBY? Does that mean there's a fake YIMBY? Of course there...

An engaging personal journey into the American South touches upon the swashbuckling origins of a kind of deeply affordable housing. The author ponders whether 'Shotgun Shacks,' as they were...

Tiny house love? Let's leave aside the pixie cosplay in barnboard-sided flower box-festooned crooked-chimney peasant huts on roller skates. Of course people love them as they creep shyly into...

Yacht racing has been likened to 'standing in a cold shower, ripping up hundred dollar bills.' Still, there's always the opportunity to save a dollar or two by living...

The august BBC has thrown the weight of its interest into a study exploring the 'Pixie Magic' style of tiny housing, including its many warts. Ideally those warts would be little...

Not another tiny home! And this one on wheels. Isn't that what tourists drag around the countryside all summer? Well, not quite. Not when it's designed by an architectural student...

In neighbourly America, homelessness belongs somewhere else, it doesn't matter where. And what about homes to house the homeless? They also belong somewhere else. It also doesn't matter where....

What do you call a small residence squirrelled away on the grounds of a principal residence? They may be known as accessory dwelling units (ADU's), garden flats, second suites,...

At the bottom end of the 'tiny home' meme, there's a fine line between 'being cool' and 'being ghoul.' Worker days and vampire nights would appear to be on...

Trailer Park residents are becoming an endangered species, even as their shrinking habitat is gradually being recognized as an effective form of affordable housing. Tiny homes? Tiny home communities? They're...

Why not downsize and live in a tiny home? It almost seems reasonable when you check out some of the beyond-cute photos that occasionally flicker into view. Some of us,...

Here's another theme, this one showing up in modular home-building articles we've been reading from around the globe. When it comes to factory-built homes, whether fully completed in-factory, or...

With the prefabricated housing offering affordable housing possibilities worldwide, it's hardly surprising that 'mobile home parks', 'caravan parks', 'trailer parks' and similar solutions are being repackaged as 'manufactured home...

There is a certain smug complacency in the U.S. home-building industry. "We can only afford to build luxury homes" is the battle cry of an industry focussed on the...

There are more than a few signs in North America that the hey-day of the much maligned North American trailer park is over. Try: ‘Naturally-Occurring’ No-Subsidy Affordable Housing. Too Bad...

The housing in the first bylaw was too large. The housing in the second bylaw was too small. But the housing in the third bylaw was just right. Goldilocks...

The authors of a South China Post article have criticized a recent study suggesting that Hong Kong's micro-apartment present can only lead to a future of even smaller flats. Their speculation: mental...

Mobile home parks, a.k.a trailer parks, a.k.a manufactured home parks: call them what you will, over time they've attracted a reputation based on their failings, while their successes have...

ADU's (Accessory Dwelling Units), granny suites, in-law housing, laneway housing, call them what you will, these old, discredited housing solutions are generating new interest across North America. The favoured flavour...

Where the road meets the water at the end of a long British Columbia fijord, the magnificent scenery of Bella Coola is little comfort for indigenous men from the...

Not the ideal structure for Do-It-Yourself folks, at least those without cutting/welding skills, used shipping containers have some advantages in strength, mobility, stackability, availability and affordability. From the house...

Here's an easy-to-solve urban mystery: a repurposed shopping cart appears, piled high with grab bags of belongings as well as bags of various somethings which may defy description but...

Shipping containers have been explored as a form of affordable housing for some years now. They are far from every expert's cup of tea, and face arguments that building...

If you can't quite afford a Hong Kong microscopic (nano) apartment by yourself then why not co-live? So suggest enthusiastic Hong Kong realtors. Social conventions such as courting and...

At what point does the freedom to become wealthy by trading in real estate descend to insanity? A recent, successful business startup points to a frightening urban future in...

Homelessness is a disease in Canadian indigenous communities that afflicts many. It brings with it a host of mental and physical complications, such as alcoholism and severe depression. Many northern...

Like babies and puppies, tiny houses are cute — an almost irresistibly imaginative and economical solution to a housing shortage. But tiny houses are too often plagued by rose-coloured...