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 be parked to be useful: A Big Problem Cramps A Tiny House Solution
Reality has eclipsed speculation, and in North America at least, we are facing the growing use of both official and unofficial lots for live-in vehicles including cars and trucks as well as actual ‘mobile’ homes. And, just as unsanctioned tent encampments bloom everywhere, so do collections of older RVs (recreational vehicles) huddled in groups on city streets.
In this post, we are considering in particular a breed of purpose-built tiny mobile homes which feature a cottage-like appearance.
The larger dinosaurs of this breed can still be found in North America’s shrinking number of trailer parks. There, alongside actual camper/trailers, you can find a famous breed of actual homes on wheels — hefty ‘single-wides’ and heftier ‘double-wides’ (which roll out of the factory in two pieces). Their briefly-utilized wheels get them to their destinations, which these days are more likely to be upscale retirement villages rather than the down-market trailer parks of old.
There also seems to be an enduring fad for tinier versions of single and double-wides. These feature cutesy ‘cottages on a vehicle chasis,’ particularly attractive when imagined in advertising illustrations perched on some mountain-side with a breathtaking view.
The latest version we’ve found of this particular version of tinyness along with mobility comes from France. There a program has evolved where people who are homeless train to build their own tiny mobile homes . . . or mobile tiny homes — whatever description suits their owner’s fantasies.
Read more in euronews.next: These French ‘tiny homes’ are giving homeless people practical skills and a place to live afterwards
