A TINY home village is receiving pushback from neighbors and activists, who have called it a distraction from a permanent solution to homelessness.
Jonathan G has called the small eight-by-eight-foot shelter on a parking lot in Portland, Oregon, home since late December 2022.
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Like all the shelter's residents, Jonathan sleeps in tiny man-built structures dubbed sleeping pods.
Inside the pods is enough room for a mattress and some shelves.
"Before, I’d go to lunch and come home [to my tent], and half my stuff was taken," Jonathan, who has been homeless since 2021, told Bloomberg.
'Here, you don’t have to worry about leaving your place and having stuff stolen."
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The Multnomah Safe Rest Village community consists of 30 sleeping pods - operated by a local nonprofit - providing its residents with meals, drug treatment, mental health care, and employment assistance.
"You have electricity, you have showers," Jonathan told the outlet.
"There are people who are advocates that help you with your next step — housing, work, whatever. If you need a dentist or medical help, they are there to help you.
“It’s a good stepping stone.
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"It’s much better than being out on the street,” he added.
Like many others around the Portland area, the tiny home village is seen as a critical solution to combating homelessness in the city.
However, some neighbors and advocates have a different take, criticizing the model, which they say can cost up to $25,000 per unit, depending on size, features, and material.
Advocates said the resources being pumped into the tiny home villages could be used toward long-term affordable housing.
Meanwhile, in Florida, a proposed plan to construct a tiny home village for struggling military veterans in Bradenton has been placed on hold after receiving pushback.
Proposed by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the Bradenton tiny home village would have provided affordable housing for 130 at-risk veterans.
Although the County Commission initially seemed receptive to the idea, they ultimately punted on the decision of whether to give an 8.7-acre tract of land valued at nearly $9million to Tunnels to Towers for the project.
Instead, the board has delayed its hearing by up to six weeks and scheduled a town hall discussion for August 19 so that they can hear their constituents' concerns.
"My concern is for the neighborhood and businesses in the surrounding area," Kevin Van Ostenbridge, the chairman of the County Commission, told the Bradenton Herald.
"I need some kind of proof in the pudding, assurances, and recourse."
In particular, Van Ostenbridge was uneasy about the kind of residents that Tunnel to Towers would service.
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“Let’s be straight up and quit pussyfooting around the issue," he continued. "We’re doing a homeless transition site.”
To wit, Van Ostenbridge referred to the project as a "West Bradenton homeless shelter" in an edition of his newsletter, seemingly in an attempt to influence his followers against the development.
