Yes, tiny homes are a part of San Jose's homeless solution

In a new Opp Now exclusive, Scott Beyer of the Market Urbanism Report deconstructs the Merc's confused, critical article about tiny homes, and explains the important role tiny homes can play in a holistic housing strategy. To receive daily updates of new Opp Now stories, click here.

A recent article in the San Jose Mercury News examined the city’s tiny homes program, arguing that it has not been very successful. The primary critique was that tenants of the city’s recent tiny home experiment were not likely to transition from there to permanent housing. But this one narrow criteria does not tell the whole story about why certain homeless people remain so, and certainly does not indict tiny homes themselves, which remain useful tools for addressing the housing crisis.

San Jose established a “bridge housing community” of tiny homes on Mabury Road in the northeast side. The program includes supportive services and is meant to provide temporary shelter for qualifying residents en route to permanent housing. The complex is made up of 40 homes, and has been active since winter 2020. Residents are also required to take part in job search programs.

The Mercury News article finds that the residents of tiny home homeless enclaves in Alameda and Santa Clara counties found a permanent home only about one-fourth of the time over a three-year period. It highlights a case study of one individual who moved into a tiny home and soon afterward ended up back on the streets because he was lonely and wanted to reconnect with homeless friends. According to Shelterforce, a tiny home program in Seattle has also faced relatively disappointing results with regard to its residents finding permanent housing. 

But it would be wrong to conclude from there that smaller residential structures cannot help solve homelessness, and the housing crisis at large. For starters, other formats are not necessarily more effective. The tiny homes had a higher success rate than standard shelters in the two counties, from which residents remained without a permanent home a staggering 84⁠–98% of the time. 

Also, tiny homes are particularly well-tailored to the homeless. 

First, even if tiny homes themselves do not make up a particularly large share of homeless housing, they contribute to decreasing overall prices by adding supply. They’re an effective “starter” option for lower-income consumers who might otherwise be homeless if such units didn’t exist.

Second, they’re a good housing style for homeless prevention programs specifically, because they’re cheaper and thus more scalable. Typically defined as units of between 100 and 500 sq. ft., they can be built with a variety of styles and materials to satisfy local conditions. Their per-home cost is typically $30,000⁠–60,000, according to Rocket Mortgage, but often far less.  

The larger issue with San Jose’s program is not whether homes are "tiny" or not; the size and type of housing is somewhat irrelevant. The issue is whether that housing is bundled with useful services that help homeless people overcome the problems — addiction, mental illness, etc. — that made them homeless to begin with.

As we wrote last week for Opportunity Now, people categorized as “chronically homeless” have unique challenges, and different approaches have been tried to help them. The Housing First solution prioritizes permanent supportive housing without conditions for entry. The problem with this is it doesn’t incentivize the individual to reverse their situation, making them permanent government dependents. 

We instead proposed “transitional housing” programs that require sobriety as a condition for entry, then take individuals through step-by-step training to restore their lives and make them financially independent. 

A third option, which is often the default one for municipal governments, is temporary shelters that don’t have a larger philosophical structure and are there just to get people off the streets. But they’re not particularly good at setting people up for long-term shelter. 

Quickhaven, a transitional housing operator, cites various reasons why shelters fail to attract homeless tenants, much less reform them. Concerns include safety issues — nearly half of respondents to a survey on violence in shelters reported being assaulted — and lack of support for psychiatric concerns. 

Tiny homes, by contrast, offer an independent dwelling space, addressing the safety concerns at least in part. Where tenants might transition from there just depends on what larger service infrastructure exists beyond that stage. An ideal system we could imagine is one where an established transitional housing brand (Salvation Army, Solutions for Change, etc.) leverages tiny homes to increase efficiency within their existing program.

But the bottom line is that the efficacy of service provision, and not the housing format itself, is the most important variable. The Mercury News’ criticism of tiny homes was unfair because it ignored this, blaming San Jose’s village experiment on larger macro-societal issues that prevent the homeless from finding permanent housing. Tiny homes at best will provide a safe, cheap form of temporary housing. But true success depends on surrounding these homes with a larger support system — really, a community — to help the homeless get back on their feet. 

This article featured additional reporting from Market Urbanism Report content staffer Ethan Finlan.

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