A Tucson-based nonprofit working to build a village of tiny houses for unsheltered people had its homes delivered earlier this month.
The Homing Project, which was founded in 2021 by a former El Rio doctor and her son, has been working to bring an affordable housing project to Tucson.
And on March 1, a big step towards that goal was made when The Homing Project received 15 tiny homes that eventually will be placed on an empty lot near North Stone Avenue and East Glenn Street.
Dr. J. Kristin Olson-Garewal and her son, Raj Garewal, formed The Homing Project based on a Pallet shelter model that’s been used in cities across the country, but mostly in southern California.
Pallet, a social purpose company, originally built disaster shelters, but communities across the country have used the tiny homes to quickly get people off streets and into stable housing.
Features and amenities
The organization is keeping the exact location under wraps due to advice received from other tiny-home villages in California, said Olson-Garewal, a doctor for 45 years who also served as medical director for Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state Medicaid program.
“We’re not actually giving the location because the experience of people who establish these villages (is) you end up having encampments outside of them, for people who were expecting to apply there,” Garewal-Olson said. “We won’t be having an application process there. Or owning our own application process, they will be going through the city’s continuing care.”
While there is still work to be done with the city, regular meetings with Tucson’s Planning and Development Services department have helped to “work out any bugs” before an official application is submitted to the city, Olson-Garewel says.
“And then, hopefully that’ll be by May at the most, we’ll be finished and ready to start work on the site,” she said.
The Homing Project bought 15 of the 64 square-foot pallet houses, which can be deconstructed and assembled in about 45 minutes, Olson-Garewal said. The beds fold up, to help maximize space, and each unit includes electricity, heating and air conditioning.
The homes have better insulation than what they originally came with to help lower electricity costs, she said.
“We set one up in the Ward 3 parking lot during a week in July and ran the air conditioner,” Olson-Garewal said. “We could only get it down to 80 (degrees) during the day, and it was going constantly. So, we realized we have quite an electric bill.”
The village will be for unhoused people who have behavioral health issues or are domestic violence victims, conditions commonly affecting the population, Olson-Garewal said. And it will be limited to those 25 years or younger, as well as 50 years and older.
This is for two reasons: a grant The Homing Project had received that had those restrictions, but also to help “the most vulnerable.”
“(Those under 25) in a way, are the newest, particularly the aging-out of foster care,” Olson-Garewal said. “They leave foster care, and they don’t have a home.”
The Homing Project teamed up with Catalytic Health Partners, an Arizona company that works with people who tend to overutilize traditional medical services — primarily due to homelessness — to provide services for residents. It’s also amassed a team of volunteers to help with fundraising, community outreach, planning, development and more.
The village will have 24/7 security, a double fence and scheduled volunteers and support staff will visit regularly, Olson-Garewal said. The homes themselves are secure, she says, with locking doors, and will offer on-site social services, food, restrooms, showers and laundry.
The hope, Olson-Garewal said, is for tenants to stay for two to four years, until they find a more stable housing situation; but there’s no time limit. This is because, when The Homing Project visited similar villages in California, a common issue there was too quick of expectations on rehousing their tenants.
“At the end of six months, nobody had moved. And they realized that housing was the problem. There was nowhere to send them,” she said of the villages they visited. “They said, ‘so don’t open this with the idea that you’re going to, you know, just having this great flow through. You may help people for two to four years...’ We’re living with that expectation.”
There is no plan currently to charge rent, Olson-Garewal said. The village will offer services to guests like 12-step programs, a “life curriculum,” budget-balancing training, rental contract education and housekeeping, but tenants will be responsible for their “chores” while they live there, including helping cook communal meals.
“Most of (the other villages) have meals delivered from some kind of soup kitchen, whereas we’re going to actually have our residents doing their own cooking,” Olson-Garewal said. “But cooking group meals, communal meals, with initially a chef, teaching them. Not doing the cooking, but just being there to teach them.”
Neighbors feel ‘powerless’
Jane Evans, a neighbor of the soon-to-be village who, in the past, has been involved in her Keeling Neighborhood’s homeowner’s association, said she is cautiously optimistic about the prospect of the village moving in nearby.
This is not a sentiment that other neighbors share, however, Evans recently told the Star.
“I mean, (the neighbors) understand The Homing Project, and they don’t think it’s a bad project. But it’s like, hey, wait a minute. Why are you inundating our neighborhood with all these homeless people?” Evans said. “It’s not this feel-good, ‘yippie, we get to have it in our neighborhood’ kind of thing... When I talk to people, nine times out of 10, if not 10 out of 10 say ‘well, I wouldn’t want to live next door to it.’”
This inundating feeling is due to a “day shelter for homeless men” that the city recently began operating nearby, Evans said, the Poverello House of Tucson, which moved to a new location within Evans’s neighborhood.
In addition to fears of a similar situation to the Poverello House unfolding, Evans says her neighbor’s top-of-the-list concerns surround neighborhood home values, safety and the potential attraction of more homeless to the area.
“If the people that are going to be living in these tiny homes leave to go to the (gas station), I can guarantee you that at least once on that three-block strip they’re going to be confronted by someone wanting to sell them drugs. It’s normal and happens all the time,” Evans said. “If those people walked down through and they buy drugs, then that’s negating all of the good stuff that The Homing Project’s trying to do.”
“We’ve been told by an appraiser and two realtors, that with the properties in our neighborhood, either one of them are considered a ‘nuisance property,’ and our property values will drop by 10 to 15 percent. That’s just a given,” Evans said. “And this is a low-income neighborhood... (People) don’t want to move, and where are they going to move to?”
Despite this, Evans still hopes people take advantage of The Homing Project’s village because “it seems like a great opportunity.”
“(The neighbors) are, in theory, powerless to do anything about it. So all we can do is hold The Housing Project accountable to what they say they do,” Evans said. “They need to do more than just say, ‘isn’t’ this great? Look what we’re doing,’ and then go home to their happy neighborhood and say, ‘look, everything is perfect.’”
“I want to be supportive on this because as a good human being, I think I should be, but... I think it’s extremely important for The Homing Project and all of their volunteers to understand, that they are putting a burden on us the neighbors,” Evans said.
