San Francisco will be creating its first tiny homes site on two parking lots between Market and Mission streets with the goal of housing some of the city’s unsheltered population.
Both lots at 33 Gough St. are already city-sanctioned safe sleeping villages, containing 44 tents since December for unhoused people and offering other services to help them find permanent housing. Now, the plan is to replace the tents with 70 tiny homes, dubbed cabins, by the late fall, according to reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle.
The models are similar to those that have been in use for years in Oakland, the Peninsula and San Jose. Each 64-square-foot cabin will have a steel frame, 2-inch-thick walls, heating systems, a desk, a bed and a window. The site will get improved bathrooms, storage spaces and a dining area.
Many living at the site in tents are looking forward to the cabins as an improvement. Current residents will be offered a spot in the new tiny homes.
"To come home to something that actually feels like a home would be so great," said Benjamin Longmore, 36, who has been at the safe sleeping village since it opened and is studying to be a poverty issues counselor. "I'm trying to really move on to the next step in my life, and I need all the help I can get."
In a nearby tent, 29-year-old Jacqueline Smith joined the village about a month ago after years of living on the streets.
"I never felt safe outside, and this place is a big improvement over the street, but I would really love to have an actual door, and a window I could look out of without being exposed," she said. "Having a place with walls would make you feel more like you’re heading back to normal, which is what I so very much want."
The cabins will also lower the cost of the site, since the 70 units will altogether cost about the same to run as the total of 44 tents.
Nonprofits DignityMoves and Tipping Point Community will be funding the $1.7 million needed to build and run the site.
The site will continue for 18 months until the city’s lease for using the parking lots as outdoor shelter spaces runs out.
Related
