Seattle’s push towards building more tiny houses was called an “abysmal failure” back in 2019 by Christopher Rufo, then-Director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Wealth and Poverty. He made this declaration after the tiny house program had been running for five years and built nine villages. Several of the problems that he called out remain unresolved to this day, yet people are still pushing to expand the program.

Take Northlake Village, for instance. A non-profit organization called the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) managed Northlake and subcontracted with Nickelsville, an activist organization for homeless people. The goal of this tiny house village was to provide temporary safety and shelter for homeless citizens while they made the transition to a more suitable long-term residence.

The whole purpose of Northlake Village was supposed to be getting homeless people off of the streets and into more stable living situations. Caseworkers were supposed to be assigned to residents to help them through the process. That sounds like a great goal, but Nickelsville did not follow through with these plans, and provided no encouragement or incentive for its residents to find more permanent housing or cooperate with their caseworkers. 

The entire operation was unjust, unreliable, and partisan. Things came to a head in April 2020 when Nickelsville prohibited LIHI or city staff from entering the premises. The program was poorly structured from the beginning, fraught with mismanagement and a lack of coordination between organizations. The only thing they were able to accomplish was a constant and very public squabble between LIHI and Nickelsville, while the people they set out to help fell through the cracks and continued to suffer. 

Our city still has a real problem when it comes to the #homeless population, and several years after the first tiny houses were built, we are no closer to a solution. Transitional housing does not solve #homelessness unless it is actually transitional, not seen as a permanent fix. If there isn't any intervention program in place, homeless people will just find themselves right back where they started.

More tiny house villages might sound like an appropriate solution, but that does nothing to address the issues that caused people to become homeless in the first place, and it won't magically help them find more permanent housing. This project is an unnecessary financial burden on the state and its taxpayers.