Inside new ‘raven’ tiny home village offering 22 rent-free homes but applicants have to have specific link to location
A NEW Tiny Home Village has opened in Seattle, offering residents free housing.
Located in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, the community features 22 homes that sleep up to 28 people.
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It’s called Raven Village and every home is heated, insulated and air conditioned.
Residents have access to a communal kitchen, toilets, showers and laundry facilities on set, as well as staff offices, common rooms and a garden, reports the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI).
The local library has even donated hotspots to the community to provide home internet access.
Chief Seattle Club, a locally owned and operated housing and social services agency, has a 10-year lease to use the space for the small home village.
The club worked with LIHI, the City of Seattle, Environmental Works and Sound Foundations NW to open the site.
According to LIHI, the village will primarily serve American Indian and Alaska Native individuals, couples and people with pets experiencing homelessness.
The organization said these groups make up just 1 percent of rural residents but 9 percent of the homeless.
The Chief Seattle Club will operate the village and provide case management to clients to help them find permanent housing, employment, healthcare, access to education and more.
“With great healing for the Indigenous and homeless communities, we will solve this problem,” Derrick Belgarde, executive director of the Chief Seattle Club.
ANOTHER CHEAP OPTION
Washington state is a hotspot for small hometowns, particularly in and around Seattle.
An organization called Tiny Homes in The Name of Christ spent the last five years collecting donations and volunteers to create a tiny home community.
It’s about 30 miles from Seattle in a small town called Langley.
Nataly Spencer and her two young children, ages 11 and 6, were living in a homeless shelter as she struggled to work two jobs and find time to care for her family.
As a single mother, she was constantly afraid of being able to provide for her children.
“It was definitely very scary at first,” Spencer told local affiliate King 5.
“I wasn’t sure what would happen in the future and what events would come.”
She now lives in one of the tiny houses and spends about 30 percent of her income living there.
The organization’s founder, Coyla Shepard, said the team is working to spread communities everywhere.
“They can’t afford housing, so they have to go without food and everything else just to have a place to live,” Shepard said.
“There is so little living space here because most of it has been used for holiday rentals in recent years.”
Spencer said her children love their new home and she is so grateful for the stability, security and privacy it provides.
Another small hometown is helping homeless veterans get back on their feet.
Plus, see how one couple built their own tiny house in less than seven days for just $2,500.