East Bay tiny homes mean big changes for homeless residents
SAN LEANDRO — After months of sleeping in her Jeep, unable to shower regularly, Donna Ohnstad was ready to give up.
Her boyfriend had died, she’d lost the RV she’d been living in, and her unemployment benefits had ended. Then her Jeep broke down at the San Leandro Marina — so that’s where she stayed. She lived in constant fear that her beloved cat, Booger, would perish when the car got too hot during the day.
About two weeks ago, life changed for Ohnstad. She became the first resident of a new tiny home village off Foothill Boulevard in unincorporated San Leandro.
“It’s made me feel normal,” an emotional Ohnstad said Wednesday, as county officials celebrated the site’s grand opening. “Made me feel like life’s worth living.”
The 34 tiny homes, painted bright blue, yellow and red, sit on a hilltop parking lot in the county’s Fairmont campus, surrounded by eucalyptus trees. Officials anticipate the community will shelter 100 people per year who are waiting to find permanent housing, with each resident staying an average of three months. Residents will have access to services including medical and mental health care, addiction counseling, job training, meals and security. Winding, concrete paths connect the tiny homes — each of which has a bed, a table, a small stove, a refrigerator and a bathroom with a shower. Residents share a laundry room.
It’s part of a growing trend in the Bay Area toward a new kind of shelter. Instead of the traditional, dormitory-style buildings where many people sleep and eat together in large rooms, local communities increasingly are building tiny home shelters, where each resident or family gets their own, private room. San Jose has erected five such shelter sites over the past two years using modular units and tiny homes, where everyone has their own space. Mountain View opened a modular shelter site with individual rooms for about 100 households earlier this year.
The shift started during the COVID-19 pandemic, as health officials realized the virus could quickly wreak havoc as it spread through a dorm-style building. But experts say there are other advantages to the tiny home design.
“We have seen more people wanting to come inside if they have a door they can close,” said Kerry Abbott, director of Alameda County’s Office of Homeless Care and Coordination.
As of Wednesday, 28 of the 34 San Leandro units were occupied. Fifteen are set aside as “medical respite” units for unhoused people who are sick or injured.
The tiny homes are on county property, in the Fairmont campus that houses Alameda County’s main behavioral health programs, as well as a safe parking site for unhoused people living in vehicles.
The project cost about $8 million — or $235,000 per unit — much of which was paid for by the federal CARES Act. It will be run by East Bay nonprofit Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency, or BOSS.
The county had intended to build a traditional, dorm-style shelter, but when COVID hit, officials quickly pivoted to the tiny home model. As a blueprint, they looked to tiny homes recently installed by Pastor Jake Medcalf in the parking lot of First Presbyterian Church of Hayward.
It took Medcalf three years to get his homeless housing project up and running. But because he’d already gone through the process of permitting his tiny homes, Alameda County officials were able to piggyback off his efforts and move much more quickly. The county project took 11 months.
Ohnstad’s tiny house is homey and cozy, with a mat outside the front door that says “to me, you are paw-fect.” Her cat, Booger, is adjusting nicely to the move, and has taken to sitting in the window. To add a splash of color, Ohnstad scattered blue and green marbles and beach glass in the gravel outside her door.
Earlier this month, on Ohnstad’s birthday, staff at the site called her into their office. She was worried — assuming they wanted to talk to her about Booger making too much noise in her room. But when she arrived, they presented her with balloons and a cake, and sang happy birthday.
Ohnstad was so touched, she cried.
Now, Ohnstad plans to use her time in the tiny home to get healthy and recover from her time on the streets. She wants to lose weight, see a therapist for depression and anxiety, find a job and maybe go back to school. Outreach workers helped her get an ID and are working with her to get a new Social Security card.
But Ohnstad doesn’t know what the future holds.
“I’m not even sure what happens after this,” she said, “other than I get to get up tomorrow and take a shower.”