Can tiny homes save California? 4 villages illustrate their potentials and pitfalls.

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom is dedicating $30 million to build 1,200 homes for homeless people.
• It's part of a $1 billion effort to solve homelessness, but local programs show it's no easy task.
• Here's how 4 local programs have fared throughout the state.

Sometimes the answer to big problems comes in tiny boxes, and California just made a $1 billion bet on that.

The state is set to use $30 million of that money to provide four cities with 1,200 tiny homes for an estimated 115,000  homeless residents,  Gov. Gavin Newsom announced earlier this month. 

Some 200 units will be sent to San Jose, 500 to Los Angeles, 350 to Sacramento and 150 to San Diego, according to the state. These cities and other municipalities will accept the units as part of their efforts to meet the state's ambitious plan of reducing homelessness by 15% by 2025.

"The crisis of homelessness will never be solved without first solving the crisis of housing," Newsom said. "The two issues are inextricably linked." 

While this is the first time the state is providing this many tiny homes directly, the solution is not a new phenomenon.

California has allocated billions more over the past few years in an attempt to alleviate the states' housing shortage and eradicate street homelessness. Much of this money poured into cities and towns through local grants — and some cities used it to fund tiny home villages that build temporary shelters. On top of that, some cities have come up with funds on their own for the development of these small, but practical, homes. 

Local versions of this plan have garnered mixed reviews.

Those in favor say that these units are typically cheaper to build and are quickly erected, which help move the needle on the overall housing supply. They are also more private than traditional congregate shelters, which have long had a reputation as a somewhat dangerous option, especially as COVID swept through the nation in 2020.

Even the private sector has jumped in on the trend: in 2021, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state's former governor, donated 25 tiny homes to homeless veterans around the state, The New York Post reported. 

But others say that the housing is inherently temporary and funds should go towards more permanent options. Sometimes, unforeseen delays and extra costs delay projects, like one in Sacramento. 

Here is a list of some of the municipalities that have built tiny homes to solve this issue and how they have fared. 

Los Angeles

As of December, there were more people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles — the US' second largest metro after New York — than in any other American city, with an estimated 69,000 residents that are houseless. It is set to receive the lionshare of the 1,200 units from the state.

LA also has had a lot of experience with tiny home villages, which have been a proposed solution to the crisis since at least 2017. It's also home to the country's largest tiny home village for unhoused people, which was built in 2021. There are a total of 228 beds in the development across 117 units and it cost the city $5.1 million. 

The villages have been largely touted as a success. 

One Los Angeles lawmaker told the LA Times that there are fewer encampments and people have a clean, safe place to sleep. In terms of providing some housing with dignity, it met its goal. 

But the lawmaker also noted that there was a dearth of services that accompanied the housing development, and some residents had to be thrown out for breaking the rules.  In at least one case, a resident suffering from a mental health crisis turned violent.

Despite putting roofs over some heads, the city needs more than just the built environment to solve the issue of homelessness, the LATimes reported. A better solution for the city would be to build affordable, and more permanent housing, experts told Curbed. 

San Jose

San Jose was quick to adopt tiny homes as temporary shelters, per the East Bay Times. As of 2022, it had four different villages with 397 units, according to Spotlight San Jose, a local news outlet. But when the city announced its plans to expand two sites and add more, residents opposed it, according to Spotlight's reporting. 

Residents had two issues with the proposal: for one, one of the sites was near a school — a location that they felt was inappropriate. They also wanted to preserve the land as open space, something they said was crucial to the health of the neighborhood. 

After intense backlash, the city axed the expansion, per Spotlight. People in the neighborhood asserted that there were better locations for the homes, but lawmakers and tiny home advocates believe residents will always push back on these projects.

Sacramento

The first Sacramento tiny home village for temporary shelter is still in the works in South Sacramento.

The 100-unit project was budgeted at $7.6 million last year. Just like with the San Jose project, residents were not happy about its placement, CapRadio, a local news station reported. The city was able to move forward, anyway.

But as of early this month, delays and budget overruns were still nagging the project, according to CapRadio. Until the project is done, Sacramento is paying a half-a-million dollars for a security detail at the units. 

The state may have a solution to that. It's set to send tiny homes to cities already constructed, eliminating much of the cost and process for local governments.

San Francisco

Like most cities throughout the country, The City by the Bay has seen an uptick in homelessness since the pandemic. It — like many cities in California — has turned to tiny homes as temporary shelters for people living on the streets. 

In the South of Market neighborhood, the city funded a 79-unit village in March of 2022.  A year later, non-profit directors said that  it has been "transformative," for people who have stayed there, according to the San Francisco Examiner. 

The village is a hopeful sign of what some support from the state may be able to do. San Francisco is not set to receive any tiny homes from the state 

While the city is debating whether to add more of these villages to certain neighborhoods — like the Mission District — the price tag for each unit is about 10 times what it would be in other areas of the country, officials told the San Francisco Chronicle.