The Unity Village tiny home community, slated to move due to impending construction at the Post Point Wastewater Treatment Facility, will be allowed to stay in its current location for another year.
The village, which provides furnished tiny homes, a kitchen, restrooms and support services for almost two dozen residents experiencing homelessness, is a temporary shelter in the community operated by HomesNOW!, a Bellingham-based nonprofit attempting to end homelessness.
Doug Gustafson, HomesNOW!’s chairman, touts the community’s success.
“The village acts as a stepping stone for a safe place to live while you’re figuring out how to get into more permanent housing,” Gustafson said. “Some residents just stay for a few weeks. Some people have stayed for years.”
Unity Village currently has about a 48% rehousing rate, meaning almost half of the tenants have left to move into permanent housing.
“It’s a blessing to be able to stay,” said Tina Hayes, one of the 23 residents and a community manager in the village. “The threat of moving can be retraumatizing.”
In July, City of Bellingham staff told city council members the village would need to move due to major construction plans at the Post Point facility. On Monday, council members voted to shelve those construction plans in favor of cheaper repairs — repairs that don’t require access to the land underneath Unity Village.
“The Post Point project is going through a reevaluation process,” said Blake Lyon, the city’s director of planning and community development. “As such, the need to relocate Unity Village is no longer as pressing as previously anticipated.”
Lyon said the city had no desire to close the tiny home community.
“It’s certainly not in our interest to [close the village],” he told the Cascadia Daily News in July. “It’s a very necessary stepping stone to helping these folks.”
Gustafson said HomesNOW! can apply for a one-year permit to stay in the current location, but the program will have to fulfill new conditions to remain there. Residents of the community will be required to join a housing pool, part of the state’s “coordinated entry” approach.
“The WA State Department of Commerce, operating on guidelines from HUD, has said that the reason for Coordinated Entry is to act as a referral system, so that people don’t have to apply at 20 places,” Gustafson said.
Gustafson doesn’t support the coordinated entry system at HomesNOW! housing projects, and doesn’t want to lose the current application and management system in place at Unity Village.
In Bellingham, homeless individuals can apply for housing and services through the Opportunity Council, a nonprofit organization serving homeless and low-income individuals and families.
Residents of Unity Village, many of whom have experienced years of homelessness and uncertainty, were excited about the news.
“Getting here takes a lot of the stress off you once you get settled and you can breathe a little easier, but moving came into play and we were wound up tight again, worried and concerned,” said Elise McCall, a resident of the village. “It’s a huge relief that we can stay.”
Robert “Pappy” Kagle, another resident, agreed.
“It’s a ton of work to move these things,” he said. “It would take us months to tear it down and rebuild it to the home it is now.”
Kagle, McCall and Japheth Olivier, a third resident, enjoyed the sunshine and hot coffee around a community table Tuesday morning, discussing current events and future plans.
Though the village model has been successful in getting community members off the streets and into permanent housing, Gustafson said it’s only part of the solution.
“We’re on the Titanic, and we have 300 lifeboats,” he said. “We need 1,200.”
A previous version of this story misspelled Tina Hayes’ name in one of the photo captions. The story was updated Tuesday, Sept. 27 at 4:57 p.m. The Cascadia Daily News regrets the error.
Additionally, this story was updated to include additional information from Gustafson about coordinated entry.
