Two of Bellingham’s tiny home villages — Unity Village in Fairhaven and Swift Haven in the Puget neighborhood — will have to relocate in the next 12 months due to expanding city services and expiring permits.
The villages, operated by HomesNOW!, provide emergency shelter for about 50 residents who would otherwise be homeless. The facilities offer tiny homes equipped with a bed, a table, electrical outlets and porches. Residents share kitchen, dining and restroom areas.
Relocation efforts have been underway for more than a year at the villages while city staff evaluate possible homes for the 25-home communities. Unity Village sits on the property of the aging Post Point Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is in dire need of upgrades and expansion to meet the growing needs of Bellingham. That means the village will have to be cleared in the next year to “to avoid delaying needed improvements to this critical city infrastructure,” the city’s Deputy Finance Director Forrest Longman wrote in a memo. And permits that allow Swift Haven to stay in Puget are set to expire in March next year.
Now, staff have identified a possible location for the villages: a recently acquired city property along Meridian Street in the Cordata neighborhood.
The property, located at 4447 Meridian St., was recently purchased by the city using Greenways Funds in order to convert the space into connector trails. Remaining land on the property, though, could serve as the ideal space for the tiny home villages, with easy access to hospitals, emergency services and public transit, as well as stores and Whatcom Community College, staff said.
The area, staff wrote, is “well suited” for temporary tiny home villages.
“The site is unencumbered, can be used in the future for permanent affordable housing and ensures a stable location for both villages for as long as their use permits allow,” Longman wrote. “Staff identified the recently purchased property at Meridian as the best suited for siting both tiny home villages.”
Longman wrote the staff evaluated several public and private properties to use as relocation spaces, but all had challenges like wetlands or limited facilities.
“We’re looking for a site in terms of how much capacity can that site hold, what are the different ownership issues or different constraints, does it have access to goods and services?” Blake Lyon, the city’s director of planning and community development, said last summer, early in the relocation search.
Though both villages will have to move, the Swift Haven relocation is closer on the horizon. City staff said the village will be required to move by March 31, 2024, but did not specify a date for Unity Village.
The villages, established in 2019 and 2021, have been “very necessary stepping stones” in recent years, Lyon said last July.
A previous version of this story misstated when Unity Village was launched. The tiny home village opened in 2019. This story was updated to reflect this change Tuesday, July 11 at 1 p.m. Cascadia Daily News regrets the error.
