Sonoma County is inching closer to erecting a micro-community of tiny houses for homeless people — a model that if successful, could be replicated on vacant lots and unused county land inside and outside city limits.
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday is set to consider whether to use a county-owned parking lot at its sprawling administration complex in Santa Rosa to house up to 12 small structures for two years.
County officials have proposed locating the houses — which could be shipping containers, prefabricated mobile trailers or custom-built cottages — on a 10,000-square-foot lot northwest of the intersection of Mendocino Avenue and Chanate Road. The site, at Paulin Drive and Fiscal Drive, beat out five others in Santa Rosa that county officials were eyeing over the past two months.
Supervisor Shirlee Zane, who is spearheading the project, argued that the shelters can help boost the local housing stock faster than other affordable housing developments and provide much-needed units for homeless people in a time of crisis.
“We have a dire supply-and-demand problem,” Zane said. “Rents are going up ... threatening not only homeless people who want to get into housing, but people who are just one paycheck away from becoming homeless.”
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