• About
  • Join/Donate
  • Contact
Wednesday, August 10, 2022
  • Login
No Result
View All Result
The Brief
NB MEDIA CO-OP
Share a story
  • New Brunswick
  • Canada
  • World
  • Environment
  • Indigenous
  • Labour
  • Gender
  • Politics
  • Culture
  • Videos
  • NB debrief
  • Articles en français
  • New Brunswick
  • Canada
  • World
  • Environment
  • Indigenous
  • Labour
  • Gender
  • Politics
  • Culture
  • Videos
  • NB debrief
  • Articles en français
No Result
View All Result
NB MEDIA CO-OP
No Result
View All Result
Home *Opinion*

Tiny homes: A tiny solution to a big problem

by Aditya Rao and Tobin LeBlanc Haley
January 15, 2022
Reading Time: 6min read
A man stands beside a tiny home. There is snow on the ground and the sky is cloudy.

A photo shows Marcel LeBrun, founder of 12 Neighbours Community Inc., with a tiny home. Photo: Government of New Brunswick.

It seems everyone in New Brunswick is talking about tiny homes. 

Fredericton entrepreneur Marcel LeBrun shared the stage with Social Development Minister Bruce Fitch and Fredericton MP Jenica Atwin last week when they announced $1.4 million in forgivable loans for this 96 tiny homes development near the northside Walmart. LeBrun’s 12 Neighbours Inc. is a not-for-profit organization that will provide affordable housing for 100-200 people in Fredericton – no small number.

The first 36 homes are scheduled to be operational soon. Tenants will pay no more than 30 per cent of their income in rent, CMHC’s cut-off for affordability. The difference in rent will be covered by the provincial rent supplement program.

While tiny homes may provide affordable housing to some, this model is not without its limitations. Limitations that merit careful consideration as the popularity of tiny homes grows while the housing crisis deepens.  

Tiny homes emerged in the 2010s as a (perhaps not so) green and minimalist alternative to suburban sprawl in the wake of the 2008 recession. 

Municipalities, primarily in the US, turned to tiny homes to provide housing to folks experiencing homelessness. Canadian communities have recently been following suit, with Fredericton being the latest.

There are positive features of LeBrun’s homes. They will be insulated and connected to the city’s power grid and sewage system – a critical feature missing in many tiny home villages in other parts of North America. The project plans to include wrap-around services, meaning residents would be supported by a team of social workers, counsellors, and other professionals. 

Still, LeBrun acknowledged in the press conference that these homes can support only one or two individuals at a time and are not meant for families or children. This means tenants in the 12 Neighbours community who wish to have children or live with their children will likely have to leave. 

Women, who as a group shoulder more of the parenting work, will be disproportionately excluded from this model. Yet, lone female parents in the province experience some of the highest rates of unaffordable housing. Parents, generally, face discrimination in the rental market. Indeed, nearly 20 per cent of tenants who responded to the province’s 2021 rental market survey said that they could not find housing because they had children.

Living in tiny spaces can also carry health risks, including a specific risk of causing psychological problems. It is not easy to pack one’s life into a 250 square foot box. In an op-ed for the New York Times, a resident of a “micro-apartment” painted a rather grim picture of what life can look like in a tiny home. “Here, even smell takes up space,” Gene Tempest, the author, wrote. 

These limitations suggest the project is not a Housing First project, but a transitional housing project. Yet, it has been positioned within the evidence-based Housing First philosophy, which advocates for permanent housing as an immediate first step to solving homelessness.

Unsurprisingly, Barbara Poppe, a leading expert and an Obama White House advisor on homelessness, advised the city of Seattle against funding tiny homes (they did anyway), arguing that the money would be better spent on permanent housing. Similarly, the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness maintains that “any social housing project using the [tiny homes] model would have to…offer it as an option only to those who would be interested in that kind of living.”

It remains to be seen whether LeBrun’s project will survive the problems that other such tiny home villages have faced. His development, with its connections to power and sewage, is tackling key problems. There is research suggesting that tiny home projects show promise to combat homelessness if they can sustain a strong community, hold public support, secure funding with few restrictions, and ensure affordable housing for individuals when they transition out of the tiny home. 

So where will people go when they transition out of LeBrun’s tiny homes? 

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) and other predatory corporate landlords are fixated on extracting as much rental income as they can from New Brunswick’s extremely unregulated market. One REIT alone plans to take 1300 units off the affordable housing market to turn into high rental income properties. 

At the same time, we are hearing about astronomical rent hikes nearly every week while there remain nearly 6,000 households on the affordable housing waitlist. 

The main problem New Brunswick faces, as scholars have pointed out, is the financialization of housing, not a lack of supply. Governments can throw as much money as they like at the problem through programs like rent supplements, but without effective rent controls these programs function as a wealth transfer to landlords who have no reason to keep rents low. 

And as St. Thomas University sociologist Kristi Allain has argued, the popular yet simplistic solution of cutting the so-called “double-tax” will not work.

The authors of this article hope sincerely that 12 Neighbours Inc. can overcome the obstacles that similar projects have faced in the past, and that the tenants will thrive with the promised “dignity, community, and opportunity.”

But we want to caution decision-makers against the erroneous conclusion that we can tiny home our way out of the housing crisis.

Aditya Rao is a Fredericton-based human rights lawyer. Tobin LeBlanc Haley, PhD is a community-engaged scholar and an assistant professor at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John. They are founding members of the NB Coalition for Tenants Rights.

We corrected an error in an earlier version of this article that stated the Homelessness Hub maintained that “any social housing project using the [tiny homes] model would have to…offer it as an option only to those who would be interested in that kind of living.” In fact, it was the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness that made the statement on tiny homes. The correction was made on January 17, 2022 at approximately 7:05 pm.

Tags: Aditya Raoaffordable housingaffordable housing crisishousingTobin LeBlanc Haley
ShareTweetSend

Related Posts

‘Continue to fight’: Moncton tenants report back from national conference
Housing

‘Continue to fight’: Moncton tenants report back from national conference

July 6, 2022

New Brunswick is considered one of the most unfair places for tenants in the country. But tenants in the province...

Tenants file privacy complaint against landlord association over alleged ‘blacklist’
Housing

Tenants file privacy complaint against landlord association over alleged ‘blacklist’

May 18, 2022

Tenants in New Brunswick are expressing alarm following a public admission yesterday by Gerry Webster of the Saint John Apartment...

Social workers want home care services extended to support older adults aging in place
Health

Social workers want home care services extended to support older adults aging in place

April 16, 2022

The following open letter was sent to New Brunswick’s Social Development Minister Bruce Fitch on April 12, 2022.  We are...

The two New Brunswicks: One for the rich, one for everyone else
Economy

The two New Brunswicks: One for the rich, one for everyone else

April 7, 2022

There are two versions of New Brunswick. One is occupied by Premier Blaine Higgs and those in his orbit. The...

Load More

Recommended

Let’s get real about energy security, local gas supply, and energy transition

Let’s get real about energy security, local gas supply, and energy transition

16 hours ago
Wolastoqiyik women stop smallmouth bass poisoning in Miramichi Lake for now [updated]

Letter: Use of poison in Miramichi Lake and watershed a ‘tremendous waste of time and money’

1 day ago
Decades of neoliberal governance have left disabled New Brunswickers in poverty and without social assistance

Decades of neoliberal governance have left disabled New Brunswickers in poverty and without social assistance

6 days ago
Irving’s appointment to head of Postmedia board not welcome news, says prof

Irving’s appointment to head of Postmedia board not welcome news, says prof

1 day ago
NB Media Co-op

© 2019 NB Media Co-op. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Join/Donate
  • Contact
  • Share a Story
  • Calendar
  • Archives

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • Join/Donate
  • Contact
  • Share a Story
  • COVID-19
  • Videos
  • New Brunswick
  • Canada
  • World
  • Arts & Culture
  • Environment
  • Indigenous
  • Labour
  • Politics
  • Rural

© 2019 NB Media Co-op. All rights reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In