Tiny-home villages more effective than group shelters at getting homeless people permanently housed, Oregon study finds

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Alisha Wilks was severely ill, living in a truck with her boyfriend and unable to keep a steady job. With crippling pain and disease, she wasn’t sure how she would afford a home. And without a home, she wasn’t sure her body would ever heal.

She has lupus, heart disease, a thyroid disorder and a hernia.

In July, however, the couple was offered a tiny home at Portland’s Clinton Triangle mass sleeping pod site on the Central Eastside. They eagerly became two of the triangle’s 203 residents, living in a 10 x 10 tiny home with a locking door, bed and a heating and cooling unit.

“Each day I rest and take care of myself, I can feel and see myself getting better,” said Wilks, 37. “I want to make sure I am healthy before I get housing because I don’t want a home to get taken away from me because I am too sick to take care of it or afford it.”

Wilks has found the support she needs to do just that, she said.

She isn’t alone. Tiny homes outperform mass shelters, according to a Portland State University study. The study found houseless individuals are more likely to move into permanent housing if they seek shelter in a tiny home community instead of being consigned to a congregate shelter, which had long been considered the solution for getting people off the streets.

Wilks said she and her partner felt supported to tackle their most challenging housing barriers in a safe place without being rushed through hard stages, such as addressing health concerns.

Of those who stayed in a Portland area tiny home village in the past several years, 36% of the county tiny home village residents and 16% of the city’s safe rest village residents, moved on to permanent housing, according to the study. Just 12% of congregate shelter guests achieved that same outcome. The data reflect people who moved in or out of shelters of either type in Multnomah County between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2023.

“This may be due in part to the shorter stays in adult congregate shelters, which limits the time available to connect someone with an extremely constrained supply of affordable or supportive housing,” the report said.

The village model is also faster to build and more attractive to occupants, as it offers greater privacy. Villages have the lowest initial capital cost per unit, if the land on which they stand is provided for free, the study found. But over the long term, they may be more expensive than motel or congregate shelters if the tiny homes must be replaced due to wear and tear, it said. And operating costs are higher for villages than congregate shelters despite similar staffing levels.

“While total staffing ratios were similar across shelter types, villages had more staff committed to case management and housing placement,” said Jacen Greene, who was on the Portland State research team. “While we didn’t have enough detail to determine if this accounted for the cost difference, it’s reasonable to assume that these staff are paid better than staff who are responsible for, say, cleaning.”

Time to heal

Since Wilks moved into the large sleeping pod site about 10 months ago, she has been hospitalized twice but has “never felt so loved,” she said.

“Urban Alchemy staff came and got me from the hospital and they made me feel cared about and like it is worth living,” Wilks said. “This is really a place you can restart and see a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Before she feels comfortable actively seeking permanent housing, she needs hernia surgery and to finish applying for federal disability payments, which often takes multiple attempts, she said. A caseworker at the Clinton Triangle village is helping her.

The Portland State study documented similar experiences of other Multnomah County tiny home residents.

“It feels like I’m a step closer to my ultimate goal of stable housing,” an unnamed person living at a county tiny home shelter told researchers. “It’s definitely a step above being in a (congregate) shelter where … just your basic needs” are met.

Wilks spends her days taking care of her dog Mocha, an 8-year-old Chihuahua, while her boyfriend works. Since his worksite is nearby, he often checks on her to make sure she is feeling well during the day and, until recently, largely took care of her while she recovered from medical procedures. Now that Wilks is starting to feel better, she has become more social in the village, participating in community meals and doing art projects.

While she thinks the shelter staff are supportive, she is sometimes bothered by other village residents going through their own hard experiences. But she said that’s just part of the experience of living in a community of individuals who are working to overcome challenges that led to their homelessness.

“It can feel rough around here since some people are dealing with mental illness and substance use and that sometimes results in people yelling and screaming which can impact other people’s (post-traumatic stress disorder). But the staff deal with everyone with such patience,” she said.

The Clinton Triangle community provides a nurse, peer support, employment help, case management for housing and mental health services. Ten couches in the center of the site’s central building act as a community space where people can eat, commune, watch television or find a more sprawling space than their tiny home offers.

In just under two years, the city has served 1,212 people across the Clinton Triangle and seven other tiny home villages. Of the 459 people who have left the villages, 69% exited to permanent housing, said villages spokesperson Bryan Aptekar. He said that success rate is both higher and more up-to-date than what the Portland State study reported, as it includes people who left villages as recently as March 2024.

Meeting people where they are

Just outside the Clinton Triangle’s central building, residents find a dog park that serves about 50 dogs, including a dozen puppies that were born at the village.

“We are trying to meet people where they are at, and we are one of the lowest barrier shelters” in the Portland area, said Jeff Dickey, Urban Alchemy’s operations director for Portland. “People won’t come without their pets, and really, all of the dogs offer emotional support.”

The shelter receives pet food donations and free vet services from a local nonprofit called the Portland Animal Welfare Team, which provides free or low-cost vet services to people who are unhoused.

Robin Leisure, 54, wouldn’t have moved into one of the tiny homes in January if she couldn’t have brought her 3-year-old pit bull, Luchi, with her.

“Life is much better here than outside,” she said. She said she no longer fears someone will throw a firework or other explosive underneath the trailer that served as their home.

“We don’t have to worry about people breaking into the trailer either,” she said. “It was very scary out there.”

Leisure said she was unhoused for five years, most recently living in a trailer with her 30-year-old daughter, when an outreach worker asked if they would both be interested in moving to the Clinton Triangle. The next day, she and her daughter picked up what they could carry and made the life-changing transition. Now, she has her own tiny home just a few steps away from her daughter’s.

“The staff here are pretty wonderful,” she said. “There is a lot of stress people are experiencing here, and many different situations people come from, but how the staff responds is calm and just phenomenal.”

Leisure is already deep into the process of finding an apartment of her own.

She receives $1,049 a month in Social Security disability payments but became unhoused because it wasn’t enough to make ends meet. Now she is afraid to sign a lease because a housing voucher that will cover her full rent will end in a year.

“I need to be able to afford the rent when the voucher ends,” she said. “It is hard to find a studio for even $1,000 and then you still need money left over for food and other bills.”

Before Leisure moved into the Clinton Triangle, she already had medical care established and had secured identification and other necessary documents. She just needed a home she could afford.

“If people sincerely want to get off the street, this is the place to come,” she said. “It is a safe place to be and what more could you ask for? I have heat, a/c and light. It is small, but it is your own space with a lock.”