Ever considered putting up a tiny home in your backyard?
The most recent California budget includes a $50 million fund to encourage homeowners to build accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, in their backyard. The guidelines for this new ADU grant program aren’t set, but a previous program in the state handed out grants up to $40,000.
It’s easy to look at these tiny homes as undersized gimmicks, but there are real use cases.
Take Joyce Higashi, a San Jose homeowner who built an ADU in her backyard. She now rents out her 500-square-foot abode for $3,000 per month to traveling nurses. Katie Sandoval Clark, a non-profit exec, split the cost of a retirement home with an ADU in the backyard with her mother. Maggie and John Randolph run a senior-living center in New Hampshire, and are building a tiny home village so employees can afford to live where they work.
Others are leaning on tiny homes to house homeless veterans. You can even buy ADUs on Amazon.
The program in California is another example of cities and states using novel approaches to encourage construction of smaller houses. Denver changed its zoning laws to make ADU construction easier, allowing two story units in some parts of the city. Austin’s city council approved a resolution that cuts the minimum lot size for a single-family home by half.
The housing market is a huge source of economic anxiety. Tiny homes won’t fix that, but innovation in zoning and construction, taken with recent data pointing to a surge in residential construction, offer reasons for hope.
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