Mayor Charlie Hales' office declared this week that the Rose City is ready to move forward with as many as four micro-communities of tiny houses — homes of roughly 200 square feet — that could be quickly and cheaply build to house homeless and low-income folks.

But Portland isn't alone in the ranks of U.S. cities allowing clusters of tiny houses to pop up and serve the chronically homeless or low-income residents with cheap, clean and safe housing.

In fact, the Rose City is decidedly behind its weird cousin, Austin.

A nonprofit in the Austin area is poised to break ground next week on a 27-acre community with a variety of tiny houses that organizers say is a decade in the making.

In the Northwest, Portland's Dignity Village is often cited as the torchbearer of tent cities evolving into more permanent communities. But a decade after that experiment first took root in Northeast Portland, Austin and a handful of other cities are taking concrete steps to move beyond tent cities and transitional housing developments to a more permanent community-based approach.



Austin: Community First

According to Mobile Loaves & Fishes officials, their Texas community is virtually unprecedented in its scope and ambition.

Nate Schlueter, community relations director, said the Austin-area's Community First Village will break ground next week. Once completed, chronically homeless and low-income residents, he said, "will be able to live in a first-class master-planned gated community in America."

For perspective, Portland's Dignity Village is roughly one-third of an acre.

Schlueter said the community would eventually be home to a variety of housing options: mobile homes, cottages, and tiny houses. The structures will mostly be smaller than 250-square-feet, Schlueter said.

Rents will range from $90 per month to $375 per month, with utilities covered for the first three months after residents move in.

At full build-out, the community will house 250 people, with the first 50 structures being constructed in the next nine months.

The property is just outside the city limits, Schlueter said, and was given to Loaves & Fishes by a private donor. "We're not aware of anything else like it," he said of the 27-acre complex, which will include a six-acre farm to help feed residents.

Schlueter said the community would have on-site services for residents only, including a medical clinic.

Eugene: Emerald Village

Eugene's version of Dignity Village (Opportunity Village Eugene), celebrates its one-year anniversary this month.

Andrew Heben, one of the founders of that transitional community, said Track Town is prepared to take the next step and emulate a tiny house community. He said the city is supportive of the plan, too.

A concept plan showing what Emerald Village could look like in Eugene once completed (Courtesy of Andrew Heben)

The next step: buy land for "Emerald Village," a community of tiny houses with units of up to 150-square-feet (twice the size of the Opportunity Village dwellings).

Heben said the nonprofit has $130,000 committed from private donors and hopes to bring in $250,000 more to move forward with construction and acquiring the land.

Heben wrote a book titled "Tent City Urbanism: From Self-Organized Camps to Tiny House Villages," and studied Dignity Village and Portland's Right 2 Dream Too. He said the transition to micro-communities" is natural because of the charm and aesthetics of the tiny houses.

"This translates to the larger community better than the tent city," Heben said, "Just because of the general infatuation of the street appeal of the tiny house."

In the course of researching his book, Heben said that dozens of cities are looking at tiny house communities as an option. Madison, Wisc., has a small community.

Up Interstate 5 from Portland and Eugene, Olympia also has a tiny house community of its own. Quixote Village transitioned from a transitional community similar to Dignity Village into a community of tiny houses last year. The 30-unit complex has houses of 144-square-feet, according to its website.

Heben said he thinks the trend is spreading because it can be deployed as another form of affordable housing, too, rather than just a tool to help the homeless community.

— Andrew Theen