The Oakland City Council is looking to the “tiny house” movement as a way to help relieve some of the city’s housing pinch and homeless crisis.

The city has allocated about $80,000 to a Laney College Tiny House Partnership to support the college’s efforts to build two prototypes.

Tiny houses are defined as being between 100 and 400 square feet, a stark downsize from the typical American home that averages 2,600 square feet.

The city-college partnership will create a prototype for a small-sized and a medium-sized tiny house, ranging from 10 to 14 feet, at a cost of $20,000 to $30,000 each.

The small model will include a bedroom with a sleeping loft. The medium version will incorporate the additional amenities of a shower, toilet and kitchenette.

If built on a trailer chassis, a tiny house requires only minimal permitting and can be moved to and from a given site.

“Oakland is facing both a housing shortage and a homelessness crisis, and the Laney College Tiny House Partnership can help us,” Councilman Abel Guillen said in a written statement.

“This relatively modest investment by the city will help encourage more support for this innovative approach as part of a broader plan to provide both affordable-housing options and more shelters for our residents who are now sleeping on our streets, in cars and at our parks.”

Through the use of its new FabLab, Laney College’s carpentry department will develop the two tiny house prototypes for mass production.

Using a 3D computer model, students will design the tiny homes with comfort, portability and easy assembly in mind.

“Built in Oakland for Oakland, this tiny house will be designed to fit Oakland’s unique needs and will showcase our city’s innovative maker culture,” said FabLab Director Danny Beasly.

City leaders hope the partnership will help promote local manufacturing, and create entrepreneurship and job opportunities for Laney College students and community members.

Oakland is looking to other cities and areas such as Sonoma County; San Jose; Fresno; Portland, Oregon; Eugene, Oregon; Olympia, Washington; Madison, Wisconsin; and Austin, Texas, for inspiration regarding their efforts to lay pathways for tiny houses and tiny house villages.

Oakland does not have enough beds for the approximately 1,400 homeless people who lack shelter on any given night, according to Richard W. Raya, who serves as Guillen’s chief of staff.

“The City Council has established a task force to examine sustainable and effective approaches for housing the homeless, including reallocation of the substantial annual city resources used for public safety, health and cleanup to house and assist the homeless in a different way,” Raya said in an interview.

“Tiny houses certainly qualify as one possible, cost-effective housing option in the city’s tool kit,” he said.