By the end of January, the city’s first foray into tiny home living for homeless people should have a new home.

The Kenton Women’s Village, which opened in 2015 with 14 structures big enough for a bed and some belongings, must move to make way for affordable housing. City and county officials found a nearby plot of land that they thought would work.

The Joint Office of Homeless Services filed paperwork this week that indicates that will indeed be the site. Construction has already begun on the triangle of city-owned land at 2420 N. Columbia Blvd.

Six women are expected to move onto the property by the end of January, said Denis Theriault, spokesman for the Joint Office. The rest of the women will be moved into motels or other temporary housing until the rest of the site is built out.

Theriault said the office hopes to have 20 pods ready by the end of spring with bigger, better bathroom and kitchen facilities, as well as running water, sewage and electricity. The gardens the women and community built and maintained will move with the village.

The site has a water main that runs under it and a utility substation on one corner, which makes it unsuitable for most types of development.

But officials said it could work for the village where women who need shelter but might have trauma or other reasons that keep them from mass homeless shelters can be out of the elements.

The prior village has kitchen and bathroom facilities built into shipping containers. The pods, which were designed as part of a collaboration between Portland State University students and the city of Portland, are not all appropriate for the needs of homeless women.

So the new site will improve on the facilities and focus on reproducing pod designs that worked. The new pods will also all have heat.

The village is operated by Catholic Charities Oregon, who are on contract with the Joint Office.

Since it opened, the Joint Office reports, 14 of the 24 women who stayed there have moved into permanent housing.