Two tiny home villages in Bellingham will relocate to a site on Northwest Avenue by the end of the year, after city council approved purchase of the new property.
Unity Village in Fairhaven and Swift Haven in the Puget neighborhood are operated by HomesNOW!, and provide emergency shelter for about 50 residents who would otherwise be homeless. The village’s current sites were never intended for long-term use, and the city has been looking for a new site for nearly two years.
At a Monday, April 8 city council meeting, the council approved the purchase of a site at 3300 Northwest Ave. for $1.2 million. From here, HomesNOW! will have to apply for a Temporary Shelter Permit for the new location, and the city will design and build up the new site to combine the two existing villages into one. It’s a two-year permit, with three one-year extensions for up to five years in total.
If the permit is approved, the city anticipates a fall 2024 relocation. The new village will be called North Haven, according to a city press release on Tuesday, April 9.
The current sites of the tiny home villages both have expiration dates. Swift Haven is located on a city-owned parking lot intended to develop recreation under terms of use specified by state grant funding. The permit to temporarily use the site for tiny homes expires in December 2024. Unity Village is on city-owned property next to the Point Point Wastewater Treatment Plant and must relocate by March 2025 for soil cleanup ahead of planned Post Point expansions.
A city-owned site identified last year as a potential new location had too many wetlands and would have been too expensive to develop, the city’s Community and Economic Development Manager Tara Sundin told CDN on Thursday, April 3.
The new site was selected because it was paved and had good access to transportation and amenities, Sundin said. Long term, the city intends to build affordable housing on the site.
“One of our strategies is to begin acquiring property for future affordable housing developments …” Sundin said. “I’m not saying it’s going to be anytime soon, but in the future, this is a very good site for subsidized housing.”
Chairman of HomesNOW! Doug Gustafson said Thursday, April 4 that he has no issue with the site but is concerned that it might result in a net loss in capacity due to the size of the site as homelessness continues to increase.
Residents said last summer they were apprehensive about the impending move. Gustafson said that’s still true for some, but others are excited. The tiny homes are currently resident-managed, and will continue to be after the move, Gustafson said.
Gustafson said the villages are “pretty much always full.” He said they’ve had about 130 people come through the village, and about 50% of them have moved out into permanent housing. Of the remaining 50%, about 20% were asked to leave due to breaking rules, and the rest chose to leave.
The permit review process for the new village will include two weeks where the public can provide feedback, and the city will also host a neighborhood meeting to take input on the proposed village, according to the April 9 press release.
Sundin said the city might have been a “little skeptical” of the tiny homes project at the beginning but has now learned that they’re an “important piece of the continuum.”
“Obviously, we prefer housing over shelter, that is our goal, but until we have enough housing for everyone, we like having options of different types of shelter opportunities for people,” Sundin said. “Some people this model works well for, others, the Base Camp model works well for, so having multiple options is good.”
Gustafson said Bellingham needs more tiny home villages.
“We’re ready to do more of them, too …” he said. “So if there’s a way to increase capacity further to do even more of this, then we’re game.”
Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; reach her at charlottealden@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.
