A Community Where All Homes Are Tiny Homes

This video from Tiny House Giant Journey explores an exciting community within a community in Portland, Oregon. It’s called ‘Simply Home’, and what makes it special is that all the homes are tiny.

The residents already had their tiny homes before deciding to live together in their own tiny neighborhood. They worked hard digging trenches for electricity cables so that power can be pumped into the community from the grid, with each house having a 30 amp box outside. Simply Home consists of six people ranging from 28 to 50 years, sharing one-third of an acre of land and the 1,450-square-foot ‘big house’ that came along with it.

One member of the community, Tony Diethelm, said finding the space was pure good luck. “We made the right offer at the right time with the right people, and it worked,” he says. But Tony didn’t wait around for it to happen, either. He turned his dream to own a plot of land into positive action. “I blanketed the neighborhood with little notes that said: ‘We’re trying to start a tiny home community and we need something with a large plot’,” he explains. A returned phone call from a resident with land for sale was how the friends found their dream space to move their tiny homes on to.

With community meetings and communal dinners, shared work and joint responsibilities all set out in a formal agreement, this kind of living certainly isn’t for everyone. But for those who like the idea of living this intimately with their friends and neighbors, it seems like a magical and peaceful existence away from the rat race. On her blog, Jenna from Tiny House Giant Journey says Simply Home is “A special place where like-minded people relax in tiny handcrafted sanctuaries,” and she is hopeful that communities like this will become more common.

“It may not be easy to create a tiny house community, BUT, it’s getting easier,” the tiny home expert writes. “More and more counties are accepting tiny homes. More and more people are building tiny homes. And soon, I’m sure we will see more and more tiny house sanctuaries like Simply Home.”

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