Second Chance Tiny House Project

Hi, my name is Denise Boyd and I started Love Love LLC. I'm in the business of fund-raising for my community, and providing financial education.

In partnership with the Southeastern Connecticut Rentry Council, I am raising money for the Second Chance Tiny House Project Committee. This project seeks to create an affordable, eco-friendly tiny house residential educational project for individuals re-entering society after incarceration, offering temporary-to-permanent housing, education for self-reliance, jobs training, community building and opportunities for home ownership, serving New London County.

Watch this video about our project and visit our website secondchancetinyhouseproject.

Across America, there is a general shortage of rental homes affordable and available to extremely low income households (ELI). Citizens returning from incarcertion are the group most vulnerable to homeless and the resultant problems created by lacking a safe place to live, and they are most vulnerable to ending up homeless immediate after being released from prison.

Funds from this campaign will go directly to purchase the trailer for our first prototype tiny house.

Project Description

This project seeks to create a flexible model for truly affordable housing, using tiny houses (less than 200 sq. ft.) deployed in a tiny village context to create a supportive community where residents can heal, develop skills of economic self-reliance and environmental sustainability to function in the world, hold each other accountable, practice democratic self-governance, serve as role models of low impact living, and save the county lots of money.

Project Aims

Having a Home of One’s Own

A Realistic Solution to homelessness among justice-involved, low-income citizens who are most at risk, using self-sufficient tiny houses sited on city property, land trust land or otherwise vacant lots. Based on Hans Lohse’s 160 sq. ft. self-sufficient design, units are self-powered, and transportable. Costing $28,000 on the high end, these units offer a new much more affordable model of housing and offer more flexible siting possibilities, avoiding the zoning and nimby obstacles faced by conventional multi-family affordable housing projects. Designed on trailers, these dwellings can be easily moved, separating ownership of the house from land.

Dignity and Self-Reliance

Sustainability/self-reliance education in how to live in a tiny house. Living in a self-sufficient tiny house requires education and practice in operating the systems and developing relationships to a supportive community. This project envisions participants coming to live in the tiny houses as part of an “educational residency” program lasting a set time (3 to 6 months?) during which time they learn to operate the dwelling while supporting, and being supported by, other participants in the program, as well as a team of volunteer staff coordinated through the Southeastern CT Reentry Council. Our model is inspired in part by the very successful Oxford House Model.

Credibility and Empowerment

Through Opportunities for house ownership. This project will use a rent-to-own program where after the initial residency, the participant has the opportunity to find a new location for their purchased tiny house, or opt out of the program by finding more permanent housing. After initial funding through crowd-funding, grants and financial partnerships with other civic organizations, this project seeks to become self-sustaining, using rental fees from participants to expand capacity.

Creating a Self-Expanding, Scalable Model

Construction of new tiny houses as (1) educational experience for participants, (2) job skills training, (3) a way to make the project self-expanding by creating new abodes to replace the ones which have been purchased by former participants.