Occupy Madison starts building an eco-village one 'tiny home' at a time

Tiny houses are turning out to be the hottest thing in downsizing since the condominium. Economical and sustainable, houses of less than 100 square feet are being embraced by ecology-minded pioneers who can afford a lot more house, but don’t want it.

Occupy Madison is adapting the model to build affordable housing for homeless people, whom the group has tried to assist over the past few years, with mixed success. OM Build, an initiative of the nonprofit Occupy Madison that incorporated late last year, plans this summer to build several tiny homes for what it hopes will eventually be a cooperative eco-village for the (formerly) homeless on private land.

“We’re obviously addressing the problem of people without homes. But all the people who live in the community may not be homeless,” said Bruce Wallbaum, an Occupy Madison member who is organizing the project. “There are people who are not homeless involved in Occupy Madison who want to live in a tiny home.”

The tiny homes model has been used to house the homeless elsewhere, including Portland, Ore., and Olympia, Wash., where ground was broken in June for Quixote Village, a cluster of 30 cottages with several community buildings.



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