City embraces tiny homes on wheels as affordable housing

By James Taylor, CBS13 Photojournalist

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    WEST SACRAMENTO, California (KOVR) — It’s a new spin on affordable housing: a low-cost tiny home on wheels.

Robyn Davis has lived in a tiny home on wheels in West Sacramento since 2017, and initially, she faced code enforcement fines because it was not hooked up to utilities and had no permit.

“I own my land,” Davis said. “There should be a pathway for this.”

In the past, any home built on a trailer with wheels had legally been considered a vehicle, regulated by the DMV.

Now, West Sacramento is the first city in the region to allow people to live in these small units full-time.

“There are stereotypes about people who live in tiny homes with wheels and I’ve been fighting those stereotypes,” Davis said.

Tiny home advocates are now showing off various models of homes under 400 square feet that qualify.

“You can literally move this on site and have it hooked up within a couple of weeks, and the infrastructure costs are much less,” said tiny home advocate Andrea Montano.

Many of them cost under $100,000.

“We’ve been building homes that are too big,” Davis said. “We really don’t build starter homes anymore.”

“The average household size is one to two people, and so we’re not really building to the demand,” Montano said.

Davis and other advocates say these small units could be a big solution to California’s affordable housing crisis.

“We have the most unhoused people in any state, and we need to be more open-minded about diverse housing,” Davis said.

Tiny home supporters now want California lawmakers to approve this type of unit so the rules and requirements will be consistent across the state.

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