<aside> 💡 Beginning in July 2020: ****My objective is to plan tiny house projects across Maryland on a part-time, in-kind, quarterly basis through the Maryland Tiny House Coalition. Why? To benefit residents in-need who live in areas where there is poor supply and high demand for affordable, quality homes for single individuals and small families.

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Vision Summary

Who: ****Mr. Justin Fair received his Masters in City and Regional Planning from Morgan State University in Spring 2020. He is a Baltimore resident who regularly travels across Maryland by car, train and internet.

Making the Vision A Reality

What: ****He consults on projects built with individuals who earn low-to-moderate median area income, who are often left-out of innovative housing projects. Specifically, People of color, women, seniors, and innovative affinity groups like veterans and artists. These groups stand to benefit the most from living in or building tiny homes but are often overlooked by those with means (who can afford to brave initial risks and often dominate the national narrative, reinforcing  white-washing in tiny living).

Mr. Fair’s Master’s project Tiny Houses and the Black Experience Thesis, 2020-2021 that outlined rubrics, land use methods, and messages that he now works to expand locally across the State.

Planning for Tiny Houses

Why: ****Typically, this work remedying societal disparities common in housing policy involves a long massage and cultivation of both people and ordinances within offices of community planning and development.

How: Mr. Fair spots opportunities, overlaps and holes in land use, zoning, urban design, housing, and community development so concepts become funded realities. He knows that neighbors and officials need time, a firm grip, licensed resources, and a strong heart, to ease misconceptions and pigeonholes.

A Vision of Self-Investment

Whether tiny homes are built on or are permanently affixed to foundations, or whether tiny homes are mobile or portable tiny homes on wheels, each type can speak directly to Marylanders’ values of independence, adaptability, and mobility. To those who explicitly value tiny living, that is, Marylanders who want to live purposefully, frugally and economically in well-lit, open, ergonomic, and neighborly small homes, the house form fits. They can personalize their homes, establish security and invest wisely in their future by reclaiming their domestic sense of place and self while building equity at a scale they can manage.

When strategically introduced with reasonable commonsense management, like locating projects only near a walkable, central amenity, such as a childcare center, grocery, clinic, civic center, or transit node, Tiny homes offer an alternative model for housing more individuals at lower cost than standard single family homes, apartments, and temporary housing alone. The challenge is that the house form often carries stigmas due to lack of representation from enthused People of Color, each end of classist opinions, and there are still hyper-local ordinances and cultural nuances that must be massaged. Tiny homes aren’t for everyone, so any project should carefully analyze their market, messages, and motives.