What should we ask about tiny homes - Part 2

Part 2 of 3 in a series looking at issues in the Tiny House movement. You can read Part 1 here.

Last week we looked at how the cost of Tiny Houses wasn't always as low as you'd think and how it didn't necessarily break the traditional mould of housing. This week we are going to take that a step further as we consider what makes a Tiny Home a Tiny Home. 

Tiny or merely small

look at the cost of Tiny Homes in terms of people who already live in low cost and often small accommodation, be it rented or owned. Why is it that Tiny Homes are celebrated, given YouTube channels and the prestige of capitalisation whilst simply living in a small home is not. Small houses are far from being unusual with a two bedroom terrace being around 164m^2 or less and the average apartment or flat being smaller still. Though not common in the UK, trailer homes and trailer parks are a ubiquitous feature of the US housing market and landscape. Trailers, similar to a static caravan for those in the UK, are around 148.5m^2 so clearly a small living space.

Photo taken from RightMove.co.uk. image shows a small but tidy kitchen viewed from the doorway. It is not much wider than the doorway.

Certainly there is no glamour in the UK to living in a small house, and certainly not when you are renting a back-to-back or a council flat in an impoverished area. Similarly, trailers and trailer parks in the US garner a lot of stigma, neatly summed up in the common insult “trailer trash” - people who dwell in trailers are often stereotyped as being rough, common and of low intelligence. Nothing like the praise, prestige and compliments given to those who live in a tiny home. Those who live in a house with a kitchen so small you can’t open a cupboard and the fridge at the same time (or indeed can’t even fit the fridge in the kitchen) tend to “make do” to struggle and to put up with these difficult spaces, where as those with Tiny House kitchens often marvel at the ingenuity, how little space they actually need and the easiness with which they can use the space. 

Tiny House living is often described in terms of comfort, ease, ingenuity and enjoyment of “the simple life”¹, concepts which may not be familiar to those of us who live or who have lived in something which is simply considered “a small house”. Part of this difference in attitude is due to how Tiny Houses come to exist and the place they hold in our housing culture. Tiny Houses are deliberate and considered. They are self build projects wither entirely built by the people living in them or with a lot of input from the owners to the designers and manufacturers. Like other self build projects they are bespoke, tailored to the owners needs and can involve non-standard features that make use easier. They are also intentional in terms of a person’s desire to live in a Tiny House – they have chosen to downsize or live “more simply” or have lifestyles and needs that work with a Tiny Home. Compare this to a family or person who is forced into a small home due to economic and sociopolitical circumstances and may not have a lifestyle or personality that is well adapted to a small and ill-fitting space. It is far easier to live in a small space that meets your specific needs than it is attempting to adapt your needs to an existing and fixed design – especially when that design may have come about over a century earlier and without any idea what the needs of a 2019 family may be.

Photo shows a compact bespoke kitchen made out of natural wood with curved countertops. It has several windows and easy access. photo CCC Lindahouse

 

This is closely tied to the financial issues described earlier and therefore to issues of classism and social discrimination based on income, and in some cases to racism. The average Tiny Home dweller is not the same as the average person who lives in a merely small home. Exact figures on these demographics are very difficult to come by, it’s simply not something that is documented and there is no consensus on exactly what a small home is. In the US the demographics and tradition of trailer park residents suggest lower income people, those who would traditionally be considered lower or working class and, due to historic and systemic racial discrimination and town planning² regulation, are likely to be of minority ethnicities³.

When espousing the right of people to be able to build and own their own homes, or to have access to not just affordable housing but also housing that is fit for purpose we need to be aware of who is able to access these new innovations and do our best to try and breakdown and overcome existing systemic persecution of those groups who have not been afforded the luxury of such housing including those on a low income and those from BAME communities. Part of this involves examining our existing attitudes toward those in small and low cost housing and how that compares to attitudes to Tiny Houses as well as doing what we can to ensure that our enthusiasm for Tiny Homes does not exclude the already excluded and perpetuate inequality.

Ready for the next instalment: read Part 3 here

1 for issues relating to the privilege of minimalism please refer to the Pratchet quote from Part 1 and consider how it is easy to get rid of possessions when you know you can afford to buy a new one should you need it).

2This excellent history of Suburbia from McMansion Hell blogger Kate Wagner gives some insight into mid century town planning in the US https://mcmansionhell.com/post/154653904191/a-pictorial-history-of-suburbia

3This wikipedia article on White Flight may shed some light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#Government-aided_white_flight

If you like my writing why not support me by

What should we ask about Tiny Homes - Part 1

Recently I’ve become somewhat obsessed by Tiny Homes and the Tiny Homes Movement and it’s got me thinking over some issues and asking a few questions.

First of all what are Tiny Homes and how is it a movement?

Tiny homes are exactly what they sound like, very small compact homes often under 37m^2 and generally made as temporary buildings or to be mobile.

The definition often includes converted vans and vehicles such as buses but crucially doesn’t include traditional commercial RVs, camper vans or caravans. The reason for that distinction is something I’ll get into later.

The Tiny House Movement is a term for the online and often international communities created to talk about and share ideas relating to tiny homes. There isn’t one firm fixed ethos or manifesto but shared goals and beliefs usually include some take on minimising footprint, being eco-friendly, downsizing, minimalism, and being rent or mortgage free as well as personal freedom. However the motivations for people deciding to live in a tiny home are as varied as the people who chose to do it. From retirees to hippies, young professionals to families, travellers (please note the lower case t here) to people looking to settle down: many people are drawn to the idea of tiny house living.

There are a multitude of websites forums, Facebook groups and YouTube videos dedicated to exploring the tiny home movement and tiny homes themselves. So if you would like to fall down that particular wormhole you won’t have to look hard.

There are many things I enjoy about tiny houses and the movement, I wouldn’t have fallen down the rabbit hole otherwise. The two big appeals for me are firstly that there is a lot of opportunity for being environmentally friendly and conscious and secondly that it provides an option outside of the standard model of the capitalist housing and rental economy. Additionally the opportunity for highly personalised customised spaces is very appealing: who doesn’t want to live in a bespoke crafted house?

Image shows a small home on a trailer clad in grey panels. It has a teal green door and wooden set of external steps. From Reeds Road Home Design

The Housing Ladder Alternative

It’s the alternative to the prevailing housing market aspect that I want to tackle first, though. 

Undeniably for many people, the majority I would say in fact including those who are home owners, the current model for housing in the UK and other Western capitalist countries is difficult, expensive, and not fit for purpose. We devote a huge portion of our earnings to either paying a mortgage or rent. The cost of housing has shot up over the decades making living in some areas only accessible to the very wealthy unless you are willing to live in cramped squalor. Though they are slowly and not without a fight being improved, laws surrounding rental accommodation have long been in the favour of the landlords leaving renters in often precarious living situations and dealing with high rent and often very poor housing including damp, mould, structural safety issues, fire hazards and poor security. Though renting is seen as the norm and a perfectly reasonable living option in many countries, in the UK at least it is often treated as inferior to home ownership. Home ownership is seen as the goal and a sign of being a “responsible adult” however the cost of buying is now so high that many younger people (and for this article that’s pretty much anybody under 35) are unable to get onto the housing ladder without incurring significant debt or being fortunate enough to use equity from their parent’s home.

When finding somewhere safe comfortable, practical and above all affordable to live is so difficult it is no surprise that people start turning to alternatives and for them Tiny Homes may be the ideal solution. Now we get to the crux of the issue: Tiny Homes as a solution to high rents and a hostile housing market. But why is that a problem? Surely that’s to be celebrated and encouraged. I see it as only short term solution to a much larger problem and one that allows people to think we are addressing the housing crisis when all we are doing is affixing a sticking plaster.

Tiny houses are undoubtedly a good solution for individuals but they are not a solution to overcrowding and high costs of living. Tiny living spaces have been a feature of capitalist housing for centuries and while they do undoubtedly provide shelter for those in need (and who can pay) they don’t bring about any end to a hostile housing environment. Tiny Houses have the advantage that they are individually owned and therefore not contributing to (or minimally at least) the housing market. The issue of course is in this individuality that, with the exception of those who live in planned communities, the benefit of this new way of living is restricted to a few and doesn’t lead to systemic change. If anything it can serve to uphold the current system as those in power are able to point to those who “survive” in such tiny dwellings whilst continuing to pay rent or fees to management companies. It’s worth noting that blame for this shouldn’t be placed on the individual tenants who are simply doing the best they can.

It could be argued that those turning to Tiny Houses are undermining the traditional housing market, but it simply isn’t being done on a scale that has any real impact on the status quo. Instead of it being a solution that benefits many, it is the preserve of a few.

This leads nicely into my next point. As I said, Tiny Home owners often cite reducing housing costs or getting out of expensive housing markets as core motivations, and it’s indeed true that Tiny House living is often significantly cheaper than even small homes in the traditional housing market. However that doesn’t necessarily make them affordable. Some of you may be familiar with the “Sam Vimes “Boot” Theory of Economics” from author Terry Pratchett.

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

In the Tiny House movement it’s not to say that Tiny House owners are necessarily rich or wealthy, but like the person who can afford to pay for the good fifty dollar boots and have them last a lifetime, the Tiny Home owner has the money to invest in their new low cost living arrangement.

There are of course exceptions, but for the most part, Tiny Homes require you to be rich in either time or money, if not both. While £16,000 may be a tiny amount to pay to own your own home outright, it’s still a substantial amount of money for a person to have. Those built for that little often also rely on the ability of the home owner to dedicate time and effort to do much of the work themselves – a fully built Tiny House will cost upwards from £25000 in the UK. Less than a mortgage deposit perhaps but still not a small amount and one that many won’t have sitting in their banks. 

Additionally, whether going self built or pre-fab you need to have somewhere to live while it’s being made and before it’s on site, costing you rent or mortgage payments. Essentially you have to be able to afford standard housing before you can go Tiny. Then there are costs like having a suitable vehicle to tow with if you go for a mobile model, or the cost of transport for larger or shipping container style homes. You also need to consider location. You may be lucky and have access to rent free land but for most there will be some sort of land purchase or rental cost or weekly hire rates. 

Now think about the type of people who would really benefit from Tiny Houses: those who are low income and struggle with the traditional housing market: single parents, people who are unemployed, those who are currently homeless, disabled people and other low income groups. These are the people who are most negatively impacted by the high cost of living in many areas and who would benefit from genuine alternatives to the traditional housing market. They are also the same people who are least likely to be able to afford the initial costs of a Tiny House. If they don’t already have savings they may be able to get a loan, but only if a bank approves them and if they have a steady income that can take on the repayments. Paying back a loan while also paying for accommodation while your house is being built might be too steep for many and those who work full time just to afford that probably can’t afford the time off needed to self build, or they have other limitations such as disability or carer duties to restrict their ability to self build.

When these factors are considered we can see that while Tiny Homes are a low cost housing solution they are not necessarily affordable or accessible to those who are struggling with the traditional housing market.

This is Part One in a series of three on Tiny Homes. Read Part Two here. 

If you like my writing why not support me by

The Greggs' Effect

Veganism, classism and disableism

I’m pretty sure everybody in the UK and a fair few people outside it will have learned that Greggs – a low cost bakery chain – released a vegan sausage roll in early 2019. It caused much consternation amongst some quarters, most noticeably those who look up to the conservative “political pundit” and former game-show-host Piers Morgan. Piers’ over-the-top and toddler likerejection of the vegan sausage roll was a rallying cry for those who hate veganism generally, people who simply couldn’t understand why vegans might want a budget bakery item. Sadly this criticism and disbelief wasn’t just limited to those of a more socially conservative bent. There was also a surprising amount of wailing from people within the vegan community. It’s not healthy enough? Why would you want a meat replacement? If you’re vegan why are you buying from Gregg’s at all.

In some ways this second wave of criticism was actually more frustrating. After all anybody who doesn’t belong to the cis-male, white, straight, “British” group is pretty used to at some point coming in the firing line of Morgan and his brethren. That’s sadly the way of the world: stray from the path of what “they” have defined as “normal” and you will be criticised (or downright discriminated against). But when you are part of a counter-culture or alternative lifestyle group, you generally expect a certain amount of solidarity from within, even accounting for differing opinions and personalities. So a wave of criticism from your own “side” especially when you are also being attacked from other quarters can really knock the wind out of your sails.

photo from wikimedia image shows the store front of a Greggs Bakery. It has a blue and white sign with an orange square logo)

So now it’s almost 6 months later, and the financial news is reporting that Greggs is reporting soaring profits and steady gains in the stock market almost entirely attributed to increased sales of and because of the vegan sausage roll. With that success, Greggs is talking about expanding their vegan range, which for me is only a good thing. But with that comes controversy. Remember that criticism from other vegans I talked about only two paragraphs ago? Right that becomes an issue. You see there is a perception from non-vegans that veganism should be “healthy”, and this is a perception that is held up in some quarters of the vegan community. Vegan food should be “healthy” natural, full of vegetables, whole grains and other nutritionally superior goodies. Additionally we shouldn’t want to be mimicking meat because this is somehow ethically unsound and requires more of those pesky “unnatural” processed foods. These are the sorts of people making suggestions for new Greggs products that include lots of different vegetables and interesting grains, less fats and less delicious golden pastry.

But here’s the thing – nobody thinks that Greggs is or ever has been a bastion of healthy lifestyle. Nobody, vegan or otherwise, goes to Greggs expecting a nutritionally balanced, “healthy”, whole foods, natural lunch. You go to Greggs because you are hungry and it’s there and sometimes a baked good is exactly what you fancy. And that’s entirely ok.

Initially this debate may look fairly inconsequential and not something worth spending much time on. If one group doesn’t like fake meat and another does what’s the problem? The problem is that this actually becomes an argument about disablism, classism and food snobbery within veganism and other lifestyle choices.

So let me tell you about an experience I had just today. For context, I have been to Greggs only once since the introduction of the vegan sausage roll and I wasn’t a frequent visitor before that. Recently my CFS/ME has been worse than usual and I’ve been having a higher number of high fatigue days. I’m finding it more difficult to balance out exertion and rest as needed. So on this particular Thursday I had been to get my hair done. Due to the timing of the appointment, I hadn’t had a proper lunch though I had had a snack. My mid afternoon I was very hungry and my bloodsugar was low. I was also starting to struggle with fatigue. Due to that difficulty I wasn’t thinking straight and instead of getting a taxi from the place literally next door to my hairdresser’s I decided to get a bus half way home and walk the rest. I was soon really exceptionally fatigued and struggling to walk much. I was shaking and walking with slower and slower steps. I was also very hungry. All I wanted to do was sleep and eat, preferably at the same time. I hadn’t budgeted for lunch out, after all I’d just spent money on getting my hair done and now had to be conservative with spending. Luckily for me my route took me past a small shopping centre. So now I had options. Supermarket, discount food store, chain cafe and Greggs. In reality due to my fatigue and my budget I didn’t actually have that many options at all. I did not have the energy to walk around a supermarket looking for individual easy to eat vegan items. That would probably end up costing around £5 too which is more than I wanted. Likewise with the discount food store – it may be discounted but what they have available is varied and it would take a lot of energy to search out and check labels. The cafe would be more expensive and I’d probably only be able to get a cookie. Greggs and their vegan sausage roll was looking like some sort of greasy baked good oasis.

I got my sausage roll (the very last one) and ate it in a very few bites leaning against the wall and in short order the signs of hypoglycemia subsided and I and a fraction more energy. I was only £1 down to boot. It only took a short rest against the wall (because all the benches were out in the rain) and I judged myself able to make it home on foot. Thank goodness it was downhill from there. Even then the last 100m were painfully slow and on getting home I still had to have a protein smoothie banana and then fall into a solid sleep for two hours.

photo author's own. image shows an agender person wearing glasses and a black hoodie. They have green and purple curly hair and are leaning against a wall holding a sausage roll in a Greggs paper bag to their mouth

But what’s the point of this not so thrilling look into the average day of somebody with ME? Well here goes. That slightly greasy, warm, flaky pastry encases lump of processed fake meat was exactly what I needed right then. Regardless of what I actually like the taste of what I needed was something simple, that I could eat right then and there with one hand, that had protein fat and carbs, that required little thinking, no checking of ingredients and of course was cheap.

Don’t get me wrong I love good food. I love home-made-from-scratch food. I love piles of vegetables and interesting ingredients. I am the sort of person who makes asparagus and cucumber beurre blanc with pasta as “an easy simple meal”. I can frequently be found shoving handfuls of fruit into my face. I love “healthy” “natural” food. But what I also need is food I can eat and food I can afford. 

An awful lot of vegan food that goes down the healthy lifestyle route just doesn’t tick those boxes. When I am that exhausted or have brain fog issues I can’t be checking ingredients to make sure something non-vegan or something that sets of my IBS isn’t in there – and yes many common health foods are super incompatible with IBS, which is a common component of CFS/ME and EDS. I don’t have energy to stand dithering at a counter figuring out which superfood salad really hits the spot. I don’t have the energy to go around a supermarket looking for different items. Sometimes it’s because the things I need in order to be healthy are things over looked in so-called healthy food (and I promise not to derail into an entire other article about notions of “healthy” food) and that is that carbohydrates, some fats and protein, the big easy things, are really important to a person’s diet and are often especially important to somebody with a chronic health condition who just needs fuel. Vitamin B12 is essential to body function and something I need to be mindful of on a vegan diet. But it doesn’t matter how much B12 I get if I don’t get the required number of calories, grams of carbohydrate and protein into my body to just keep me upright.

On top of that I don’t have a lot of money. If I want to do things like get my hair dyed at a salon I budget for it carefully (including taxis when I remember them) and that means I can’t be spending a fortune on eating out every time I get hungry (and no I can’t carry packed lunches everywhere, that gets heavy and energy sapping fast).

Sometimes I just want easy tasty food that I don’t have to think too hard about and that I can afford.

Sometimes I just need easy tasty food that I don’t have to think too hard about and that I can afford.

I am not going to Greggs because I want nutritionally balanced fancy food. I am going there because it fills a particular niche in daytime food whether you are vegan or not. So for everybody suggesting that Greggs start doing a butternut squash and spinach pastie, whilst yes that does sound lovely, will you kindly shut up. Go and get that somewhere else. You can I assure you find that somewhere else. What I want is a vegan corned beef slice. Or a vegan cheese and onion roll (this is a flagrant lie, I’ve never liked cheese and onion rolls and onion triggers my IBS). Or a vegan steak bake. Now there’s choice. Things so simple the ingredients are in their name. Things so simple you can get it and a drink and have change out of a fiver.

You may be thinking “well if you are disabled and have such difficulty finding food then maybe you shouldn’t be vegan?” or even “Well if you haven’t got much money then you shouldn’t be fussy about your food?”.

I’m just going to give you a few moments to really think about what you are saying there.

Let me tell you how those things sound to me: when you say somebody who is disabled, chronically ill or poor shouldn’t be vegan you are telling me that somebody who is disabled, chronically ill or poor shouldn’t be allowed to have their own ethics, morals or beliefs. I don’t care if you agree with my beliefs or not, but I am very, very concerned that you would think that a person’s right to their own thoughts, their own beliefs and ethics should be governed by their physical ability or health and their financial status. Every single person in this country is by law guaranteed the right to have their own ethics and beliefs and to act on them as long as they don’t cause harm to anybody else. If my beliefs are that I don’t eat animal products then I should have the right to do so even if I am ill, disabled or poor. Because on top of that right to hold ethics there is also the human right that I or anybody else should not be discriminated against due to disability or socioeconomic status. If non-disabled people can choose to eat an animal free diet then why do you believe that somebody who is disabled does not have that right?

If you have the energy to get “higher quality” food or to look for something more nutritionally complete or with fresher ingredients. Great, you do that. And on my good days I’ll be right there with you enjoying some delicious delicious greens. But on my bad days if that’s all that’s on offer I won’t be by your side. I’ll be on the floor crying because my legs don’t move any more.

To insist that all vegan food should be healthy, natural and conform to a certain narrow view of what vegan food should look like is classist and disableist. To level that criticism at other vegans, to tell them they are “doing it wrong” or aren’t “proper vegans” or should be in some way ashamed for wanting a mass produced cheap baked good is classist and disableist and you need to stop. You eat what you want, and let me eat my dream vegan corned beef slice before I pass out.

If you like my writing why not support me by