The city will partner with Family of Woodstock to install three “tiny homes” on two vacant lots in Midtown. The prefabricated homes will serve as temporary housing for single head of household families as they transition into permanent housing with assistance from Family’s case management services.

The proposal, announced in the mayor’s State of the City speech last week will utilize a $250,000 “anti-displacement” grant through Enterprise Community Partners to install one tiny home at 81 Cedar St. and two more at 78 Franklin St. The grant will also fund services for the homes’ occupants through Family of Woodstock.

The program is aimed at single adults with children who are either homeless or in danger of losing their homes. Participants will be able to live in the homes for up to two years while working with Family staff to transition into permanent housing. Services will be tailored to individual needs and could include job training, substance abuse treatment and mental health counseling.

The project, slated to begin this spring, is Family’s first foray into tiny homes. The small-scale accommodations, embraced by many and the star of any number of television shows, have been used in other cities, including Newburgh as a cheap and relatively easy way to address emergency housing needs.

“Right now, there is no available housing in the city and the big projects are not going to happen for two years,” said Family of Woodstock Executive Director Michael Berg. “Tiny homes require much less infrastructure. If you have a place with water and sewer service the costs are minimal and they can be placed on a small lot where you can’t build much else.”

The idea of bringing tiny homes to Kingston originated with the Anti-Displacement Learning Network, a volunteer body appointed by Mayor Steve Noble to seek creative uses for the grant aimed at preventing current city residents from being forced out of town by spiraling housing costs. The team’s initial plan, developed in late 2020, was to use the money to build a “village” of up to 15 tiny homes at a vacant lot adjacent to the Ulster Performing Arts Center on which once stood the notorious Kings Inn.

Plans called for the homes to be set aside for homeless single adults to provide “non-congregate” emergency shelter for those who might otherwise be at risk of contracting Covid-19 in crowded homeless shelters or the county-run warming center located in a church basement.

But that plan ran into resistance from Mayor Steve Noble’s administration. Members of the network were told that the city’s zoning code did not permit tiny homes and that the available funding would not cover the support services needed. Members of the team clashed with then-city director of housing initiatives Kevin Corte over the issue, with several resigning in frustration. One of the former ADLN members, Rashida Tyler, said she believes the change in focus reflected an unwillingness on the part of city officials to provide housing and services for single homeless adults who make up about 56 percent of the city’s total homeless population.

Tyler noted that the city had also rejected a proposal by the team to use part of the grant to fund a program that would provide monthly stipends to homeowners to rent out unused space in their residences for homeless adults or those facing displacement from Midtown Kingston. Addressing the needs of the city’s homeless, she said, would require a “bigger, better and more comprehensive” solution than the one proposed.

“Three tiny homes that will provide shelter to families in need is better than nothing. It’s unfortunate that the project is so limited because the need is so great,” wrote Tyler who works on housing issues as head of the Real Kingston Tenants Union. “There’s a tremendous bias against helping the single adult homeless population and a tendency to cherry-pick populations that is literally leaving the most needy out in the cold.”

After turning down the concept of a tiny house village on Broadway, the city issued a formal request for proposals for a tiny home project aimed at homeless families. Family of Woodstock, said Noble, submitted the only feasible response.

Noble defended the decision to put the focus on homeless families rather than single adults. Currently, he said, families who lose housing in Kingston are placed in motels outside the city — and often outside the school district — by the county Department of Social Services. The Family plan, he said, would allow them to remain in the community.

“When families are displaced, they are often displaced to an area outside of our community and that’s really difficult for children,” said Noble. This will allow them to stay in our community and get a fresh start.”

Noble and Berg both described the tiny homes project as a test for a new model of transitional housing — one that could be replicated in other parts of the city if it proves successful. Berg, meanwhile, said tiny homes are just one piece of a larger effort to address the city’s housing affordability crisis; a critical stopgap measure while larger more permanent solutions are in the works.

“This homelessness pandemic, if you will, is going to be solved one family and one individual at a time,” said Berg. “So let’s keep talking about the big projects, but in the meantime let’s get some families housed.”