ARPA Funds and Affordable Housing
Localities interested in implementing either tiny home or hotel conversion strategies to solve their affordable housing issues should take note of the costs and benefits of the project. National and local rules and regulations could greatly interfere with the enactment of a project. As the St. Louis case shows, changes to the U.S. Department of Treasury ARPA housing guidelines nearly shut down the city’s tiny home project with the Veterans Community Project.
Additionally, Williston’s choice to use ARPA dollars with their other revenue streams slowed the project’s implementation. Madison officials also ran into problems with city zoning and building code issues that required close interdepartmental collaboration with the city planning department.
Location is another factor that managers must consider in these projects. Motels and hotels are often not linked to essential services like grocery stores, schools, or health care facilities, and city administrators must weigh this when determining if a location of a hotel is suitable for maintaining a more permanent, lower-income community.
The location of tiny homes is also important in attracting unhoused individuals. Madison shows that when these communities are situated in more industrial, remote areas, it is harder to get buy-in from the individuals meant to inhabit those same communities.
The affordability of these projects is one of their primary benefits. Relatively minor renovations are required to convert hotel rooms into apartments, and tiny homes are inexpensive to build, relatively cheap to maintain, and only require low-skilled labor to construct. A potential detriment to this affordability is that tiny home communities in Madison and St. Louis are partnered with holistic social and workforce development services, as well as on-site security.
Perhaps the most important factor in enacting and sustaining these projects is creating community-buy in and fostering political support. The common theme in these cases is that they either had neighborhood support or support from elected officials like state-level politicians in Williston or the Mayor and former Secretary of State in Missouri. Adversely, negative community feedback centered upon the increased crime and density issues that come with these projects could potentially derail the initiatives altogether.