QuickTake:

Everyone Village has secured nearly $2.5 million in federal funding for a microvillage housing project. The grant will help the nonprofit build out its resources to help people find stable housing.

Everyone Village is planning to build affordable housing in a way that meshes with the Eugene nonprofit’s mission to help people exiting homelessness achieve independence and recovery. 

When the project is finished, a swath of about 100 tiny homes will be built at the nonprofit’s site in west Eugene, which now has 70 individual shelter huts and another 10 units for people who are recovering from hospital stays.

This microvillage housing project will be different from the village’s existing homes. The tiny homes will have bathrooms and be larger — two to three times the size of the units that are now at Everyone Village.

The new houses will differ from the village’s shelter huts in another important way: Occupants will be asked to pay a modest rent: about $300 a month.

“Those folks have kind of stabilized from the street, started services or regained health stability, and they’re now ready to expand even more on their own two feet to the degree of paying a modest amount to live in their home,” Gabe Piechowicz, founder and executive director of Everyone Village, said in an interview.

The 2-acre site, when developed and built, will accept people from homeless shelters with limited means to pay market-rate rentals. The approach represents one way that Eugene city leaders and Piechowicz want to tackle the city’s homelessness and affordable-housing crisis. 

There’s no date yet for when construction will start. But the pieces are starting to come together. Everyone Village recently secured nearly $2.5 million in federal funding with help from U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. Piechowicz said Everyone Village will do additional fundraising on the project.

Separately, Eugene officials are working on land-use code tailored for development projects like this. 

Eugene officials included microvillage housing among its solutions when it mapped out strategies in 2025 to address a need for 26,000 more housing units by 2045. Other actions include incentives and steps to encourage middle housing, which typically has more units than a single-family house but fewer than an apartment complex. 

For the microvillage housing, the next steps are for a proposed land-use code to come before the city’s planning commission and then the city council. No hearing is scheduled yet. The first hearing — before the commission — will likely happen in May, with the council making a decision likely by the end of 2026, said Leah Rausch, a senior city planner. 

“We wanted to just create this local path that made sense, would be more clear for applicants, more clear for folks who are reviewing it on the plan review side, and hopefully make it a little bit easier to get through the process,” Rausch said.

The model has had success elsewhere, including in Olympia, Washington, and Austin, Texas, according to a Eugene city report.

A positive vibe

Piechowicz said the houses will have plumbing with a bathroom — a sink, toilet and shower. Each house will have a countertop that could hold a microwave oven or hot plate, but not a full kitchen.

Instead, the plan is to have every 20 houses share a building that includes a full kitchen, dining space and laundry facilities.

The houses, while small, offer shelter for people if they’re living on a low fixed income or work a part-time job. Piechowicz said some people who have experienced trauma and homelessness want to work, but not in a traditional 40 hours per week job.

“They’re willing and able to work, but they’re not going to be able to work in such a way and at certain specific jobs that will allow them to be able to afford fair market housing,” he said. 

The homes will be available for anyone who makes up to 30% of the area median income. That limit is currently $19,250 for a one-person household, though the figure changes annually.

John Stapleton, principal and architect with PIVOT Architecture in Eugene, is working with Everyone Village on design. He said the houses will come in two sizes. The smaller ones will be 300 to 400 square feet, and the larger units will be 400 to 600 square feet. 

The exact breakdown of the unit sizes and total number of houses is still in the works.

Regardless of the size, Stapleton said the goal is for the homes to be designed in a way that is welcoming and makes people feel valued.

“We’re going to use art and design and positive vibes to make you feel good about yourself,” he said.

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.