A family of five plans to move into a tiny house to raise awarness about childhood homelessness by designing, and building the perfect families-in-mind tiny home. The project began as a dream of homeless advocates Nathan and Tashina Monk. Perks of the campagin include their new book “Chasing the Mouse: A Story of Childhood Homelessness” which chornicles the story of Nathan’s own experience growing up without a home.
Tashina explains the motivation behind the tiny house project is the staggering number of homeless children in America, and needing to find a solution. “Working in the area of poverty, I was already aware that tiny homes are being utilized to house homeless individuals, which I greatly admire, but I decided it was time to make family friendly floor plans so families facing homelessness could benefit from them too. With with an estimated 2.5 million homeless children living in the US, we have to try something bold to raise awareness and find solutions.”
The book “Chasing the Mouse” tells the story of what it like to grow up in poverty and live with the broken promise of normalcy, “My father would promise that one day, once things got better and we no longer lived in dingy hotels or hopping from couch to couch, that we would visit the Happiest Place on Earth. This mythical family vacation became the signal that everything was alright. But that moment never came. For me this is both the story of the lost American Dream, of stolen family vacations, and at the same time, a magical journey on the road to redemption. Because if you look hard enough you will see magic waiting to burst forth from every corner and that the only limitation is our own fear.”
Once the Family Tiny House is built all designs and floor plans will be made available to the public for free, including how to videos and cost saving tools. “We will be release all our unique floor plans with interior and exterior design completely free. We will also produce step by step how-to videos on building one of our family sized tiny homes. We want this information to be free to the public because we feel that the best way to reduce excess spending and addressing the issues of family homelessness is though housing first. Our hope is that non-profits, civic groups, municipalities, and individuals will be able to use this free material in order to create free or affordable living.”