Tag: Tiny house villages

homelessness

Homelessness Authority Rescinds Tiny House Village Grant, Gives Money to Salvation Army Instead
LIHI Director Sharon Lee speaks at the opening of Rosie's Tiny House Village in the University District
LIHI Director Sharon Lee speaks at the opening of Rosie’s Tiny House Village in the University District

By Erica C. Barnett

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority has rescinded a $3 million grant it gave the Low Income Housing Institute to build 60 new low-barrier tiny houses outside King County’s youth detention center, claiming LIHI delayed the process by failing to secure a site in time.

Tiny houses are small, freestanding, heated structures that provide shelter for one or two people. Unsheltered people often prefer tiny houses to other kinds of shelter because they provide privacy and a door that locks.

The money will now go to the Salvation Army, which will use it to convert some of the existing transitional housing beds at its William Booth Center in SoDo into non-congregate emergency shelter beds, according to KCRHA. While the converted rooms are technically “new” shelter beds, they aren’t really additive, since the people living in the existing transitional housing will either have to leave or see their housing downgraded to emergency shelter.

“Without this funding, we may have had to close beds,” Salvation Army spokeswoman Sara Beksinski said.

KCRHA spokeswoman Lisa Edge said the agency “chose to prioritize speed of implementation in the competition for these funds,” KCRHA spokeswoman Lisa Edge said. “Because LIHI could not perform in the period clearly outlined for the second location, we proceeded with an award to the next highest rated applicant, the Salvation Army.”

The Salvation Army’s original application was for $1.1 million; we have a call out to find out if this is how much the KCRHA awarded them and, if so, what will happen to the rest of the funds.

The $3 million more than half the funding—nearly $6 million—LIHI worked to secure for tiny house villages in the Seattle’s 2025 budget. The other half is funding a new tiny house village in North Seattle called Olympic Hills, which opened last month. The second shelter was a joint project between LIHI and Purpose Dignity Action’s CoLEAD program, which provides temporary lodging and intensive case management to people with physical and behavioral health needs; now, CoLEAD will relocate its operation to the North Seattle village.

In late January, LIHI appealed KCRHA’s decision, pointing to the agency’s own delays in approving contracts that were funded back in 2024, and says they were blindsided by the agency’s decision to take back the funds less than three months after they sent LIHI a letter signing off on the county-owned site.

“We should ask why the KCRHA’s [Request for Proposals] process took so long, given the homelessness crisis,” LIHI director Sharon Lee wrote in her appeal. Although the city council approved the funding in late 2024, the city didn’t announce the awards until the following July. “We believe it is KCRHA, not LIHI, that delayed the overall timeline in creating two new villages.”

Lee acknowledged that LIHI experienced hiccups securing a location for the second shelter, but said King County Executive Girmay Zahilay had made it clear that securing the King County site was a high priority for his new administration. As backup, Lee said, LIHI also secured an agreement with Mount Baker Housing for a second site—the old Thunderbird Treatment Center in Rainier Beach, which the housing nonprofit plans to redevelop in about three years.

“We were excited to have the county commit to finally doing something” with tiny houses, Lee said.

The KCRHA didn’t let Zahilay know they were rescinding LIHI’s funding for the planned tiny house village at the county site,  his office confirmed.

“Our office was not aware that KCRHA was going to rescind funding and award it to another provider, and we expressed disappointment that they did not update or coordinate with our administration before making this decision,” Zahilay spokeswoman Callie Craighead said.

Zahilay is currently “having initial conversations with stakeholders about the potential to site a tiny home village at the juvenile justice center property,” Craighead said. “Before a tiny home village is sited, we would need to engage with staff at the facility, see robust neighborhood outreach plans and timelines, and understand how services would be prioritized for those in need in the immediate area.”

The city’s budget didn’t explicitly grant the $6 million to LIHI, because all large contracts must go through a standard bidding process. But it was LIHI that secured the funding, working with City Councilmember Bob Kettle to add the money in 2024, with the understanding that it would fund tiny house villages or some other form of new noncongregate shelter.

In a letter rescinding KCRHA’s funds, KCRHA’s deputy director, Jeff Simms, blamed LIHI for the delays, saying the homelessness authority had already granted one extension to give LIHI more time to nail down a location and that this violated the KCRHA’s “preference for applications that had a site located and prepared for operation.”

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

But LIHI said the timeline was significantly more complex than the KCRHA was letting on, and pointed to another email from Simms, in October, saying that  “LIHI has met the requirements of the [request for proposals] to have located a site for operation of a second non-congregate shelter” at the juvenile detention center or the former treatment center.

That letter did note that KCRHA might “take steps” to reallocate the money to another agency if LIHI didn’t secure a site by December. Lee says LIHI signed a letter of intent with Mount Baker Housing to lease their Rainier Beach site and sent a copy to KCRHA in mid-December, but never heard anything back until the agency rescinded their funding in January. “For a whole month, there was silence, until they yanked the contract,” Lee said.

KCRHA CEO Kelly Kinnison rejected LIHI’s appeal earlier this month, and LIHI’s efforts to get city officials to intervene have been unsuccessful so far. Kettle, who got the money into the city budget back in 2024, told PubliCola, “We understand LIHI’s frustrations but also KCHRA’s need to press forward. We will work with both to move ahead on other important projects in [Council District 7] or that have important public safety impacts.”

A spokesman for Mayor Katie Wilson’s office, Sage Wilson, told PubliCola, “We’re not going to comment on the details of a dispute between LIHI and KCRHA. However this situation does underscore the importance of accelerating the development of emergency shelter, which is why the mayor has already issued an executive order doing just that.”

LIHI and KCRHA have long had a tense relationship, going back to the time of founding CEO Marc Dones, who frequently clashed with Lee over funding for her projects. Lee said she isn’t done fighting over the rescission, and she’s talking to KCRHA’s governing board about what she considers overreach by Kinnison and Simms.

Meanwhile, she said, “We are going to continue to develop tiny house villages, because we know that the mayor is very supportive and we think there are going to be other opportunities for us.” LIHI just opened a new tiny house village in Tukwila and is working to site a new RV safe lot, with tiny houses, in West Seattle.

homelessness

Tiny House Village in Southeast Seattle Remains Stalled as Winter Approaches
The vacant, overgrown lot on Rainier Ave. S that could be a tiny house village instead

By Erica C. Barnett

Plans to open a new tiny house village in Southeast Seattle’s Brighton neighborhood, just south of Hillman City, have stalled over an apparent lease dispute, according to the organization that has been trying to provide shelter at the site since 2023.

Nickelsville, a grassroots shelter provider that has operated sanctioned encampments and tiny house villages around the city for more than a decade, was weeks away from breaking ground at the site, in August 2024, when the city’s Human Services Department abruptly canceled the project.

In a story about the city’s sudden reversal, Real Change reported that Mayor Bruce Harrell’s deputy mayor overseeing homelessness, Tiffany Washington, personally denied the permit, citing a supposed lack of community outreach. “It was just NIMBYism,” a Nickelsville repreesntative told PubliCola last week. “We were saying, ‘Get to know us— we’re not a low-barrier shelter, we require sobriety in our villages—but they didn’t want to give it to us.”

After the Real Change story ran, the city reversed course, telling Nickelsville they could restart the process of getting a permit for the site. As they did the first time, the group went door to door distributing flyers and held a community meeting, this one at the Rainier Beach Community Center. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until early August, when, according to the Nickelsville representative, the city said there was some kind of problem with the lease.

“We finally got a meeting [with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, which is serving as an intermediary between the city and Nickelsville] on August 5, only to be told that [the city] has no idea how to execute the lease agreement,” the Nickelsville representative said. “We said, ‘What do you mean? How hard can it be?'”

According to HSD spokeswoman Kamaria Hightower, the department can’t sign a lease with Nickelsville’s faith sponsor, Lighthouse Temple Church, until the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections issues a permit for the property, which “requires an agreement that documents religious sponsorship.”

After PubliCola sent questions about the property to HSD and SDCI, SDCI’s permit portal showed a burst of new activity on the site, including a new permit allowing Nickelsville to move forward with repairs on a side sewer, one of several utilities that will have to be hooked up before the project can move forward.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

However, even if the city allows Nickelsville to start working on electric, water, and sewer connections, that’s no guarantee that HSD will approve, or even be directly in charge of, the lease. According to the Nickelsville representative, the city instructed the group to route all their communications with the city through KCRHA, an unusual arrangement if KCRHA is not going to hold the lease. (As PubliCola reported in May, a similar lease dispute nearly derailed the relocation of Tent City 4, another self-managed encampment that was on track to move to city-owned land until Mayor Bruce Harrell and then-councilmember Cathy Moore almost scuttled the deal).

Hightower said the department considers KCRHA “a critical partner on this project. KCRHA administers Nickelsville’s service contract and has provided support to the Brighton Village project at every stage, from proposal development and site selection to ensuring that community engagement requirements were met.”

However, HSD did not say whether the city or KCRHA will ultimately hold the lease for the tiny house village—a critical, if bureaucratic, hurdle that could further delay the project. “It is still to be determined if KCRHA will be formally represented on an agreement between the City and Nickelsville,” Hightower said. We’ve asked KCRHA for more details about their role in the project.

Elected officials and candidates have embraced tiny houses and other freestanding structures as a consensus, highly desirable form of shelter—unsheltered people are often eager to move into tiny houses because they are the most home-like shelter option available. But in practice, the city often puts up hurdles to construction, especially when neighborhood residents start to complain about the presence of homeless residents.

Partly in response to neighborhood pushback, the Brighton village—in the works for more than two years—has been shrunk down to just 14 units in order to leave a minimum of five feet between each unit, but it still faces significant hurdles. It’s possible it will never get built.

As Nickelsville noted in an action alert earlier this month, more than 800 people have died outdoors since the group started trying to site the Brighton Village project in 2023. “We really want to get started on this, because the weather’s changing and there are things we can do now,” the Nickelsville representative said. “If you’re just fiddling with the language of the lease—if that’s the real reason—let us start moving houses onto the property.”

Courts, homelessness, human services, King County

Burien Forfeits $1 Million for Shelter, Will Contract With Controversial Group for Outreach and Hotel Rooms

By Erica C. Barnett

King County has withdrawn its offer to provide $1 million to the city of Burien for emergency housing after the city spent a year considering and rejecting locations for a tiny house village. Most recently, the Burien City Council considered legislation that would prohibit tiny houses on a lot, owned by Seattle City Light, that they had tentatively approved as a shelter site.

The bill, which the council postponed, would have limited the size of lots where shelter is permitted to a size much smaller than the City Light lot; an amendment, proposed by Councilmember Stephanie Mora, would have also explicitly prohibited tiny houses by requiring that any shelter structure have permanent foundations.

In a letter to Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon, Deputy King County Executive Shannon Braddock wrote, “we are withdrawing King County’s offer of $1 million and 35 pallet shelters effective immediately,” in part because the county’s formal offer has been on the table for over one year and Burien has yet confirm a site and make use of the funds. In addition, the Burien City Council appears to be actively working to put in place restrictions that exclude pallet shelters on the site selected by the Burien Council.”

On top of the $1 million, the county offered Burien the chance to apply for $5 million to fund the operations of the tiny house village, but Burien “chose not to apply,” Braddock noted. Council members who opposed the funding frequently complained that it didn’t come with any operations funding beyond the initial million dollars. Burien’s annual general fund budget is around $36 million.

Braddock told PubliCola in a statement that the county “will now direct the $1 million and pallet shelters to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) to use on outreach and emergency housing for individuals in South King County, including addressing the District Court site in Burien” by providing portable toilets and handwashing stations.

Bailon has complained to the county about an encampment outside the courthouse and “shared [his] outreach team will not be able to service that area,” according to Braddock’s letter. In his response to Braddock, Bailon said he hadn’t asked for the toilets or handwashing stations, but said the city “is pleased to learn that steps are being taken to address the public health issue created by King County”—that is, the presence of homeless people at the courthouse.

In a related development, Burien is preparing to sign a contract for homeless encampment outreach with The More We Love, a private encampment removal company started by Kristine Moreland, a Kirkland real-estate broker who has volunteered with Union Gospel Mission. As PubliCola has reported, Moreland sent a spreadsheet containing private information about unsheltered people to city officials and a private business person.

 

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

The More We Love will reportedly use a small private system called Diversion Management Information Services, rather than the Homeless Management Information System used by most homeless service providers, to keep track of its clients’ data, including health and service information.

“Throughout the review process it was determined TMWL’s work proposed fit our funding goals, will be accessible to Burien’s unhoused community, and will be implemented in a timely manner,” Manuel Hernandez, a spokesman for the city of Burien, said.

Moreland’s group will receive funds originally allocated to other groups. First, they’ll receive the remaining funds that were previously allocated to REACH, a countywide outreach organization whose contract Bailon unilaterally terminated earlier this year; the city issued a request for proposals for $380,000 in outreach funding earlier this year. Second, they’ll get funding that was originally earmarked for a day center at Highline Methodist Church in Burien, which also hosts a severe weather shelter in the winter. Continue reading “Burien Forfeits $1 Million for Shelter, Will Contract With Controversial Group for Outreach and Hotel Rooms” →

homelessness, housing, King County, Police

Burien Proposes Transitional Housing Ban that May Violate State Law
Burien police chief Ted Boe.

By Erica C. Barnett

The Burien City Council discussed legislation Monday night that would ban transitional housing, including tiny house villages, within 500 feet of any school, park, day care, playground, or recreational facility, but—at the last minute—decided to hold off on approving it until they can figure out whether state law prohibits their plan. The original proposed amendment, from Councilmember Stephanie Mora, set the radius at 1,000 feet.

If passed, the ban would likely doom a planned tiny house village on property owned by Seattle City Light near SeaTac airport, because the land is located within 500 feet of private Kennedy High School, whose students have been a focus of “protect the children”-style objections to the proposed drug-and-alcohol-free village. Even without the ban, the legislation (as amended, also by Mora, last week) would prohibit the village unless the council amended it, because it restricts transitional housing to parcels much smaller (2 acres max) than City Light’s property.

It’s unclear whether the proposed restrictions would be legal.

During the meeting, council members as well as Burien’s city attorney, Garmon Newsom II, brought up a state law passed in 2021, HB 1220, that prohibits cities from banning transitional housing and shelter in residential areas, although he described it inaccurately—first saying that it only applied in areas where hotels are allowed (Burien, notably, has no hotels); then clarifying that it also said cities must allow transitional housing in residential zones, but that it was fine to bar it in “specific locations” because “we’re not excluding an entire zone. We’re just creating areas where these types of facilities may not be allowed.”

 

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

The legislation, sponsored by state Rep. Strom Peterson (D-21, Edmonds) says: “A city shall not prohibit transitional housing or permanent supportive housing in any zones in which residential dwelling units or hotels are allowed.”

The law goes on to allow cities to impose “reasonable” spacing and occupancy requirements. However, it does not appear to allow the kind of blanket ban Burien is now considering, according to Futurewise director Alex Brennan, whose organization was a key advocate for 1220. “The intent was just what the bill says—you have to allow transitional housing, permanent supportive housing, et cetera, anywhere that you allow residential,” Brennan said.

Rep. Strom Peterson (D-21, Edmonds), the lead sponsor of HB 1220, said the intent of his bill was to require cities to allow transitional housing, affordable housing, and shelter anywhere housing or hotels are allowed. “People should be allowed to live where people are allowed to live. Whether you’re making a million dollars a year or can spend $500 a night in a five-star hotel, or you’re someone who is much less fortunate, you should be able to live in the same area,” Peterson said. “I don’t see how a blanket ban like that follows the law.” Continue reading “Burien Proposes Transitional Housing Ban that May Violate State Law” →

Courts, homelessness, King County

Burien Moves Forward on Tiny House Village as Mayor Vilifies Police Chief for Not Enforcing Camping Ban

 

Burien Mayor Kevin Schilling

By Erica C. Barnett

The Burien City Council advanced a zoning change during its meeting last night that would allow a tiny house village on a piece of property owned by Seattle City Light. The zoning rule, as amended by the council, will allow future transitional housing only on properties between one and two acres, and will cap the size of such housing at 30 residents—a change that cuts the potential size of the long-planned tiny house village by half.

Before voting for the zoning change, Burien Mayor Kevin Schilling complained at length about the “previous council” and King County, which has offered $1 million to fund the project, saying that the proposal “was thrown at us” by the county with no room for dissent.

“What we have the ability to do here is amend that ridiculous process that happened last year from the county,” Schilling said. “We are making decisions about the future of land use in the city of Burien, not just for this one singular project, which was not organically decided by our planning commission or our city council. It was something that was shoved to us by the county without any flexibility. So we have an opportunity here to reverse the process.”

The council voted 6-1 (with Stephanie Mora dissenting) to place the rezone on next week’s consent agenda, after a public comment period in which two veteran Burien police officers denounced City Manager Adolfo Bailon and the council for demanding the removal of longtime Burien Police Chief Ted Boe. Boe works for the King County Sheriff’s Office, which provides police services to the city under a contract; Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall recently sued the city after the council banned sleeping or “living” outdoors 24 hours a day.

Boe provided a statement supporting the lawsuit, which claims the ban violates the 8th and 14th Amendments, and has not been enforcing the law.

Both officers who spoke said they were speaking on their own accord and did not tell Boe they planned to testify on his behalf.

“I cannot sit back and let one man be insulted, demeaned and vilified for issues that are clearly failures by the city government for the last several years,” Officer Mark Hayden told the council. A second officer, Henry McLauchlan, said that if the city ousts Boe, it will result in an officer exodus to “more supportive organizations within the county. … Nobody, except the least senior deputies and sergeants, will be forced to work a place that does not support constitutional policing.” 

Schilling has claimed repeatedly (including a meeting of the council majority that apparently violated the state Open Public Meetings Act last week) that Boe could simply choose to “enforce the parts of the ordinance” that ban unsheltered people from occupying public space during the day. (In city manager-council governments like Burien’s, the council picks one of their members to serve as mayor every two years, and the city manager serves as the executive.)

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

In fact, the total ban the council passed last year “repeal[s] and replace[s]” the older law. Boe has no legal authority to enforce a law that doesn’t exist, even if the council later regrets repealing it.

Schilling also claimed, during an interview on KIRO Radio, that the city never stopped paying the King County Sheriff’s Office for its services (as Bailon, in fact, directed city staff to do in response to the lawsuit earlier this year). “The only part that we’re not paying them for is the part that they’re not enforcing,” Schilling said, referring to the homeless ban. “So we’re not paying for that element of it because they’re not doing their job.” 

A spokesman for the sheriff’s office, Captain Cory Stanton, said the office has not billed Burien yet for the first half of 2024, so there is no way to know yet whether they plan to pay their bills for police service, and how much. “The fact is, we’re going still provide [police] services to the city of Burien, and if they don’t pay, that’s a conversation the command staff will have to have,” Stanton said.

It’s unclear how long the tiny house village will be able to stay at the City Light property, assuming the council approves it next week. The city has delayed approval of the project, which includes a $1 million no-strings contribution from King County, for most of the last year. PubliCola has reached out to City Light for more information about how long the property will be available and will update this post when we hear back.

homelessness, human services

In Divided, Last-Minute Vote, Burien Says “Yes” to County’s $1 Million Shelter Offer
Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon and City Attorney Garmon Newsom II

By Erica C. Barnett

The Burien City Council voted Monday night to take King County up on a six-month-old offer to provide $1 million and 35 Pallet shelters, voting 4-3 to accept the money and locate the temporary shelter on a vacant lot owned by Seattle City Light. The late-night vote, which came almost literally at the 11th hour, just barely met the November 27 deadline set by King County for Burien to or lose the funding, provided through a federal ARPA grant.

The Burien council has been debating what to do about the encampment, whose residents the city has repeatedly swept from place to place, since March. In September, the council prohibited homeless people from sleeping outdoors at night; that ban goes into effect on December 1.

The money will be administered through the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, which will choose a shelter provider through a competitive bidding process that, according to KCRHA spokeswoman Anne Martens, typically takes about three months. The Low-Income Housing Institute, a nonprofit that operates many tiny house villages around the region, has sent its chief strategy officer, Jon Grant, to testify in favor of the agreement at recent Burien City Council meetings, but Grant said the shelter and housing agency has not decided yet if they’ll bid on the project.

Asked about next steps, KCRHA, King County, the city of Burien, Seattle City Light, and the Seattle Human Services Department all gave different versions of the same response: They’ll have to meet and hammer out the details, so stay tuned.

One of the most important of those details is a lease between KCRHA and the city of Seattle for the use of City Light site, which a City Light spokesperson said “has not yet been negotiated [or] received.” Burien city manager Adolfo Bailon has declined to answer Burien council members’ questions about the site, claiming it would be premature to provide details before the council approved the plan to put the shelter at that location.

According to a spokesman for the Seattle Human Services Department, if the city receives a formal proposal from KCRHA, “HSD will work with KCRHA and the City of Burien to discuss next steps including potential terms and costs associated with use of the site.”

Last week, the council deadlocked over the City Light location and another potential shelter site in Boulevard Park, a low-income neighborhood near SeaTac Airport. Monday’s meeting was a hail-Mary, and a bit of a fluke: At the end of last week’s meeting, just three council members voted to support Councilmember Cydney Moore’s motion to hold one last meeting to discuss the offer, but because three others abstained (with Deputy Mayor Kevin Schilling voting “no”), Moore’s motion passed.

Councilmember Stephanie Mora—who said last week that she would not attend Monday’s meeting because she doesn’t think the government should play a role in addressing homelessness—attempted to enhance this language with an amendment saying no one could enter the site if they were “under the influence” of drugs or alcohol.

Proponents of the Boulevard Park site argued that it had plenty of access to services and food thanks to the presence of two bus lines and a nearby Dollar Tree. Opponents countered that the site was poorly served by transit, lacked access to services, and would subject tiny house village residents to particulate and noise pollution from planes overhead.  The council had already voted against allowing the shelter on a piece of city-owned land in downtown Burien, which would have given residents access to homeless services, multiple bus lines, and several full-service grocery stores.

The City Light site, Moore noted Monday, was a “compromise” between a piece of city-owned land in downtown Burien that the council had previously rejected and the Boulevard Park location, which came with its own significant baggage. Councilmember Hugo Garcia, who supported the original downtown Burien site, said the council majority’s proposal to put the shelter in a low-income, majority-minority neighborhood “smacks of white supremacy.”

“I personally don’t feel that this is necessarily ideal, but in the spirit of compromising to find something that we can move forward with I am willing to accept these terms,” Moore said.

Enjoying this article? PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you. Help keep PubliCola sustainable by CLICKING HERE to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

The “terms” Moore was referring to included a stipulation that residents can’t drink alcohol or use illegal drugs on site or in the surrounding neighborhood, among many other parameters. Councilmember Stephanie Mora—who said last week that she would not attend Monday’s meeting because she doesn’t think the government should play a role in addressing homelessness—attempted to enhance this language with an amendment saying no one could enter the site if they were “under the influence” of drugs or alcohol.

Although Mora’s amendment passed, the KCRHA, not Burien, will actually set the terms of its request for proposals for the site, and it’s extremely unlikely that the KCRHA, the city of Seattle, or any homeless service provider would agree to such stringent terms.

In an email to city manager Adolfo Bailon last Wednesday, KCRHA intergovernmental relations manager Nigel Herbig attempted to explain this—noting, for example, that while KCRHA can set broad parameters for shelter providers, such as “congregate or noncongregate,” shelter providers have the authority to establish their own rules. LIHI and other shelter providers do ban drug and alcohol use at some of their locations and have behavioral codes of conduct, but they don’t restrict access to shelter based on whether a shelter resident is “under the influence”—a standard that could require drug testing every person entering a site.

After this year’s elections, the Burien City Council will have a five-member supermajority of members who support the city’s hard-line approach to homelessness. King County’s money will run out in a year, but it’s likely that additional funding will materialize if the shelter is successful and the next council doesn’t oppose keeping the shelter open.

A poison-pill amendment, also by Mora, that would have shuttered the shelter as soon as the million dollars ran out, effectively barring outside funding for the shelter, failed.

Grant, of LIHI, said his agency “would need to see the details before deciding to move forward with an application”; their questions, he said, include when the program would end and whether LIHI would be required to use the Pallet-branded shelters that were part of the county’s initial offer, or if they could bring in their own stick-built “tiny houses,” which are larger and more homey than Pallet’s utilitarian sheds.