To House the Homeless, Berkeley Considers Stackable 'Microunits'

If Berkeley gets its way, its homeless population could someday be living in 160-square-foot “microunits”—sort of like comfy shoe boxes that can be stacked into larger structures.

The city council unanimously voted this week to explore the feasibility of a “rapid and cost-effective” deployment of these units, which would also be available to seniors, disabled people, and the extremely poor. The goal is to site them on an unspecified parcel of city land, possibly in a stack of 100 that reaches up four stories. The rent for the units is $1,000 a month, which would be paid by the city and is well below Berkeley’s average apartment rent of $3,233.