Tiny Homes Are Baby Steps Toward Reversing the Housing Crisis

Among the first things you notice when driving eastward into Baltimore are the blocks of decrepit row houses. The city claims that only 16,000 row houses in Baltimore are vacant. Skeptics say the real number is closer to 46,000, or 16 percent of the city’s housing stock.

Baltimore certainly isn’t the only city experiencing a housing crisis: The U.S. as a whole can’t seem to keep up with the growing numbers of very low-income households. In response, a handful of cities, from Nashville to Dallas, Detroit, and Seattle, have launched programs to build tiny houses for folks priced out of their homes.