Lindsay Wood 0:00

You get tiny homes in there and it disrupts. It's a disruptor to that whole market because literally, I think if we were like, "Hey guys, we have 100 homeowners that want to do it in their backyard", we could absolutely get probably 100 tiny homes, you know, built within a few months.

Ethan Waldman 0:19

Welcome to the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast, the show where you learn how to plan, build and live the tiny lifestyle. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman, and this is episode 150 with Lindsey Wood. Lindsey Wood is an evangelist for tiny living and these days, she's as busy as ever. As the pandemic has put economic pressure on a large swath of the country, tiny houses are being increasingly seen as a solution to housing unaffordability and inequality. But there are some big legal hurdles to get over before we can get there. And in this interview, Lindsay helps us explore them and learn about what's happening. Stick around.

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Right I am here with Lindsey wood. Lindsey Wood the tiny home lady is the founder and CEO of Experience Tiny Homes helping people dreaming of going tiny overcome hundreds of choices to make their dream tiny home a reality. After their own tiny home builder went bust in the middle of their custom tiny home build Lindsay created innovative strategies to change the way tiny homes are designed and purchased. Lindsay now dedicates her life to helping people follow their dreams of living tiny, specializing in tiny home design, material and appliance selection, and builder analysis. Lindsay is on the board of the Tiny Home Industry Association focused on legalizing tiny homes across the US as well as creating new standards for tiny homes. Lindsay Wood, welcome back to the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast.

Lindsay Wood 2:37

Thank you, Ethan. It's great to be here. Love, love what you do out there. I follow your podcasts and listen to it often.

Ethan Waldman 2:44

Thank you. Yeah, and I love what you do. Tiny Home Industry Association has just really been moving and shaking in the last year or two. And I know you're you're really involved with what they do. So thank you for that work as well.

Lindsay Wood 2:57

Absolutely. It's been great to connect to all the builders out there, and also people that are really passionate about advocating for legalizing tiny homes.

Ethan Waldman 3:06

Yeah. So you reached out to me about a month or so ago and said, "Hey, have you done a podcast episode about tiny houses as a solution for COVID evictions?" And I said, "No. How about about you?" So, you know, let's just start there. You know, we're talking on January 26 2021. You know, what, what's the current state of things? And you know, how connected to this problem are you in the tiny house movement?

Lindsay Wood 3:44

Thank you. Yes. So of course when I was seeing all the moratorium, you know, I feel very housing secure because we have a tiny home we also have the ability to stay in my parents house every winter when they travel elsewhere. So we are in that nomadic reality on that we've got options. But for other people on namely, a friend of mine out in the East Coast is is very much looking daily and trying to figure out his best way to stay in his home for him and his family. Because he is one of those people where he actually got COVID and he's in a situation where his industry just, you know, lost a lot of revenue and he wasn't able to make up you know, the rent payments and now he's facing eviction. So the moratoriums on the evictions are really critical in keeping people in their houses. One other piece of this you know, when it all started, you know, all of us are like, okay, March of last year, almost a year into this that you know, of course there'd be moratorium, you know, for a few months. Well now we're just in that rolling. You know, things are starting to expire and then they get extended and then they expire and then they get extended like right now as this recording. We are January 26 and the CDC is supposed to have the expiration on the 30th. Like we're talking in a matter of days. And if you're one of those people that could potentially be evicted, without that moratorium or any kind of safeguards, you're hoping that gets extended. Right? And that's really something right now President Biden has pushed for. But once again, does that mean it's going to come?

Ethan Waldman 5:26

Right, right. And so I guess I had never really thought about this, like, I knew that there had been a moratorium on evictions. And I kind of assumed that that was evictions due to inability to pay rent, you know, because so many people have lost their sources of income because of the pandemic. But does that also apply to, for example, someone living in a tiny house in a backyard that gets flagged by the zoning administrator, like, are those included?

Lindsay Wood 5:57

Probably different, though, you know, because once again, that definitely falls into that realm. And I love how much you've covered this, you know, angle of it, like, obviously, a big reason why the Tiny Home Industry Association, so focused on legalizing around the country, I mean, at this moment, I mean, a year ago, we didn't - during COVID time, we had the City of San Diego, County of Santa Clara, City of San Jose, and Humbolt County all amend and approve their tiny homes in backyards. Now, that's not like tiny home villages and cottage industry, what we call Tiny Home Zones. That's, that's the next frontier. But it's at least a step in the right direction for people that want to live legally. Now, they have so many more options. Of course, they've got to find and connect with a single family home. But back to this COVID moratorium reality, you know, state by state, it's different, like state of California has extended, but other states don't. And then they fall to the CDC, because now they can go to more of a federal support. But then that is even, you know it. And I've also heard where landlords are being able to like kind of maneuver there are ways around it. I mean, you know, I have I have compassion for the people that have mortgages on their property. And the banks aren't really saying, sorry, you don't have to pay your mortgage this month, because of what's going on. So we're all connected. And yet it's the renter at the end of the day that gets told to leave.

Ethan Waldman 7:25

Yeah. And those are usually the people who are, you know, most vulnerable.

Lindsay Wood 7:32

Absolutely, housing insecure. And that taps into the people that are living under the radar is what I call, you know, the ones in backyards that aren't necessarily legal, I've done pretty much only living under the radar with our tiny home. So I don't know any different. But we were, the reason why we ended up having to go home is that we were told to leave, because they were going to put the house on the market. That was all right before COVID. So we ended up leaving and never ended up putting the house on the market. And these things happen, you know, when you do not own the property, and you don't have a permit to say you can be there. Yeah, so there's work to do on all angles. However, given that that's happening, one of the solutions I'm looking at is being the person that creates that kind of housing, you know, looking at specifically San Diego, because that's where we're going to move in this summer. The City of San Diego has approved and legalized tiny homes and backyard. As a real estate investor, this is what I've done for the last five years: bought homes, flipped them, put them back on the market. I no longer want to do that without you know, some component of affordable housing. Um, you know, I realize I'm raised in a capitalistic world. I have a great MBA, though. So I like I like the mix of being able to be providing home and affordable housing at the same time. So the model would look like this, you buy a single family home, you put the tiny home in the backyard, and you put it instead of the garage, you transform it into a junior accessory dwelling unit or the master bedroom, depends on the house. And now what you have is a tiny home micro village. You know, you've got the ability for either the homeowner to live in the main home, rent out the two other spaces. Or it could be multi generational. And now what we've done is actually brought on more affordable housing by the nature of it being small, it will be lower rent, and it'll be brand new. So there's a lot of opportunities out there.

Ethan Waldman 9:31

Right and then you're for the maybe not the first time but you're you're offering nice new housing to low income folks rather than the kind of dregs and whatever is the cheapest?

Lindsay Wood 9:46

Pretty much. Yeah, because people are like, "This is what I can afford" and now they have to go out based on their budget to what they can afford. And that's largely I've lived in Marin County. There's a lot of you know, under the radar in-law backyard cottages, you name it kind of thrown together because no one's checking on. But with a tiny home, all of its being built brand new. So you've got the ability to really have someone live in a quality home doesn't, you know, there's all different levels, of course, within the tiny home world, as you know, different materials selections, you name it, I would personally be looking at something in the probably $70,000 range that would fit more of the market that I'm going to be purchasing it. But the notion that in addition to that the person now buying the home, can see that as an investment property that they get to live in. And I'm seeing what they call cap rates or interest rates of, of well beyond 10%. Just something you really even in a really good stock market. I know that's going on right now, a lot of people don't want to play the stock market, and they really believe strongly in real real estate.

Ethan Waldman 10:54

Right? Right. And, and from what I've read, it sounds like, you know, real estate has been booming during the pandemic, and it is probably going to continue, which is, you know, is great if you are able to own real estate, but again, it's kind of demonstrating how the pandemic has exacerbated inequality. And, you know, the those who have are kind of, you know, we're working from home, it's great, we're living our best life, but right, you know, the entire group of people who have either lost their jobs or have to go to work every day, and risk their lives are often not able to kind of take advantage and cash in on the real estate boom. So I'm curious, you know, given that inequality, you know, how do you see tiny houses, you know, as a solution in the short term, like, what's what's happening to put, you know, people to connect people to tiny houses?

Lindsay Wood 11:54

Yeah, yeah. So really awesome question because I'm with I'm with so many people out there, you know, they want homeownership. I've been doing a deep dive in market research there was about in a recent Facebook group, tiny house comes up. Renee from tiny, fast put out one comment, she said, "I want to live in a tiny home because dot dot dot" fill in the blank, over 700 people respond to that comment? Well, I started doing little tick marks, like, what were the things that they said, and I started, you know, looking at the motivators, and financial is up there. But simplification of your life is the highest, like, by far, sustainability is in there, travel, having more experience, you know, keeping your home clean, cleaner is easier type of thing. But the one thing people also want is ownership of the property below them, right? Because when you own that, that's when you own real housing security. Right? Not just the tiny home on top of it. And so I recently heard about, - yeah go ahead.

Ethan Waldman 12:57

Well, I was just gonna say like, it is kind of paradoxical, because like you, you know, you could own your own tiny home and achieve that dream of homeownership. But unless you own the land under it, you're still just a renter.

Lindsay Wood 13:09

So true. Yes. And I, you know, I was excited, at least it's a step in the right direction. So I will say that, like, Hey, I was making, I was spending $1500 a month in a little in law unit for 500 square feet, in Morin, San Rafael, California. And then now all of a sudden, we were able to with family money, be able to purchase the tiny home. And so then all of a sudden, we were paying, I mean, awesome that we were able to pay $500 course, you know, that ended, but $500 was amazing. So that was like $1,000 in our pocket, or it was another $1,000 I didn't have to spend and I could launch this business. I mean, there's a reason why I'm even able to do this. And that's because I've gone tiny, you know, to be able to do a business, it takes a lot of, you know, input of resource and time and money early on. But it's because I ditched the, you know, the large monthly rent and, and, of course, my life's a little bit interesting and unique right now, like most people in COVID time, but it will share one new legislation. And I can't remember that ad. But it's related to California, and that there's a law where if a nonprofit builds the home, as well as has the tiny home, there's a way that you can separate the property. And the person with the tiny home or the ADU, you could actually own the land under it. I mean, that kind of opened my eyes big time because now you're sitting there owning you know, your smaller footprint as part of your land, not the entire property. So you know, maybe that's the kind of legislation we're like, well, if it's only a nonprofit, how can I take advantage, all those other things, but at least is a sign in the right direction that people are thinking of how can we really actually tap into you know zoning all those type of laws that we need to start making an effecting change so that people can actually own the land under them and not be worried about being told you got to go, because now we've made choices in our lives that no longer involve you. In this cute little adorable tiny house.

Ethan Waldman 15:16

So yeah, so it sounds like there are some solutions that, you know, involve real estate? Well, actually, I'll say there are solutions that involve individual homeowners kind of offering up their yard and potentially maybe splitting their yard and selling a piece of it to a tiny home dweller. But what is the role? I'm curious, I want to talk about two different groups like what's the role of the real estate developer in this? And then I also want to get to what's the role and what's happening with with state and local government?

Lindsay Wood 15:51

Oh, yeah. And I can definitely speak from a California perspective, just because I am here. And I've been keeping in it. And obviously, it's where a lot of ordinance are being written. And for anyone listening, that is like, well, I don't live in California, how does that help me? The awesome part. And Dan Fitzpatrick, president of the Tiny Home Industry Association, and who we call godfather of legalizing Tiny Homes, um, you know, really speaks to the fact that government loves to model after other government. So if there's ordinances been written, it took three years for LA to approve something. And a city that size is almost like the equivalent to a state population elsewhere in the country. So they've done it and they've dotted their i's and cross their T's and look at their audience like, it's all this ordinance language is available for anyone to look online, because it's all part of the public domain. Yeah. So someone else somewhere else can also tap into that on but when it comes to affordable housing, let me go share a little bit of what Dan really talks about in his overall presentation. Traditionally, at least the way it happens here in California, because we are an expensive place to live on $480,000 per door, is what it costs a city or a county to build affordable housing. Let me just say that number again, $480,000. And that just brings it up so that the developer will say yes, to building there, because the developer, if they're going to be renting, or building this whole thing, putting all this money in last thing they're going to do is say yes to something that's going to receive a lower rent, or they want to make money. They want to make money, they're in it, they're 100%, capitalism is alive and well in that world. So now, the state of California is like, we need more housing. Okay, great. county and city will help subsidize, Oh, my God. $480,000. You and I can do the math Ethan how many Tiny Homes is that? Like, five? You know, why level? You know, it's probably close to 10. On a custom tiny home. It could be five I mean, anywhere from five to 10. Homes. Yeah. And how someone can live in, you know, in addition to that affordable housing took years to bring about, right, they don't just happen overnight. Meanwhile, the need is now. The need was yesterday. Right? So those are some of the interesting things with Tiny Homes. There's no taxpayer dollars needed. You know, but the reality is, and this is where Dan really kind of put a I don't know what organization was telling me, I think he tells it to everyone, every elected official that is considering doing this, what he says is take a portion of that money that you would have spent on affordable housing, and do a massive campaign, you know, in Dan's words, send leaflets from the sky and letting people know that they now can put Tiny Homes on wheels, you know, well under 100,000, because ADUs on foundation, the accessory dwelling units are way more expensive than that they're into the like 150, 200, you know, 300 or more? Yeah. And they'll take longer.

Ethan Waldman 18:59

Yeah. And, you know, just speaking about, you know, Burlington, Vermont, the city where I'm from, I've spoken to planners, they want to do tiny houses. But if you run into this is a city on a lake, and the lake is polluted, and so there's there's water there stormwater runoff issues, there's a lot coverage issues. It's a tiny old city that was not planned for modern cars, so there's no part there's parking issues. And it's just like, what starts as this kind of pie in the sky. Of course, this is an empty backyard. Let's stick a tiny house in there. Right? Right. It becomes this bureaucratic nightmare. And I'm curious, like, you know, California is absolutely notorious for being the most bureaucratic nightmare of all,

Lindsay Wood 19:45

Yes, true.

Ethan Waldman 19:46

How our cities like San Diego, making it so that sure you get your $60,000 tiny house on wheels, but then by the time you're done running sewer lines to it and like burying And paving the lot and like making sure there's a parking spot you, you've spent another $70,000 on the parking spot,

Lindsay Wood 20:08

Hopefully not that much, what I have heard most is about 20. And that included a concrete pad for the tiny house. The good news is, and of course, it always comes back to a reader, you have to look at jurisdiction or in. But my understanding from what I've been seeing is that there's different materials because the biggest expense, there's two big expenses to that is the concrete you're going to use. Or you and one of the solutions to that is using a gravel bed, you know, you dig out the ground below, you put in rock bed, and now you've got a permeation You know, I'm really big on let's not put concrete everywhere, you know, the song paved paradise and put up a parking lot. So let's not do that. Let's put in pavers, let's put in, you know, gravel bed under the areas that are just touching. For the tires, you don't need the whole pad because most of the tiny home is not touching that pad. It's only the wheels and the stabilizers, right? Or blocks if you put it up on blocks. And so then the other big expense is sewer laterals. So if you've got a property that you know, there's one in San Luis Obispo where the home was higher than where the tiny home was going to be, they needed to put in probably like a couple $1,000 of a pump that was going to take the sewer and bring it back up to the street level. Right? It really depends property by property. But you can I've heard where it's possible. So anywhere from like 3000 to 5000. Now if your home is like 70-75, you add 3-5, maybe all the way up to 20 if you're doing the full concrete, Full Tilt Boogie, right? Right. So it's still doable and a lot you know, I'm hearing that San Diego has actually been really amenable to even setbacks and putting houses right on property lines. You do need it to only 10 feet away from the actual house. That's not that much. I'm seeing a lot of opportunity down there. I am seeing though that there is a certain need to crane a home if it has to come on the chassis, right. So there are other companies like Wilderwise who's doing some unique things have been able to be modular on but there's still the crane that you know cost somewhere in the three to $5,000 to crane it over a home

Ethan Waldman 22:20

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Lindsay Wood 24:48

Yep, absolutely. And there is back porch homes and they were working on some way of putting it on a trailer but then once they mounted it, they were using these you know tie downs and such way that then now would be considered a home that could be, you know, it gets into this whole thing. Like when you build a home on foundation, you build to a California Building Code or whatever state building code, you're dealing with state and local building codes. And when you build it on a chassis, it falls into either manufacturing home or RV Park Model, on or even like NFPA. But most people are doing the RV and the park model version, because those are what cities are actually, you know, approving and permitting.

Ethan Waldman 25:32

Got it? Yeah. Before we started rolling, you said something that caught my attention that I wanted to make sure to ask you about, which is, you started saying I want to talk about traditional affordable housing versus tiny house affordable housing. What did you mean by that?

Lindsay Wood 25:47

Right. And that there's it's a thing now well, because this comes back to, once again, I think my mind is still trying to wrap my head around the fact that so much money is spent by taxpayer dollars, to bring affordable housing to fruition. There's a whole system behind it, there's contractors, and the, you know, elected officials that are that are needing it, because here in the state of California, there is major demand for affordable housing, and there's mandate, city by city, county by county they check every year, well, what was your affordable housing? You know, how did you achieve that, and most of them are always falling way under their projected numbers. So now it's about getting, you know, recognition of the tiny home as that affordable housing and being able to check off that bar for that city or county, right. We go back to the traditionally, it's just the way it's done, they, you know, x XYZ developer will get the, you know, the ability to go forward and they get all this chunk of money so that they're able to make up the difference of what it costs to build for normal market housing, and what it costs to build or what they're not going to get when they do affordable housing. It's also apartment buildings, it's all still, it just who's able to get it under the HUD housing, reality. And so you get tiny homes in there and it disrupts, it's a disruptor to that whole market. Because literally, I think if we were like, "Hey, guys, we have 100 homeowners that want to do it in their backyard", we can absolutely get probably 100 tiny homes with it, you know, if who you know, and who I know, you know, built within a few months, done like that. And now the people are owning them, they have home ownership, you know, they're not just a renter, because they think people are also still renters in the places that are even dubbed affordable houses. Right.

Ethan Waldman 27:41

Right. So that makes me kind of wonder, how do you see this scaling? Because like, you know, we can talk about one one backyard at a time or maybe like 100 houses in a city, but how does this scale and get it you know, big enough to meet the growing demand.

Lindsay Wood 27:57

And and just to dip back into just there was something I thought about I want to connect infill housing, you know, kind of the reality of like California versus Vermont, you know, beautiful rolling area. I love Vermont like so beautiful. Friends, family, friends and Waitsfield. And so Mad River Glen, and so we have the, you know, the California very densely populated and no desire for a big sprawl to happen. Right. So now we already have existing roads, existing schools, existing public transportation, populating, we got to put people somewhere, you know, it is growing, if it's not growing, we're seeing the tent cities on the sides of the freeways growing, so something's growing, population's growing. And so that's where I think this this scaling effect, if the city officials and elected officials, both county and city, got Santa Clara and Humbolt are the two counties that said yes, those are no light tasks, because you got a wide vast, you know, area from you know, in Santa Clara, they got from the coastline, you know, to the mountain range. They got to cover a lot of territory, same with Humbolt, right. Right. And they did it. Same with the cities have done it. Because they know they've got to figure out a way to get people housed in a way that's going to be effective and fast. And so I look to these ordinances and say, well, they're already done. Do a lot of homeowners even know that that's there. There were some coverage Absolutely. There was coverage. You know on CBS and what you have to do it repeatedly right? Right. You hear one time and then how it goes but now we're a year almost a year into COVID there may be a family out there that's like what do we do? right you know grandma's in this on you know housing facility that she can get around and as long as there's no crazy steps and you know, she can make her own food she could be in the backyard. Or she could be in the junior accessory dwelling unit. We could be in the backyard and give someone else our home and let and we'll go travel you know when we all can.Flexibility is I feel like the word. flexibility and options are like the two big words that tiny homes bring to all environments around there. And then you got Vermont, you know better more about, like, how can how is it possible? It's likely that they're gonna say, Well, if we have all these homes here, we need to figure out the roads, we need to figure out infrastructure. Yeah.

Ethan Waldman 30:24

Well, it's, it's interesting, because it doesn't seem to be a problem for, for moneyed investor, real estate investors to put up, you know, like, giant housing projects in the city. Yeah, and they, they include affordable housing, and I'm giving air quotes here, but it's kind of not really affordable housing.

Lindsay Wood 30:45

You see, after we've just shared 480,000, I'm gonna keep saying that dang number. And that may be different state to state, but someone somewhere is paying for that. And guess what, guess who's paying for that? We are!

Ethan Waldman 30:58

We all are.

Lindsay Wood 30:59

And I know I might sound I don't know, one way blue red bubble. I'm like purple people, like we both get to win. We all get to win, there's still going to be affordable housing complexes being built. Yeah, but there could also be the Tiny Homes and backyards for multi generational purposes. For purposes of, you know, people needing to make more investment on their property, you know, flexibility and options. That's what we're we've been given and, and as a real estate investor/tiny home expert, what a unique way to blend those two worlds. And that's what I really feel is my next like, well, who else is doing this, people are still gonna do the house flip. There's plenty of flips out there still doing that model like but who's doing the flip with the tiny home and the junior at the same time, right? Because here's the interesting part about the junior by saying I'm going to do a junior that literally is transforming the garage into a home where it just has an efficiency kitchen and bathroom in it means that that homeowner will always have to live in that home that investment investors cannot own that housing, that we can actually create affordable housing in perpetuity by just putting a junior accessory dwelling unit in that house.

Ethan Waldman 32:14

So the junior dwellers basically use the bathroom in the main house?

Lindsay Wood 32:19

True there's there's a shared bathroom and I had in my mind, well, let's put a bathroom in the junior because that way everyone can be private. And someone made a real estate agent, it was Lensky Realty made it or no, an appraiser really made a good point that if you put something like a bathroom in there, and now they can meet all their needs. And if you do that, then in a way, I think more investors can live - my understanding about the junior accessory dwelling unit laws or ordinance is that once you have that permitted, and likely it is a shared bathroom, this is some of the details I have to figure out. Because I do think it'd be nice to have your own bathroom. But you know, maybe, maybe toilet and sink, I don't know, you know, something that you can do separate, but you can't do the showering thing. But that basically makes that home forever have to have the owner live in one of the three units. And that creates, you know, more affordable now if we get some more opportunity where people can, you know, do that separation and the tiny homeowner, you know, that separated from the house can now own their own little slice of that property. That's the next game changer. That is like, true ownership.

Ethan Waldman 33:33

I think that, you know, one thing that a lot of cities are kind of trying to combat is, you know, investors coming in, buying single family homes or apartments, and then putting them on Airbnb where they can earn a huge rate of return. And, you know this in a way that helps to prevent that also from happening and to, you know, to kind of ensure that this isn't going to just become a glorified hotel room, it's going to actually add to the housing stock.

Lindsay Wood 34:05

Absolutely. In fact, the way the ordinances are largely written is that the junior or the tiny home, as the ADU cannot be a short-term living experience. So that is in the ordinance visually. Do people get around that when people you know, do something about you sure. But the ownership of the fact that an investor can own that property - if I just put a tiny home in the backyard and didn't do the junior, I can turn around and be a real estate investor/owner and just be a landlord all day long. That's why I feel it'd be so great to do the junior to make sure that property stays as a an ownership type of property.

Ethan Waldman 34:47

To say somebody's listening to this and they are either facing eviction themselves, or somebody listening and says, "You know, I want to get involved. How do I connect, you know, eviction to people with tiny houses?" Do you know of any efforts that are underway in that in that regard?

Lindsay Wood 35:05

You know what I don't know, what I can offer is definitely a 20 minute call with me. And we'll figure it out together, you know, because ultimately, people still, you know, they may still be having income, they may still be having unemployment, but not enough to pay the rent that was once there. Are they interested in going tiny, that's a really important thing. I realize tiny homes aren't for everyone. But those who listen to this channel most likely are intrigued and interested in tiny homes. If you're on that path, you know, there's a dream tiny home waiting for you.

Ethan Waldman 35:36

And so what is what is THIA doing around this?

Lindsay Wood 35:41

So right now, based off the wonderful success we've had in California, I know Dan is currently working in a number of different state level. You know, we're talking state level, there's one in the Midwest, I think north of you, Maine. And even in Florida, they're actually looking at doing a unique thing where within the Department of Motor Vehicle, they're going to have their own category within tiny house. So every you know, every state jurisdiction sort of attracted in different ways, but Dan has been amazingly working at this, you know, he's doing this volunteer, like in his retirement years, Dan has chosen to say yes, to doing this type of work. Okay, people. So I want everyone to know that big shout out to the advocacy that, you know, he's leading for me, he's like, Well, what do I want to do when I'm retired, like, I'm not quite there yet. But, you know, he's taking all of his knowledge as a county administrative officer of the county of Fresno City Manager in Las Vegas. And he's already written a bunch of these ordinances all over California, every one of the ones in California has been rewritten. And we're working with our local Mendocino County, I'm in Mendocino County, and we're just south of Humboldt County that just approved it. And you know, the fact that they already approved it makes, you know, we just now have a meeting tomorrow to chat with her. And we'll see where that goes. Nice. We're not stopping.

Ethan Waldman 37:01

Well, that's, that's o and when we say, Dan, we're saying we're talking about Dan Fitzpatrick from Tiny Home Industry Association, and, you know, plug to them, you know, I believe, if you're, if you're interested in this at all, I think membership is just 25 bucks. And that's

Lindsay Wood 37:16

true. And whenever anyone applies for that, or gets that they get three advocacy trainings. As part of that. There's like three 45-minute trainings, you get Dan's knowledge of how to talk to your elected officials. Right, then and there.

Ethan Waldman 37:30

Yeah. And so that's Yeah, I was gonna say that those trainings are awesome, invaluable. And so, you know, if you are a homeowner, if you are, you know, looking to move into a tiny house, and you're kind of wondering, how do I do this kind of advocacy? I definitely do recommend THIA.

Lindsay Wood 37:47

And people may, you know, make you may be in a situation where you're able to move there's there's villages out there, you know, everything from tiny estates in Pennsylvania to, you know, villages in, in Oregon, on weirdly enough, we don't have a lot of village thing going on in California. But we do have one place at the Delta Bay, you know, it may be that you choose to move somewhere where it's legal until such time where it becomes legal in your area, it all depends on like, you know, which, which part of the goal are you going for? Yeah, and,

Ethan Waldman 38:17

You know, the interesting thing that that Jodi talked about Jody Gable last week, was that in these cities that are putting up emergency tiny houses, tiny house villages, for veterans or for homeless or you know, targeted at these certain groups. And once they do that, they can't reasonably say no, to other tiny house villages. Absolutely. So it'll be interesting to watch that and kind of develop or as it develops.

Lindsay Wood 38:47

And you'll be seeing this more. So once Dan's worked on the like, Edu backyard, all that stuff. Now he's working on Tiny Home zone, because we can go into a whole conversation about redlining led to, you know, in the Jim Crow era as redlining was absolutely a way to segregate people and, you know, people are in poverty, people of color, all those things, and those practices, you know, are still living through the zoning is what we call it now. Redlining practices are no longer being done, but they were done. And so, we've, you know, we're undoing we're, we're read, right, we're transforming the whole way, you know, this idea of build bigger, big, big, big, big, you know, I grew up my whole life was all about consumer, you know, buy a big home, get a big job big, big, big, big, big move out in the suburbs, you name it. I mean, I was I watched, you know, all kinds of TV and saw the ads and my mom's voice of like, save your money was much smaller than go by and shop and, and so we are in a major transformation. You know, we're in I've heard the great pause the great turning the great time of tiny

Ethan Waldman 40:01

I like it the great, the great turning of tiny.

Lindsay Wood 40:04

Yes, the great turning of tiny.

Ethan Waldman 40:07

Well, you've been so generous with your time, I want to ask you one more question, which is to ask. I want to ask you to finish the sentence. I want to live in a tiny home because dot.an answer it. Don't answer it for the way you would have answered it before you live tiny. But now that you're living tiny, what's, what's your answer? And has it changed?

Lindsay Wood 40:28

It's still the same. Homeownership. Straight up homeownership, which covers like financial and I would say home ownership, simplification, and, and you know, living lighter on the planet, and travel, you know, the list goes on. But yes, all those

Ethan Waldman 40:45

Awesome. Where can people find you?

Lindsay Wood 40:48

Absolutely. ExperienceTinyHomes.org on the net, and then on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube ad Experience Tiny Homes. awesome. And I'll link to all of those

Ethan Waldman 40:56

Awesome. And I'll link to all of those from the show notes episode page for this episode.

Lindsay Wood 41:00

Lindsay was great. And we'll be sharing links about all that's going on with COVID there's links to like what's happening in your state because everyone's all over the country dealing with different realities and my blessings, God to anyone that is in a situation that is, you know, dealing with housing insecurity paying more than 30% of your income on housing, we have got to make a change together and your voice is needed.

Ethan Waldman 41:24

Awesome. Well, Lindsey Wood, actually, I mean, you just said something I was about to say by but, you know, when you say your voice is needed, you know, what can people do?

Lindsay Wood 41:33

Think share their story, you know, it was really sad when my friend out, you know, shared with me like what's going on for him? There's a lot of shame to like, having this happen. Like, I'm sorry, but no one expected a global pandemic, we have never prepared, excuse me some some administration's prepared for it. Um, and so in, we did not have leadership for the last four years in the last year of what an atrocious you know, experience of having so many of our fellow citizens and people die right here on this soil. And that is tough. And I think anyone telling their story, you're not alone. There's millions of people like you, and this is a game changer for the way, this is a disrupter. Yeah. And it's not about you being ashamed, you know, reaching out and sharing, like, share on the tiny home support squad share on Ethan's channel, he'll share your channel. And just so we can know who you are on so we can help.

Ethan Waldman 42:31

Yeah, I that's great advice. Lindsay would thank you so much for being a guest on the show, again.

Lindsay Wood 42:37

I'll host visiting sessions with people will do all that stuff, I host challenges. There's a lot of, you know, free ways to like get support. And then there's ways where like, okay, at some point, you're going to need to buy the home or build it. And that is where, you know, some financial investment has to happen. Yes. Because housing after all. Yeah. So but, you know, it's amazing, Tiny Homes can last a long time he put a metal roof on him. I strongly support that.

Ethan Waldman 43:05

Yes, for many reasons,

Lindsay Wood 43:07

and build them well, and follow Ethan and all that he's doing to help people DIY their own tiny house.

Ethan Waldman 43:14

Thank you so much to Lindsey Wood for being a guest on the show today. You can find the show notes at thetinyhouse.net/150. Again, that's thetinyhouse.net/150. Also, thank you so much to our sponsor this week, PrecisionTemp. Don't forget to check them out at precisiontemp.com and use the code THLP for $100 off your order and free shipping. Well, that's all for this week. I'm your host Ethan Waldman. And I'll be back next week with another episode of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast.