Vera Struck 0:00

What we found out is that 90% of the 60 legislators we met support movable tiny houses. There are a few who do not I was kind of shocked when one legislator actually admitted he wasn't interested in seeing his restaurant servers, his kids, teachers, or the bank clerks living in his community.

Ethan Waldman 0:22

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 283. With Vera Struck, I met Vera a decade ago and we were both invited to speak at Deek Diedrickson's Tiny House workshop in Connecticut. She explained that my first pictures of my tiny house that I built in 2012 with rain screen inspired her to deep dive into everything from thermal bridging to mold mitigation for the build of her silver bullet tiny house. When Vera takes on a project or issue you can bet she's thorough, persistent and resilient. Vera has been on our podcast twice before. Last time she discussed pandemic tiny house living at the very beginning of 2020. Today, she will help us learn about her process of becoming an active participant in democracy to legalize the very housing product she's lived in for over a decade in Massachusetts. I asked John and Finn Kernohan of United tiny houses Association what they love about their PrecisionTemp hot water heaters. And here's what they told me.

John Kernohan 1:26

Hey, Ethan. This is John and Fin Kernohan With United Tiny House Association. We have a total of three PrecisionTemp On Demand hot water heaters. The thing we really like about these and folks know this, I think they pick this up on Fin and I, if we don't like something, you'll never hear us talk about it. So the two things we noticed, that we noticed the experience immediately. They took painstaking effort to make sure that it was done right installed. And so that was pretty cool right there. The other thing is the continuous on demand hot water that just ran forever. Without any fluctuations or anything. I can't imagine an application, especially in our environment and our lifestyle of being the Nomad, transportable, mobile, tiny lifestyle where one of these units aren't good to use.

Ethan Waldman 1:26

Right now. PrecisionTemp is offering $100 off any unit plus free shipping when use the coupon code THLP. So head over to precisiontemp.com and use the coupon code THLP at checkout for $100 off any unit. That's precisiontemp.com coupon code THLP. Thank you so much to PrecisionTemp for sponsoring our show

al l right, I am here with Vera struck. Vera struck has been a lifelong sustainability and environmental advocate overcoming three bouts of cancer and two with Lyme disease. She retired 20 years ago from a successful career in high finance, art and consulting, pursue her intention of finding her piece of the American dream albeit tiny. For Vera that meant an affordable aesthetically pleasing mobile structure made in large part of recycled and upcycled non toxic materials. She achieved this in 2012 and took her silver bullet tiny house 17,500 miles around the US as a model of how to live a zero waste, sustainable lifestyle two ebooks 14 Speaking circuits and four years later, she has found she had to become a reluctant and passionate lobbyists to legalize this often misunderstood housing product. Vera Struck, welcome back to the show.

Vera Struck 3:55

I'm so glad to be here. Ethan. I think this is my third time.

Ethan Waldman 3:59

This is your third time you might be this puts you at at potentially number one beating out. Kristie Wolfe and Macy Miller for my firm for my three time returning guest Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah.

Vera Struck 4:13

So I get a jacket when I get up to number five like SNL. Yeah, maybe

Ethan Waldman 4:17

a jacket or like a mug or something. I'm a coffee fan. Maybe I'll get some some Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast mugs. So tell us about your journey from being a tiny house builder and dweller to becoming kind of a lobbyist and advocate to legalize tiny houses because those are two very different things.

Vera Struck 4:42

Oh, yeah. And I'm I'm not a savvy politician. So back in 2012, the year before we met, I began my off grid water harvesting Zero Waste Silver Bullet tiny house built after three bouts of cancer And as I said, recovering from Lyme disease twice, I use 74%, non toxic, recycled and upcycled materials to create a building envelope that would promote wellness, and a mobile sustainable lifestyle in a world of really ever increasing climate change events and dwindling resources. So that led me when I came back from my two year tour back in 2015, to start interacting with local officials, who were not very understanding of what this particular housing product is, because in Massachusetts is classified in four different ways depending on how you go into the DMV, it can be called a camper, trailer, a trailer with a load a travel trailer, or an RV. So So I started realizing that most of the local officials had no idea what this housing product was, how it was built, whether it was really a year around habitable product.

Ethan Waldman 6:09

Yeah, and so I'm guessing. So can you talk a little bit about the different living arrangements that you've had in terms of how was your tiny house classified? Was it? You know, was it just kind of hidden somewhere, you didn't ask permission? Or what's that journey been like for you personally, and interacting with the legality of living in the silver bullet?

Speaker 1 6:32

I've been actually quite lucky than wherever I've parked two to four years. I've been hidden behind the owners house. Okay. So that led to less visibility in terms of local officials accidentally seeing it and like many other tiny house, yeah, owners and dwellers, you know, we live sort of off and out away from legal attention. Yeah. And part of that is that I kind of felt that it was time to actually become part of the democratic process, educate officials about how to accept this particular housing product, legally, instead of having all of us live that kind of, you know, hidden existence where we don't have an address, you know, we can't get DoorDash we can't, you know, really vote without an address. So, my intention was to begin that process. Yeah.

Ethan Waldman 7:35

But I want to say before we get into that, we're probably not going to talk too much about the silver bullet. But our first interview is episode 44 of this show. So if somebody is listening to this in a podcast app, they can just scroll way back to Episode 44. Or online, you can go to thetinyhouse.net/044 . And it'll bring you right there. And we go into all about the silver bullet. You did it for under $20,000. Without any previous building experience, without using fossil fuels, raising all the money yourself. It's like an incredible story. And I love this episode, I send it anytime someone emails me or gets in contact and says, you know, I really want to live tiny, but I just don't know if I can build it myself. I don't you know, I'm too this. I'm too that I said, Yeah. Listen to this episode with Vera, because, you know, on paper, she shouldn't have been able to build her own house, but she did it and did it really beautifully. So, you know, it's kind of like a Vera can do it. So can you. So was this was this your first kind of entry into, you know, dealing with lawmakers and getting into kind of illegal weeds?

Speaker 1 8:44

You know, in my 20s back in That's right, the 60s That's, that dates me. My advocacy was limited to protests and marches and writing letters to both my federal and state Congressmen and Senators. My issues back then were the Vietnam War, free love equal rights for women, women of color and indigenous peoples rights. I had neither the financial capital, the savvy, or network to influence the legislature, nor was political embattlement my fame after seven years struggling, as I said, to look to literally educate local officials about this new in quotes, affordable housing product that could help mitigate the growing growing housing crisis. I learned that really, in Massachusetts, there were a lot of let me be nice here. Aging inspectors and the tower, you know that town planners and zoning officials no idea that this was a well built habitable dwelling. So they just assumed and regulated it like an RV. Yeah. So I turned to the leaders in the community. I contacted rich Crowley in 2020, who just recently retired from the Massachusetts BBRS, which is our state's board of building regulations and standards, who by the way, he helped write Appendix Q back in 2018, nice ITC cold counsel fast. And in 2020, Massachusetts Governor Baker adopted. However, the only problem was that that really doesn't become legal until that codebook 2021 codebook, is promulgated and published, right. Yeah. And that still hasn't been published. This, you know, it's going into 2024. Yeah, by the end of 2024, the 2021 codebook will be out there. So you can see how that is sort of strapped those of us who want to build tiny houses or movable tiny houses.

Ethan Waldman 10:58

And not to mention that Appendix Q didn't even address movable tiny houses it addressed stationary built on foundations.

Speaker 1 11:08

Right, so after contacting rich Crowley's Zac Efron and Macy, Andrew and Gabriella Morrison, they led me to Dan Fitzpatrick, the president of the tiny home Industry Association. And at the beginning of the pandemic, he encouraged me to start a task force to begin the legislative process. And after months of research writing legislators talking with rich Dan Andrew Macy, and by the way, Corrine Watson, who legalized tiny houses in Maine. Yep. Right, I develop the courage to face what no one else was doing in Massachusetts write a bill to define categorize for the RMAV and legalize movable tiny houses as year round habitable dwellings as either ad use or as a primary residence. So our task force started meeting all these senators and congressmen under Dan's in my guidance, I had to learn zoom. And you know, at my age, that's a little tough to figure out all those digital things. But anyway, we did it. And what we found out is that 90% of the 60 legislators we met, support movable tiny houses. There are a few who do not I was kind of shocked when one legislator actually admitted he wasn't interested in seeing his restaurant servers, his kids, teachers or the bank clerks living in his community. Then I learned that he was in a district where the average house was 1.8 million. So by the time I met Senator Olivera, in December of 2022, he agreed to sponsor our bill. Nice. And that was filed in January 20 of this year. Now, writing a bill initially was easy three goals. The problem was in researching the correct language, and referrals to laws and regulations are and warranties. So the bill would not have to be amended every year. Right. At last count. Prior Senator Olivera who last edited the bill, we had 14 revisions and edits. So it takes a long time and a lot of work. Volunteer work.

Ethan Waldman 13:23

Yeah, yeah. So what does the bill say? What does it do?

Vera Struck 13:28

Well, what it what it doesn't says is it, there are three goals, which I just mentioned, defining what a movable tiny house is, right? Making sure it has its own RMV separate category, so that no longer it's in these five other amorphous you know, categories. And it allows it to be considered a year round habitable dwelling on by Siberian ADU. But what this bill actually do is not just legalize movable tiny houses as primaries or detached ADUs, but what it does is it also says that the local officials have the right to come in and inspect after a temporary period because most communities have 90 to 120 days allowing an RV to sit on your property, okay. And they get to come in and look at how your energy is connected your water and your waste stream.

Ethan Waldman 14:26

Now, does the bill specify any particular certification or building code or things like that for the actual build of the tiny house and and also as a follow up question, answer them in whatever order Is it is it still possible you know that a DIY tiny house such as the silver bullet could be legalized under this

Vera Struck 14:51

bill? Interestingly enough, not only have legislators come up to tour my tiny house, view it and inspect it so the girl It's nice that you said Vera, you've exceeded everything. Even your connections are above and beyond, you know, is that no freeze water hose under the ground in the PVC everything. Yeah. But the point is that the legislators helped me to realize, to put in the bill, then all the building requires to be done by the bbrs code, which is all any stick built structure on foundation or on a chassis is regulated by that. So mine is built, according to that coal code. So, as a diyer, anyone could inspect my house and realize it actually exceeds bbrs.

Ethan Waldman 15:45

And what is bbrs?

Vera Struck 15:47

Oh, I'm so sorry. It says, knowledge blindness. Yeah, it's the board of building regulations and standards. It's the Massachusetts one to have different versions.

Ethan Waldman 16:00

Okay. Got it? Well, that's, I mean, I like that. I mean, I'm sure you are aware that there's, there's a bit of a split inside of the tiny house world as to, you know, what standards to adopt, and what route to go down, whether it's certification through through the RV code, or certification through the residential building code. And I really liked that this bill kind of, kind of skirts around that and just says, you know, the Massachusetts building, you know, they get to decide what is what is acceptable in terms of how it's built.

Vera Struck 16:36

That's basically a stick built house, just on the chassis versus foundation. Yeah. And local officials, we want to give back to them a bit of control over how it's connected, the way streams or whether you need for your solar, in my case, to have a grounding post or whatever, so that it's appropriately, you know, utilizing the local resources or safely connected properly. Nice. And, and I might add, Ethan, that, you know, the, the way that certification goes, and this currently in the tiny house community is very confusing for either way builders

Ethan Waldman 17:18

It's confusing for me, and I interview people about it like, probably every month.

Vera Struck 17:24

I know, there's there's the RVIA argument versus, you know, the IRC argument and I would prefer to build to the IRC code and did 12 years ago, because my concept was, that's where it's going to go. That's what's going to be required. The RVIA standard is so low, in my opinion, in terms of a proper building envelope. That, obviously that's why it's only listed as a temporary. Right. Yeah, we all vehicle and that would never pass as a year round, habitable dwelling.

Ethan Waldman 18:00

So were you able to garner support from the tiny house community in Massachusetts, and and nationally at all?

Vera Struck 18:08

Massachusetts, as you might guess, because it's so densely populated? Eastern Shore, as most of New England, there are a lot of people who live in tiny houses thousands. I mean, there's there are seven within a mile of me, okay. And they're all living, you know, quietly and easily, as I have for 11 years, and they don't want to come forward and do what I'm doing, which is essentially putting my name face address, you know, right,

Ethan Waldman 18:40

you're putting your neck on the line, if it doesn't go well, then you could end up you know, really not being able to live in your tiny house anymore.

Vera Struck 18:40

Right. So, so we've educated, I've educated the taskforce on how to speak in a meeting. So they're not giving up their actual address. I live within a mile of this school or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And they are listed voting constituents. So so the thing is that once these legislators see this, that they're an actual constituent. They realize, oh, my gosh, there are probably, you know, 55 to 100 houses for every one of us who comes forward and works on a taskforce and writes a letter. Now in terms of the larger national community, I have quite a bit of support, not only from AFA, the American Tiny House Association, but also from Dan Fitzpatrick, he's with me and every meeting, we have at least two to three meetings a week with different legislators and leaders. Yeah. And so I would say that, you know, I mean, Zack Giffin has even been in on one of our meetings. Nice. They have written letters, national supporters, that testified in our July 27. Two big hearing the bill goes for the joint Housing Committee and you have a hearing I'm happy to report that 100% of all written testifiers in person testifiers. And in person for the hearing via zoom testified 100% in support of the bill. Nice. So there is Bill S 897. As you can look it up.

Ethan Waldman 20:18

Yeah. We'll link to it in the show notes. Has there been any opposition to it?

Vera Struck 20:23

None. No, not written. Oh, not that I know of personally Yeah. You know, I can only go by what the state files and the archives they have center regarding testifiers.

Ethan Waldman 20:36

Sure, sure. So what are the next steps in this in this process?

Vera Struck 20:43

Well, that's interesting. I had no idea what a legislative process was in our state lengthy. Some bills get re re issued every year with a little bit better language in our session is two years long. So we have two years to get this bill through several committees. Okay. And up for a vote. So the next committee is probably the Ways and Means Committee, the Housing Committee is the hardest one to get through. Because they have to really look at the bill and make sure we've referred to the right chapters of the law to make sure that the DMV is okay with us doing this. You know, which, which they are. And I even put a rate fee of $100 for our particular registration. Because we're kind of like both a vehicle and a trailer. Right, then I think they essentially move it forward to the next committee. I believe we have ways and means then after that, it's finance when that happens, and it goes through its second reading, what any of our legislators could bring it up for a vote. Okay. The other pathway I've learned is that often governors in their second year will pile up economic bill. And so we might actually be rewritten into, let's say, an ADU by right, Bill. Or even that, even after that, or before it, we could be thrown into the economic bill. Interesting, as an addendum. And then I say, and then it would be signed by the governor after it's the conference committee looks at it.

Ethan Waldman 22:23

Fascinating. So this is a multi year process. And it's not there yet.

Vera Struck 22:31

I didn't want it to be, I thought, I thought to myself, I'll give it two years. You know, I just had my 74th birthday. And I was thinking, Yeah, you know, at least before I hit the ground, and I'm six feet under, I'd like to be legal. And I'd like to call up all those other folks who would like to have an affordable housing option of their own making.

Ethan Waldman 22:52

Fantastic, fantastic. In terms of the greater, you know, the zooming out on the picture of of tiny house code development, and ICC and Appendix Q, you know, where, where, as you see it, where are we in that process?

Vera Struck 23:11

Well, actually, Dan, informed me that after he asked everyone to apply for this, there's a large committee made up of trades people building people, code people, zoning people, inspection people, and even tiny house dwellers like Zack, who's been involved in building as well as being a tiny house dweller, who will serve on a committee with the ICC. Yeah, that will start I believe it's in a couple of months. And in fact, our meeting this week, yeah. And they will talk about who's going to be voted in on this committee. And then it will work towards developing what they call the movable tiny house building code. Nice and very much like Appendix Q that can later be adopted by states. So the idea is to have this, and these meetings are open, by the way anyone can attend them. So the and they can serve on committees to do research. Like, for example, why does one part of the country not have to have this kind of insulation versus another? Or should we have them all built to one insulation standard? So that they can, because they're on wheels? They can travel anywhere? You know, simple questions like that is to have put into the code. Nice. Okay. Does that answer your question?

Ethan Waldman 24:37

Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's, I know it's just a patchwork of state by state. So it's slow going, but the wheels are turning.

Vera Struck 24:47

Well, and to add to this, you know, Dan, when I first met him, him was only involved with Corrine Watson in the main legalization, and then eventually, you know, of course because he has so much experience in this. Yeah. Colorado called him up, you know, I mean, he's involved in the Pacific Northwest. He's done a lot of work in California and legalizing tiny houses. And this is interesting. He's been working with Florida over a year. Wow. Wow. Again, you know, we've all I've only been in this for three years, and it took that long to get us to write a bill, get one, get support for it, get 21. co sponsors. We have many leading Senators and Representatives in our group of co sponsors. So we're excited. We're, we're very hopeful. Nice. Nice. So,

Ethan Waldman 25:43

you know, you were a tiny house builder and dweller. And now you've become an advocate. And I guess you could say a lobbyist have maybe is that is that the right? Student lobbyist? If that's ever a memoir, title, I don't know what is, you know, what, what advice would you have for somebody, you know, who's in a state, like Vermont, or like a state that doesn't have has not yet really tackled movable tiny homes?

Vera Struck 26:14

Well, you know, Vermont, New Hampshire is pretty much live free, and, you know, sort of rural, we don't care what the thing is

Ethan Waldman 26:24

But not in the cities where we're, you know, similarly, like I live in Burlington, and houses are extremely expensive here, like shockingly expensive, and so are apartments. And so it's, it's very difficult for the teachers, the daycare workers, even the nurses, you know, to live in the city where they work. And I think tiny houses would be, you know, excellent here as a as a way of adding that density. And I think that, you know, even though most of Vermont is pretty, as you said, rural, and it's kind of like, nobody was really checking for the cities in Vermont. The few that there are, I think that this kind of legislation is needed.

Vera Struck 27:07

You are correct. And in fact, our task force members, just to let you know, the diversity are everything from firefighters, to radiologists, to nurses, to students, to artists, to lawyers. You know, there is a huge group of people who can't afford housing. Boston, where I am, a two bedroom is 3200 a month. I mean, that's ridiculous. When you can build a tiny house for that if you save for a year. Yeah, it's just insane. So what I recommend is to contact Dan Fitzpatrick, okay. Become a member of the American tiny home industry association, because they have a lot of resources. Yeah, a lot of meetings that they have that can educate you about different ways to approach it, whether you want to go the way of I'll deal with just local officials, see if I can get a variance or permit, or whether you want to do what I decided to do. After being frustrated of years of that, the best thing for me to do was to just go statewide, because that way, require every single city and county to deal with us. And so the first thing is to develop a committee or task force of like minded people. Okay, then you write your congressman, right, your representatives and senators state. Not federal yet, but state, okay. And maybe keep it to yourself until you gain momentum, don't be doing Oh, I've been asked to be interviewed by everybody, you know, statewide. And I'm not going to do that. Because the pushback would be huge. And I have to spend my time right now concentrating on the bill. Right. Later on. I'll do all the Boston Globe stuff and everything and The Daily News and all that stuff. Yeah. And I want it to be done properly with Dan, present and Rich, that any questions that are asked can be dealt with. But that would be it, to write them to meet with them, you know, become a little bit savvy in zoom, and have your constituent task force members put together a proposal, which we did a very short, succinct PDF, great visuals, talking about how our housing product is not only different than how it's being regulated and treated, but why it needs that definition in the bill, and how it can mitigate the housing crisis. So that would be my advice. And I think I gave you a bunch of links. Yeah, go to at least for Massachusetts.

Ethan Waldman 29:51

Yeah, those are those will be all those will all be in the show notes for this episode, right. So right inside the podcast app or on the show notes page. Um, and I will say Vera assembled her own links and resources. Usually, like, I have to do it. So Vera, you're just so organized. I love it.

Vera Struck 30:10

You gotta be, you're gonna be an advocate. Now you just Yeah, you gotta be so I encourage people to go forward in this.

Ethan Waldman 30:19

I'll also throw in a link to the episode, we actually had Corrine Watson on the show. Maybe a year and a half ago. So we'll link to that interview as well. I thought, you know, I want to totally shift gears, I said, I was going to talk about silver bullet, but I'm just curious for me, you know, your tiny house and my tiny house are are both, you know, over 10 years old now. And I was curious if you've had to do any unexpected maintenance, like what are we under? Is there anything in your house that hasn't held up as you had

Vera Struck 30:56

hoped? First, first of all, as, as you know, very well, Ethan. Yeah. Once you start living in a house you learn, you know, which table ends will hit you in the thigh? Yeah, or what is not reachable properly. So you redo your shelving sometimes, you know, or you put up your little wall thing for your projector or whatever. But tenure maintenance is crucial. So tenure maintenance, I've owned 17 other houses in my lifetime. Okay, so I know that you have to worry about your roof, etcetera. My roof for brawl, Steel Roof required all those screws with those little rubber gaskets. Yep, you're not in the sun continually are trying to as much as I did. Initially, they had to be replaced 683 screws. So my right hand was really tired, even with an impact drill. Yeah. And then also you have to redo your paint. Yeah, those beautiful cedar siding had to be sanded recaulked in some places. Yeah, you tiny repairs. You know, I haven't lost a single tiny cedar shingle, which is amazing in 10 years. So I just needed two coats more. And then I of course changed my window color every five years. So went from blue to green. Now it's a beautiful black. And I also did something else. You remember I had a deck? Yes. Okay, out in the back. And what I did is they moved to my double doors that are in piano hinges all the way out. And it became a bedroom nook. So they give me That's right. 67 more square feet.

Ethan Waldman 32:45

Oh, boom.

Vera Struck 32:49

So I could actually walk around because I had to move once I fell from my loft bed one night because as we get older, we have to use the facilities more often. And I got sick and tired of running up and down the stairs and fell and so I moved my bed down. Okay. Other than that, there's I think the only thing was replacing the no freeze hose. As you know is you very well know. There are many brands out there you can get for a couple of 100 Yep, I went for that big one, which I think you did recently, too. Yep. It's the little ends are the thing. You know, that makes all the difference, because that's what keeps the bib and the faucet. Yeah, the pigtails. Freezing. The pigtails are fabulous.

Ethan Waldman 33:36

You know, I still froze underground last winter, we had like a week of negative twenty and the where the water pipe comes up. from under the ground up to the surface. It froze about a foot underground.

Vera Struck 33:56

Well, you know what I did? I did the PVC the large PVC around his pipe. Yeah. And what I did is I made sure that that was all the way up to the bib. Then I made a housing around the bib connection. Yep. And then insulated it and so I've never had a problem and I've had it for two years.

Ethan Waldman 34:18

So yeah, this is this conversation is reminding me that I need to deal with that before it gets cold.

Vera Struck 34:22

Right and the same on the tiny house side. This this thing covering the bibs and everything easy. It has a tough text latch up. Yeah. You know, one piece of two inch. Yep. Insulation to remove and you can take a look at it at any time. And and it works perfectly. So yeah. We I think in my mind when it goes from ground to top it needs to be covered and insulated. Yeah, yeah.

Ethan Waldman 34:52

All right. Well, Vera struck thank you so much for being a guest again on the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast. It was it was wonderful to catch up.

Vera Struck 35:00

Oh, Ethan, I'm so pleased to see you again. And I love your podcasts. I listen to them all the time.

Ethan Waldman 35:08

Thank you appreciate it.

Vera Struck 35:10

Thanks for having me.

Ethan Waldman 35:13

Thank you so much to Vera struck for being a guest on the show today. And thank you so much to PrecisionTemp for sponsoring today's episode. You can find the show notes, including a complete transcript, all the information that Vera and I talked about about the bill in Massachusetts and how you can get involved in advocacy over at thetinyhouse.net/283. 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.