Richmond tiny-home village for unhoused young adults nears opening, eyes second site

Richmond’s first legal tiny-home village for unhoused young adults is now only months from opening at 175 23rd St., across from the GRIP Center, and organizers are already eyeing a second site. The Tiny House Village, Farm and Garden Project is being built for residents ages 18 to 24 and is moving from long-delayed plan to near-launch civic milestone.

The project was on display during the East Bay Co-Housing Crawl on Sunday, May 3, when visitors and a youth delegation from Seine-Saint-Denis, France toured the site as part of Affordable Housing Month. An artist was painting a colorful mural on one of the tiny homes, a visible sign that Tiny Village Spirit wants the village to feel rooted in the neighborhood, not just functional as emergency shelter.

Earlier city documents described the vacant city-owned lot as holding up to 12 small homes, two 20-foot diameter yurts, a bathroom trailer and an office building. Tiny Village Spirit has said the pilot will initially serve six young people, then add six more houses in year two after evaluation. Residents are expected to take part in weekly case management and stay connected to employment or education, giving the village a day-one structure that goes beyond a roof and a lock on the door.

That model has been years in the making. Richmond Confidential reported in November 2024 that the project had broken ground in September 2023, permit applications were submitted in May 2024 and a building permit was approved in October 2024 after months of delay. Organizers had originally hoped for a December 2024 move-in. The project, led by Tiny Village Spirit, has been described as a seven-agency collaboration and as a way to double Richmond’s emergency housing units for young adults to two dozen.

The need is plain across Contra Costa County. Richmondside reported in July 2025 that the county had more than 100 unhoused young adults and only 13 units of emergency housing targeted specifically to ages 18 to 24, while Richmond had the county’s largest homeless population in the latest point-in-time count. Tiny Village Spirit has framed the Richmond build as a replicable transitional-housing model, shaped in part by the Oakland Tiny House Empowerment Village and by youth participation in the murals and volunteer construction. When the first six residents move in, Richmond will gain a rare interim-housing option built around community, art and support, with expansion already on the horizon.