Wilmington races to find tiny-home village site amid Eastside pushback

Wilmington’s tiny-home village plan has moved from concept to countdown. City leaders now have until July 1 to secure a site or risk losing $1.6 million in federal funding, and that deadline is forcing an increasingly public fight over where a village for unhoused residents should go.

The pressure sharpened at a Tuesday community meeting, where Eastside neighbors quickly rejected the idea of locating the project nearby. Their objection was not just about a parcel of land, but about fairness, with residents arguing that an already underserved community should not be asked to shoulder another housing burden.

The proposal under discussion centers on a pallet-village model led by Springboard Delaware, the nonprofit that already operates a similar community in Georgetown. Springboard’s Georgetown Pallet Village opened in January 2023 with 40 residents and has since helped more than 160 people experiencing homelessness, according to local reporting. The village uses private, climate-controlled 64-square-foot cabins and connects residents to job training, mental health care, recovery support, and case management. Springboard is also building out a community center there with a computer lab, telehealth conference room, commercial kitchen, and staff offices.

Wilmington’s urgency is tied to the coming closure of Christina Park, the city’s only sanctioned homeless encampment. The city notified residents on May 11 that Christina Park would close on June 15, and city statements said 14 people had already moved into placements through coordinated case work services. That closure has made the search for a replacement site more urgent, especially for people who have been relying on the encampment as a temporary stopgap.

The politics are just as fraught as the logistics. A homelessness task force created by Mayor John Carney in March 2025 recommended a temporary tiny-home village at Christina Park, with room for roughly 50 to 60 people based on the Georgetown model. But council member Michelle Harlee pushed back on the idea that City Council alone is responsible for choosing the site, saying that framing was misleading and that the administration had overstated the council’s role.

The stakes now sit at the intersection of site selection, process, and principle. The council has to decide whether Wilmington will move fast enough to protect the $1.6 million, while residents and elected officials argue over whether the fight is really about a specific location or about whether the city should place a tiny-home village in a neighborhood at all.