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An extensive database coupled with a powerful search engine allows people to find their ideal Tiny House community. Jill Kanto, the website’s founder, recounts SearchTinyHouseVillages.com origin story, explains current functionality and hints towards future site expansion.
In 2012, I was newly divorced and a single mother of a 1 and 7 year old. I was telecommuting nights and stayed up all day with young children, averaging only a few hours sleep each night. I couldn’t afford daycare and groceries were charged on to credit cards with no hope of paying them off. I was stressed, missing quality time with my children and losing my health — quickly. Something had to give.
The following year, I was introduced to the concept of Intentional Communities. These communities didn’t have cracks for people like my children and I to fall through. They supported one another. By working as a team, they lifted themselves to a better quality of life. I quickly became fascinated. Unfortunately, none were close enough for me to move into (because it was too far for my ex-husband to see his children). So, instead I visited as many as life allowed and regularly attended a yearly weekend of workshops. I was determined to try to better my life through community.
Life continued at a grueling pace. My health woes worsened. Fortunately, in 2015 my mother lent me $35,000 to build my DIY Tiny House on Wheels.
I landed in a lovely “Backyard Parking” community. I pay rent to a host family and share their 6 acres. We also share kids, a food garden, chicken eggs and caring for the 4 horses, 3 goats and 10 chickens on the property.
Sounds perfect, right? It almost is.
Since I have been exposed to several successful intentional communities, I knew that as good as I had it, it could get even better.
I went online to search for my ideal tiny house village. Not only did I not find a list of intentional Tiny House communities, but I couldn’t find a list of any types of Tiny House communities.
So, I started to compile my own list, for personal use. Once I hit about 60 villages, I realized I had to share my list with the movement.
I began with asking current and future Tiny Housers what criteria was important to them when deciding on a community. I combined their answers with what I learned from studying intentional communities and created 32 (and counting!) filters. Each filter has multiple options, so the filter combination possibilities are too high for me to count.
The site is FREE! Why? Because I want this data to be as accessible as possible. And as someone who is environmentally conscious and opposed to mindless consumerism, I don’t want to abuse my visitors and newsletter recipients with ads selling items/services that I don’t believe in. That eliminates most potential advertising revenue, but does leaves room for sponsorship.
So, how IS the site funded? Living in a tiny house has granted me free time and a small savings account. Aside from a few generous patreon supporters, I have been funding the site myself. While that was okay to get things rolling, it isn’t sustainable.
How can I fund the site without compromising my pie-in-the-sky ethics? Originally, I was just going to bear the brunt of the cost of the site, with no attempts to reclaim the money. But as the site grew, I realized this was turning into a full-time project.
So, I wracked my brain for ways to fund the site without compromising my goals. Behind the scenes, I’m working on STHV 2.0 that will have far more functionality and a mobile app. Most of the functionality will still be free, but there will be opportunities to have a paid membership for some of the more advanced features.
Before I even finished this phase of the site, Festival Organizers were reaching out to me, adding me to their Speaker Lineup and asking me to create a booth for festival attendees to search, LIVE, for places to live tiny in community.
I’ve been going to 1 or 2 festivals a month since (except during the pandemic).
Want me to speak and bring my service booth to your Tiny House Festival?
Do you have an idea how this site can help the Tiny House Movement?
I am incredibly excited about new upcoming functionality that will increase the usefulness of the site for both villages and people seeking community. The user experience will be greatly upgraded. New features will be added that help EVERYONE in the movement, not just communities.
Stay tuned!
Thanks!
Jill Kanto, founder
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