The Maine family needed a cheaper place for one of them to live. And quickly.
It was 2024. Synia Maine, 56, had just developed a back injury so severe that she had to retire from her career as a hairstylist a decade earlier than planned. Suddenly, she had increased medical bills and no income.
Her daughter-in-law, Ember DeVaul, recounted that they'd explored multiple options to try to keep Synia in Arizona, where she lived. Even the lowest-cost housing option, manufactured homes, required a permanent foundation and tens of thousands of dollars in permitting costs.
Ember and her husband, who live in East Portland, looked into converting their own garage into housing. Only one contractor bothered to reply to them after they stated their budget was just $100,000. The verdict? It would take $150,000 minimum to convert the garage, but the resale value of the property would only increase by half that amount. Another issue was the estimated six months to get through design and permitting.
"We didn't have time to wait,"
Ember said. Because Synia was an independent contractor, she didn't have health insurance, and she had used up her savings just to keep up with the bills.
"It's crazy how fast everything can change,"
said Ember.
Kol Peterson, the sole contractor who showed up at Ember's home, proposed another idea: a tiny home on wheels.
Unlike a traditional backyard cottage, tiny homes on wheels and recreational vehicles (RVs) are legally considered vehicles. This means that they aren't subject to the building permit process and its associated fees. All that the city requires is an additional utility connection, or access to the main house if the external dwelling doesn't have internal plumbing.
"It ended up being realistically our only option, other than her being homeless, really,"
said Ember.
Synia ended up settling on a park model RV, which is larger and designed as a long-term residence rather than for cross-country voyages. Even with upgrades like four-season insulation and a 35-year warranty on the roof, the total cost came to $104,000. Adding the water and sewer connection only cost another $5,000.
The new home is being delivered in mid-September. Though it's intended to be permanent, the fact that it could move elsewhere in the future made everyone more comfortable. Ember recalled,
"She is just so scared of being a burden. If she doesn't want to live with us anymore, she can take it somewhere else and not feel indebted to us."
Synia is lucky that her son and daughter-in-law moved to Portland five years ago. It's possibly the only city in the United States that has fully legalized living in wheeled dwellings on residential lots instead of just within commercial RV parks. In both of the Arizona cities where Synia's other daughters live, Synia's new living arrangement would be illegal, as it is in the vast majority of North American jurisdictions.
Portland first started creating a legal pathway to this low-cost shelter option in 2017, after Luz Gomez, an immigrant from Honduras, brought a spotlight to the issue alongside the Leaven Community, a faith group in NE Portland she was involved with. At the time it was estimated that at least 100 of these homes already existed illegally, and their residents could lose their homes if neighbors reported them. City Commissioner Eudaly, elected to city council as a housing advocate, directed the Bureau of Development Services to stop enforcing prohibitions against them in 2017. Four years later, Portland passed an ordinance fully legalizing tiny homes on wheels and RVs as permanent housing options on residential lots with an existing home.
Because so little paperwork is required, there is no official count of how many Portlanders live in homes on wheels. But it's likely more common than people realize. Peterson, the contractor who worked on Synia's project, counted more tiny homes on wheels and occupied RVs in his neighborhood than traditional ADUs on foundations back in 2020. In other ...