The morning after from Victoria Street

Although the Shelter blog hasn’t really  been about news of this nature, this one hit close to home. Somewhere around 2:30 am early this morning (Jan 6), my partner and I were awakened by the phone ringing and someone knocking loudly at the front door simultaneously. What we found out shortly thereafter (from our neighbour on the phone and the Nelson Police at the door), was that there was a fire at the Kerr apartment building directly behind out house, and that we should get out of the house immediately. Fully awake now,this was confirmed by the flames we could see coming out the back of the building, visible from our windows as we hastily got kids up and jackets on. The rest of our night went quickly, first to the Capitol Theater as a sort of staging area, then to the Grand Hotel to get a few hours sleep. We were far more fortunate that the former tenants of the Kerr – a bit of sleep was all we lost. Chris Sheppard posted some more pics of the fire here. The Nelson Daily also posted some the fire department took from atop the boom here .

The morning after from our attic across the alley. If you can make it out, much of the roof is gone.

The Kerr building was built in 1911, and for years now has provided around 40 units with relatively affordable rents to people who in many cases couldn’t find or afford much else. By all accounts and judging by the exterior, it was pretty run down. A run down home, however, is better than no home at all, which sadly is the situation facing the former tenants, many of whom are low income.

There was no loss of human life that I’m aware of, but sadly, there were pets lost in the fire. I spoke with one gentleman who had left his two cats in the building, not knowing when he left that this time it wasn’t a false alarm, and unable to return once he realized otherwise.

There are many local agencies are stepping up to help, and there has been, an continues to be an outpouring of concern and support from many people, both in Nelson and beyond. The Kootenay Network has also set up a support group for the Kerr here. With a vacancy rate of around 1.5 %, finding long term affordable housing for the displaced residents will likely prove to be a more difficult problem to address. Best wishes to them.

Interesting article here (and video) from the Globe and Mail on the growing interest in tiny houses. Thanks to Cindy Fillion, the Visitor Services Manager here at Touchstones Nelson for letting me know about it!

Tiny houses aren’t for everyone, but are an intriguing option. One of the most compelling aspects of them for me is how much lifestyle could be freed up if a person was able to greatly reduce, or even eliminate what they pay for shelter each month. What would you do?

Jay Schafer in his tiny house, image from the Globe and Mail article linked to in this post.

If you’ve been following this blog, you may recall Dan Phillips from one of my earlier posts. If not, he’s a really interesting guy who has carved a niche building houses using mostly recycled materials. Jim Ross spotted this video and was good enough to send it along to me – thanks Jim! Have a look, it’s definitely worth a watch.

Be sure to check out Jay Blackmore’s blog “Cabin Fever” that documents his efforts thus far in building his own tiny house, which was inspired in part by the 10 Square competition.  Go Jay!

This first one is a bit more rustic than Jay Schafer’s tiny home, but a whole lot cheaper. I like her can-do attitude and resourcefulness finding materials, but have to say I think the novelty of a chamber pot would wear off pretty quickly.

She does make another after this one  that’s a bit more upscale though, that video is here if you’re interested.

The previous couple of tiny homes are downright palatial compared with this next one however. The part about your legs sticking out when you sleep seems problematic in any number of ways, but how many people can pedal their homes around?

Thanks to all who made it out to the opening reception for Shelter on Friday night! It was a busy night, lots of people came out, and I really enjoyed seeing some familiar faces and meeting some new folks as well. With the entry deadline for the 10 square design competition coming up before long, I thought I’d start posting some tiny house videos that might serve as inspiration.

Here’s one by Jay Schafer of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company who you may well have heard of – he seems to be fairly prominent in the tiny house field (although it’s not a big field), but a nice tour of his wee home nonetheless. It’s a pretty resolved space, not that inexpensive, particularly with his labour included, but relative to a house or even many cars it’s still pretty reasonable. More to come.

Here’s an inspiring story – Dan Phillips builds houses in Texas out of found, salvaged  or discarded materials. He targets single parents, artists, and families with low incomes, and involves the homeowner in the construction of their home. I’m not sure how well some of what he does would translate to our climate, but he’s got great energy, and I really like where he’s coming from. Not to mention he is amazingly inventive with how he uses those materials! If you like this, there’s lots more on his website.

As far as housing alternatives that can be both greener and more affordable, cohousing is a pretty interesting option. Although prices and unit sizes vary a lot (check out the Canadian Cohousing Network to see some examples, as well as a bunch of other interesting info) and how far towards “green” and “affordable” they go also depends on the individual development, those that I find particularly interesting have some features in common:

• decreased emphasis on car use in the site layout (eg. parking adjacent to, rather than in front of the unit)
• increased emphasis on “community”
• relatively compact units
• shared facilities  for activities that are typically infrequent (eg. workshop, gathering room)

One of the things I like about the concept of cohousing is how it would seem to challenge ideas about ownership and individual autonomy, and through doing that would seem to place a greater emphasis on community. Although people in the interviews that I’ve watched (see video for one of them below – it’s long but interesting) aren’t presenting cohousing as a utopia, on balance they are positive about the social benefits, and seemed to indicate that there is room in the model for introverts and extroverts alike.

Is cohousing a possibility in Nelson? I know there is at least one cohousing development near the city (the Middle Road Community), but although it looks lovely, my interest is more in those that are both denser and more affordable (for example, I’m not sure how indicative it is of the whole development, but the one house advertised for sale in the Middle Road Community was asking $663,000). Generally speaking, anywhere there is room for a condominium development, there’s room for cohousing, although with not much vacant land in town, those opportunities are obviously fairly limited. The other possibility would be to work with exisiting structures, and add to or modify them. Both are intriguing options, and wouldn’t it be refreshing to hear about a new development whose amenities included walking more and getting to know your neighbours? I’d be listening.

Pallet house by Schnetzer Andreas Claus and Pils Gregor

Alright, I’m not only going to post about pallet structures, but here’s one from Designboom that is pretty amazing, if not actually livable. I think their pallets were a bit more uniform than the ones I got from the back of Cowan’s.