Washington D.C. could be getting a huge village of tiny houses

Our nation’s capital is struggling to come up with enough affordable housing. One city councilor thinks he’s found a small fix to a big problem.

The Washington City Paper reports Washington D.C. Councilmember Vincent Orange has introduced a bill that would construct 1,000 “tiny houses” throughout the city for low-income and young residents to buy.

The “Tiny Housing Initiative” would call for 125 mini-homes of at least 600 square feet to be built in each of the city’s eight wards, with none selling for more than $50,000. The current median price for a home in Washington D.C. is about $500,000.

Tiny houses have captured the imagination of many people with their simplicity and affordability. But lots of people who try them out end up not being able to cope with some of the small homes’ big problems. Using them as a possible way to expand affordable housing sounds interesting, but there’s a bigger problem than the size:

Orange’s proposed law says people eligible to purchase the petite houses must meet one of the following requirements.

• Be earning a minimum wage.
• Be earning a living wage, as defined by Washington D.C.’s living wage act.
• Be 18 to 33 years old.

Whether you feel it’s right to restrict small house sales to snake people only, the fact is that it’s more than likely illegal under federal housing laws, which would probably see this as age discrimination.

The bill was just introduced yesterday, so for now, District residents will have to suffer the tyranny of living in normal-sized apartments and houses. What a world.