Some people use these smaller homes as they travel about the country. If you are planning to to build one of these smaller homes... be sure to check with your county to see if they will allow you to live in the small home in your area. Not every county will allow you to live in a small home, especially if it looks like a vehicle.

In WA there are hefty fines for sleeping in your vehicle.

From the Seatlle Displacement Coalition, "Police admit that most of the 300 trespass exclusions were issued to people camping out at night in our parks after park hours. Evidently, it doesn’t matter to Horsey that this is a city with over 5500 homeless on our streets on any given day, but where there are only 2300 available shelter beds each night. It is this absence of shelter beds (not to mention an inadequate supply of permanent low cost housing) which explains why so many homeless are forced to camp out at night.  Sleeping out in wet, cold weather is not a lifestyle choice as Horsey’s cartoon implies, but a product of widespread poverty, homelessness, and a lack of services in our community.

In Seattle, the homeless are forced to sleep out in our parks and greenbelts where they are subject to routine police sweeps.  Right now, another one is being planned for the West Beacon Hill greenbelt in the area along I-5 known as “The Jungle.” The homeless are cited for sitting on our sidewalks.  They are can even be arrested under vague provisions of the City’s “pedestrian interference” law that allow police to single them out for “causing someone to take evasive action.”  The homeless are subjected to $500 camping fines just for putting their bedroll down in a park during the day, and trespass citations or “admonishments” are routine.  Now, police are passing out parks exclusion orders without a right of appeal or any due process. While this seams more like Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath”, Horsey offers up trite little cartoons of police hauling off criminals.  Such depictions only serve to further stigmatize the poor and give even broader license to single out the homeless.  Already, the homeless are subject to random acts of violence directed at them by the public and all too often, the police." - More...

11 May 2007 - The Olympia Poor People's Union (PPU) set up a tent encampment on city property. The date of the action intentionally corresponds with the city's implementation of an amended pedestrian interference code already in effect. The addition of Ordinance No. 6456n to the existing law criminalizes sidewalk sitting with a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. This act of civil disobedience, the encampment, was carried out in response to growing discontentment amongst Olympia's poor people over the slow, systematic attempt at the dispossession of our city's homeless, orchestrated and supported by some city officials and business owners.

From the Survival Guide to Homelessness - "You may worry that they could charge you with sleeping in your car. Tell them you weren't sleeping, they came along and made that impossible. You were meditating. In any case, it is a law used to give the police power."

94 deaths of homeless people highlight lack of care - If you're homeless in King County, you'll likely live about 30 fewer years than other people in the country. You're also about eight times more likely to commit suicide, compared with U.S. averages. You're about twice as likely to die in an accident. And you have 13 times the chance of being murdered. That's based on a report on homeless deaths released Monday by Public Health -- Seattle & King...read more


Tent City 4 - Apr 01, 2007 - St. Jude Catholic Church welcomed Tent City 4 to its Redmond location on February 10th. The city of Redmond, where a one bedroom apartment generally rents for $911 to $1188 a month, issued a permit, but then rescinded it, threatening to fine St. Jude up to $500.00 a day for occupying the space. The stay could end up costing the church more than $37,000, which it says it will pay with donations, not parish funds. more...