Dover's tiny house village gets new shot at finding more welcoming neighbors

Jim Maucher lost everything in 2007 when alcohol became more important to him than anything or anyone in his life.

As he dove into the bottle, the Dover man got divorced, had five DUIs for which he spent time in prison, and was kicked out of the home he and his ex-wife shared with their two young children.

Finding a place to live once he was out of prison and rehab became Maucher's biggest problem.

"I laid there many nights wondering what I was going to do," Maucher said. 

The soft-spoken recovering alcoholic, who has been clean for years now and works as a handyman, hopes Cathi Kopera and Sue Harris's plans for a tiny house village will help him.

The co-founders of Port Hope Delaware Inc. are trying to breathe life into an effort to create an affordable housing village in Kent County, thanks to a grant, a better-focused plan and even different language to describe it. The first try stalled in 2016.

Maucher said Kopera first told him about tiny houses while he was in transitional housing at Bagley Hall in Dover. Since leaving there, Maucher slept on the streets or in a tent, crashed on couches or spent nights in area shelters until he recently began renting a room.

The 53-year-old Dover man said he wants to pay his own way, but the little money he earns nowadays can only supplement his food stamps and pay rent on his small room in a house he shares with three other people.

Maucher believes he's a perfect candidate for Port Hope's Tiny House village.

"It would be a godsend to live in one of the tiny homes," Maucher said. "There is something to be said about vacuuming your own floor and keeping your own place tidy. It does a lot for a person's self-confidence, having your own place."

The first attempt stalled after neighbors of Victory Church in Dover pushed back about about having houses for the homeless near them. 

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Harris now believes the first effort wasn't meant to be and feels confident Port Hope will be able to find a better location where neighbors will be more welcoming and less likely to harass the tiny house residents.

The Port Hope director said she learned a lot from the original try.

Key among those lessons is calling the effort affordable housing. She said anything with the word homeless attached has a stigma.

"This is not a homeless camp. It's affordable housing," Harris said. "That is what is lacking in Dover. Super-low-income people need super-affordable housing. Once you are housed, you are not homeless anymore."

Last month, the Welfare Foundation of Delaware provided Port Hope with a $35,000 grant to assist with the project, jump-starting the effort. Harris plans other fundraising efforts so the charity can afford "the right" piece of land.

With two years to use the grant money, she said Port Hope will research areas in and around Dover before deciding what property to buy.

"People have been kind of anxious and have been watching this for two years," she said. "I'd like to raise $100,000 before we really get serious about purchasing land."

The village will require at least 5 acres, which would fulfill Kent County's zoning requirement for a campground and Port Hope's idea that the village be more of a campground setting.

Harris said zoning was a big hurdle for the original push next to Victory Church. The county required the organization to get a full engineering site plan, which set Port Hope back $10,000.

In the end, Kent County clarified the code, assuring Port Hope that to start a campground all it needed to find was five acres within a DNREC-approved area for well, septic, sewer or city and county services and to alert neighbors within 50 feet of the plan. 

Campgrounds are permitted as a conditional use in agricultural conservation or residential zones, confirmed Kent County's Department of Planning Services director Sarah Keifer.

"The applications can be approved administratively unless an objection from an adjacent property owner is received, in which case a public hearing would be required," Keifer said.

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Tiny houses

Harris believes the tiny house village will help low-income people with low-cost housing options.

The goal is to create a cooperatively run, self-managed eco-village for formerly homeless people to live in a sustainable way. 

Harris said the concept is basic. Once the land is bought or donated, services can be included if the homes are connected to existing services and if that isn't possible, connected to well water and septic systems.

Harris said in other successful tiny house villages across the country, the houses were built using donated materials and volunteers.

She said all upkeep and maintenance is designed to be performed by the residents or those with handyman skills. The only capital expense is the land and infrastructure, while the only ongoing expenses are loans for land purchase and infrastructure financing, insurance, utilities and maintenance fees.

Port Hope estimates the cost of building the 200-square-foot tiny houses at between $10,000 and $12,000. 

"We are finding a lot of interest in the donation of materials and volunteers and time, so the final cost of the homes will prove to be much less," she said.

Once the homes are rented for $200 to $300 a month, the residents would be required to help in the village with security, gardening and ground maintenance. Residents also will be asked to play a role in village governance.

"The village can be very self-sustaining and independent of undue regulations and requirements," she said. "The most attractive part of the model is the financial advantages and its lack of reliance on government funding."

The plan will offer counselors, social services, GED classes and employment assistance.

The homeless factor

Port Hope's research shows that the savings a community can see when it provides permanent supportive housing compared to leaving someone on the streets is "astronomical" and reason enough to find a solution to homelessness, Harris said. 

The cost to house the homeless in Dover keeps rising, Harris said. Port Hope says it costs more than $13,000 a year to house one homeless person in an emergency shelter bed and $14,000 a year for a transitional housing bed.

About 50 homeless people routinely walk Dover streets, Harris said. Another 30 are housed at Dover Interfaith and 20 more at Bagley Hall. She said there are probably 15 more in transitional housing. And with Dover's two shelters housing about 40 each, there could be upwards of 200 homeless people in Dover at any given time.

"And that doesn't count the people on couches," she said. "That number fluctuates, but right now with a lot of young folks on heroin out there, the number is rising."

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Harris said the fastest growing population of homeless are people 50 to 70, many of whom have spent their lives in the trades or as stay-at-home moms. They may have made a good living wage, but many didn't plan for the future.

"They are the generation that is out there and the biggest group we want to try to get off the streets," Harris said. "They have been struggling the longest and have no options."

Scott Becker, owner of Coastal Carwash in Dover, said he worries another age group could be teetering on the verge of homelessness. While he likes the tiny house village idea, he would like to see homes for single wage-earners who struggle to make ends meet.

Becker said his employees have told him they would rather save $200 to $300 a month in rent than get a $1 an hour raise. 

"We both want the same thing for different reasons," Becker said. "I want to make sure people I employ don't reach the point of homelessness. Tiny houses could prevent this."

Harris believes everybody who can work is working, but there are those who can't work. She said there are a lot of unhealthy and mentally ill people out there, many homeless.

She believes tiny houses will benefit them, too.

"They are getting a check and that check isn't enough to cover rent," she said. "If this is the check we are going to give them, then we need to figure out a way to provide them a way to take care of themselves."

Reach Jerry Smith at jsmith17@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JerrySmithTNJ.

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