Tiny House Jamboree 2016 Think Tank:
Tiny Think Tank Panel Presentation and Tiny Home Industry Association Opportunity:
Several months before the 2016 Jamboree, the staff at ecoCabins, (the sponsor of the Tiny House Jamboree) asked VSS's Co-Founder Mike Schmidt, if he might consider chairing a panel at the Jamboree to bring together a number of the industry leaders to discuss the “Big Challenges facing the Tiny Industry” in a “Think Tank” session on the last day. Of course this was another good opportunity for VSS at the Jamboree to promote it's initiatives and to continue to talk about the need for Affordable Housing Soutions, and the development of our VSS/Villages concept for addressing Veteran Homelessness.
The Panel session entitled "Tiny Think Tank" was held on Sunday Aug 7th and included the founders of two of the leading tiny house builders in the marketplace today, (ecoCabins and Sprout Tiny Homes) as well as the planning and zoning director from the City of Walsenberg, CO. At the conclusion of the panel session, (which was done in concert with the announcement of the formation of the Tiny Home Industry Association), the panelests received a lot of really good feedback on the panel session that had touched on a wide variety of topics and challenges facing the Tiny House Industry, (i.e. Building Codes, Zoning, Ordinances, etc). Many of the attendees thought we were on the right tract to self police the industry and address these issues head on.
The experiences at both the 2015 and 2016 Tiny House Jamboree has enabled VSS and Ensemble to see on the inside of this developing industry and to meet all the key players and developers who are working to grow the Tiny Home community space nation-wide. In addition,we were able to meet a number of housing developers as well as citizens and city representatives from a wide ranging roster of cities across the country who are actively developing local Tiny House communities.
For "Historical" information on the Tiny House Jamboree:
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2015/08/a-big-turnout-for-a-tiny-house-jamboree/401498/
Post Event Coverage from the Independent
During the Jamboree, VSS had a chance to meet with Nat Stein, (one of the young, and recently added “at-large” reporters for the Colorado Springs Independent), which is one of three local newspapers here in the Springs . Nat attended the Jamboree to get a feel for what this new industry was all about, and to meet with and talk with some of the local companies attempting to create affordable housing solutions as this was a major theme of her article.
We had a chance to meet her in our booth at the show, (Booth #17 Ensemble/VSS), and later VSS Co-Founder Midid an in-depth telephone interview about a week later. Mike covered a lot of ground regarding the Tiny House Industry... but could tell she was “diving” into the deep end of the “Legal and Regulatory” pool to really understand more about where the challenges and roadblocks might be for the realization of low cost housing. It was not a bad first cut for someone new to the industry and she managed to get a number of perspectives from different viewpoints to create a balanced article that featured VSS and our Pocket Neigboorhood concept for the development of VSS/Vilages.
Below is the link to the Cover Story article in the Independent that just appeared in the digital online version of paper today, (August 17th) and will be appearing in the print version that is distributed throughout the Rocky Mountain Region.
Low-cost tiny homes could help alleviate the housing shortage
