Are tiny houses coming to your neighborhood?

Tiny houses are having a big impact in Chippewa County as a way to help solve homelessness in the area.

Built by a coalition of churches, the first completed tiny house standing 12x8 ft. behind Landmark Christian Church in Chippewa Falls was open to the public Sunday.

But where will they go next?

“The project, it’s not only been fun, in thinking what the project lies ahead in terms of who it’s going to help and what it’s going to do for the Chippewa Falls areas,” volunteer Larry Larson said.

Larson is one of more than 75 volunteers who put in hundreds of hours into this project to help people in need get back on their feet.

“There’s kind of this vacuum in Chippewa Falls, we have no shelter and so what we were doing is trying to figure out a way to solve that situation,” explained Associate Pastor Michael Cohoon of Landmark Christian Church.

Cohoon says the next step is to look for a property where they can place more of these tiny homes in Chippewa County.

“We’re going to have churches host them at first one or two at each church site, after that in a year or two, we'd like to acquire a property and then put all of them on one property with a central building,” Cohoon said. “The central building would hold the bathrooms and the showers and the kitchens, maybe even have a workshop and retail space, so that people can get training.”

Michelle Siegert of Chippewa Falls has been homeless since October, aside from coming to check out the recently finished tiny house, she also hoped to connect with resources and meet new people.

“I think it’s kind of neat,” Siegert said. “I’m kind of interested in helping in building one and painting one too.”

Cohoon says they're looking to build 12-14 more tiny homes; each costing roughly $5,000 apiece.

The church coalition is looking for more volunteers to help build the next tiny house beginning June 17th at the Northern Wisconsin State Fairgrounds.

To find out how you can get involved, click on the link to the right.