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Former homeless man working to house homeless people with tiny homes at Monroe church

MONROE, Wash. — A North Sound man recovering from drug addiction has a big vision of helping people experiencing what he knows well, homelessness. Roger Evans is 27 months clean and is now working to set up a tiny home village at New Hope Fellowship Church in Monroe with the pastor’s blessing.

For the past year Evans has lived with New Hope Fellowship pastor Rob Jansons. And when he heard about this tiny home village in Lynwood, he took Pastor Jansons to see it with visions of recreating it in Monroe.

“Once you see it, see how clean it is and well organized, and how it’s actually serving six people giving them a step up in life,” Pastor Jansons told KIRO 7 on Thursday.  “It’s not a big transition to think we have the same setup here.  We have a field that is not being well-used.”

Everett-company Pallet Shelter built the Lynwood home, and for the last week set up one of the tiny homes at New Hope for Evans to try out for free.

The plan is to have seven of the tiny homes on the New Hope property at first.  And if all goes well, they have plenty of room to expand. Evans and Jansons told KIRO7 they really envision this idea expanding to other areas here in Monroe.

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Applicants would be screened using references and would be allowed to live there for 90 days up to a year and a half.  Evans will live on site as the administrator.

“You need to have a person passionate, who’s willing to live there,” Jansons said. “We have Roger.”

“This isn’t about housing people,” Evans said. “This is about getting people to the next step.  Have a safe place to put their stuff and to sleep. Then they can start working on their barriers, the reason that caused them to be homeless.”

They estimate they need to raise $60,000 and get the city’s approval. The goal is to have the seven homes up and running before winter.

“It’s not going to solve the homelessness problem but it will be one way to solve it for some people,” Jansons said. “And that’s the way we look at it. How can we be part of the bigger solution?”