Inside a Minneapolis Warehouse, 100 Tiny Homes Are Giving People a Place to Start Again
In Minneapolis, winter can turn homelessness into something far more dangerous than simply not having a permanent address.
For someone sleeping outside, a night of freezing temperatures can become a medical emergency. Finding a place to rest may mean choosing between a tent, a car, a doorway, an encampment or a traditional shelter that may not feel accessible or safe.
Several years ago, Minneapolis tried something different.
Instead of building another large room filled with rows of beds, a warehouse was transformed into an indoor community containing 100 small, private living spaces.
The project became known as Avivo Village.
From the outside, it may look like an ordinary industrial building.
Inside, however, it contains something much more unusual:
A village within a warehouse.
One hundred individual rooms.
Private doors.
A place to sleep.
A place to keep belongings.
And, perhaps most importantly, a place where people experiencing homelessness can have enough stability to begin thinking about what comes next.
Avivo Village officially opened in December 2020 as a new model for addressing unsheltered homelessness in Minneapolis. According to Avivo, the nonprofit organization that operates the program, the indoor community was designed around the idea that people need more than a bed before they can begin rebuilding their lives.
They need safety.
They need privacy.
They need dignity.
And many need access to services that address the reasons homelessness can become so difficult to escape.
By July 2026, Avivo reported that the village had served 873 people since opening, with 339 residents moving into safe, permanent housing.
Those numbers do not tell every story inside the building.
But they help explain why this unusual warehouse has become an important example in the ongoing debate over how cities should respond to homelessness.
Why Build Tiny Homes Inside a Warehouse?
Traditional emergency shelters have saved countless lives.
But they do not work equally well for everyone.
Some shelters use large dormitory-style rooms where many people sleep close together.
For someone who has experienced trauma, violence, theft or years of instability, that environment may be difficult.
Some people fear having their belongings stolen.
Others may not want to be separated from a partner.
People may have pets they are unwilling to abandon.
Others may struggle with mental illness, addiction or anxiety that makes crowded spaces difficult to tolerate.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, those concerns became even more complicated.
Avivo Village was developed during that period, when Minneapolis and other cities were facing both a homelessness crisis and a public-health emergency.
The concept was relatively simple:
Instead of placing dozens of people in one open sleeping space, give each resident a small, private room inside a larger protected building.
The original City of Minneapolis project documents described plans for 100 individual units of about 64 square feet each, with essential furnishings and a secure space for residents and their belongings.
The rooms are small.
They are not apartments.
They do not contain their own kitchens or full bathrooms.
But they offer something that can be extremely important to someone who has been living outside:
A door.
Privacy.
And a space that feels temporarily like their own.
A Shelter Designed Around Dignity
Avivo describes the project as an indoor community of 100 secure, private dwellings or "tiny houses" for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.
The language matters.
Avivo Village is not intended to be permanent housing.
Instead, it is a low-barrier emergency shelter designed to create enough stability for residents to begin moving toward permanent housing and better health.
Its model emphasizes several principles.
Residents have private space and security.
They can receive support without being forced into a rigid one-size-fits-all pathway.
They can access services when they are ready.
And barriers that might prevent someone from entering a traditional shelter are reduced as much as possible.
Avivo says the project was designed in consultation with people who had lived in encampments.
That distinction is important.
Programs for people experiencing homelessness are often designed by policymakers, nonprofits or planners.
But people actually living outside may have very different priorities.
For someone sleeping in an encampment, privacy might matter enormously.
So might the ability to stay with a partner.
So might bringing a pet.