It Takes a (Micro Shelter) Village
Summer 2026 · Arizona Alumni Magazine
Arizona Alumni Magazine's Summer 2026 issue tells the story of our micro shelter village and the many people working to make it real. The story begins in the spring of 2024, when THF founder Chuck Dunn returned from touring Seattle's tiny home villages convinced the same approach could work here, and brought the idea to the University of Arizona's Drachman Institute.
The article follows the project from that first conversation through the CAPLA capstone studio, where professors Teresa Rosano and Greg Veitch led sixteen architecture students in designing and building the first micro shelter prototype. For many of the students, it was the first thing they had ever built that they could walk around in.
It also looks at the research behind the effort, including work by Tucson architect and Drachman research professor Bill Mackey on what homelessness costs a community, and at how CAPLA, the Drachman Institute, the City of Tucson, and community partners are working together on what comes next.
Read the full story here:
It Takes a (Micro Shelter) Village (alumni.arizona.edu)