Our mission is to create dignified, affordable, tiny homes in caring community for, and with, people transitioning out of homelessness.
PEE WEE'S STORY
Nathaniel “Pee Wee” Lee lived in Chapel Hill his whole life and was a skilled brick mason for decades – building dozens of the brick buildings community members see to this day. After suffering a stroke in 1995, he temporarily lost his ability to walk and speak, as well as acute motor control. This left him unable to practice his trade. Through rehabilitation, Pee Wee regained the strength to walk and the ability to speak, but the loss of acute control was permanent. He retired due to this disability. After losing steady income, Pee Wee could not afford a home in Orange County and was homeless on and off for over a decade; he slept in the woods for much of this period, and stayed at the shelter for another two years. Pee Wee built this community, literally, and yet there was nowhere for him to live in his retirement. A group of community members, recognizing the injustice, came together to construct the idea – and the tiny houses – behind Pee Wee Homes. Thanks to the collective action of the community dedicated to housing him, Pee Wee was able to move into his own studio apartment, where he lived out the rest of his days. Pee Wee passed peacefully in his home in 2025, and now his legacy lives on in the ten other tiny homes we’ve built and filled with neighbors ever since.
OUR COMMUNITY
We know affordable housing is a crisis in Orange County, and crisis elicits from us as a collective, creative response – an “all-hands-on-deck” approach. Our impressive area affordable housing providers are doing incredible work to create affordable housing in our community. But with continuously decreasing funding and indomitable need, we are looking at this effort as one way that private philanthropy can help respond to this crisis – particularly for the lowest income members of our community. We know tiny homes are not the solution to homelessness as a standalone answer, but we hope and believe they can be a piece of the puzzle, and a helpful tool for some of our neighbors without homes.
OUR STORY
We are a group of community members who have come together to be part of answering the glaring call for deeply affordable housing in our community. Homes that individuals with fixed income like Pee Wee can afford; homes that allow elderly homeless individuals to age in place; homes that a single person earning minimum wage can afford; and, most importantly, homes that support independence within the context of community. We were drawn to the tiny house movement because of the efficiencies of space, the creative green designs to keep bills low, the ease for mobility-challenged residents, and the opportunity for small gifts to go a long way. No contribution is too small, and at just 250-400 square feet of space, the opportunities to squeeze small homes all over our community are limitless!
