- Organization: OpenFile.ca
- Type of media: daily, digital news organization specializing in municipal and city-oriented issues.
- Address: Toronto, Canada
- Contact: Jane Armstrong
- Phone number: 416 583 2118 ex. 3005
- Email: jane.armstrong23@gmail.com
Request:
I’m a reporter with OpenFile.ca in Toronto Canada. It’s a relatively new online news organization. Prior to OpenFile, I was a correspondent with the Globe and Mail in Vancouver, Halifax, Moscow and Afghanistan.
I’m writing a feature story about a family in Calgary (complete with a video diary) that is building a tiny house in their backyard. Kirsten and Michael are building their little house on a trailer bed, and once it’s done, they plan to travel the continent below settling down on Vancouver Island.
Their motivations are largely economic. Although both work full-time, they can’t seem to get ahead of their bills. Calgary is an expensive, oil-rich boom town with rising real estate costs. They rent their home and don’t think they’ll ever be able to buy.
So, their tiny home is a bid to opt out of that lifestyle, which they describe as a “burden.”
I want to find other families like this in Canada. The small house movement has taken off in the United States, but I haven’t read that much about it in the Canadian press apart from the lane way houses in Vancouver.
I’d love to speak to other Canadians who, like the Shaws, are moving to tiny homes as a lifestyle choice.