A young 24-year-old student engineer was installed on Tuesday in a tiny house or mini-house in Taponnat, in Charente, about 5 km from the company where he is doing his work-study. An electric bicycle is provided for him to allow him to commute. It is housed in this 15 m2 habitat, with optimized spaces, manufactured locally by the company “nomadic shelters”. This is the Charente Habitat Jeunes association, which has been working for twenty years for the integration through housing of 16-30 year olds, which responded to the call for expressions of interest launched by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region.
A fortnight to deploy
Based on the observation that many young people refuse a job or training because of a housing or mobility problem in rural areas, the association had the idea of taking an interest in these small mobile homes. A crowdfunding call made it possible to carry out the first one and the objective is to offer around fifteen others in the coming years, depending on the needs.
“It’s an experiment, we’re going to see if it works, comments Martine Pinville, regional councilor. It took derogations in terms of town planning to be able to install it in the municipality of Taponnat, which volunteered”. Beyond the technical feasibility, it will be necessary to see if this habitat finds takers over time.
The amount of the rent with all charges included is 477 euros, but the Housing Assistance (APL) has also been triggered, in a derogatory way for this habitat, in order to offer a more affordable rent. The idea is to move these mini-houses as close as possible to the training areas and this could be of interest to many other small towns, throughout the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region.