Couple wants to build supportive tiny house community

For Nino and Victoria Gabaldon, the Flathead Valley’s vast open spaces offer exciting opportunities.

The married couple moved to Kalispell seven years ago, lured by the same natural beauty that brings so many transplants to the area. In addition to the valley’s plentiful fishing spots and hiking trails, the Gabaldons see plenty of space in which their vision of a tiny house village with wraparound social services and an ethos of self-sufficiency can blossom into reality.

The Gabaldons are community organizers and sober-living evangelicals whose vision of a supportive, affordable tiny house community has been forged through their own battles with drugs and alcohol.

Nino has been sober for 31 years, and Victoria for 18. They married in 2005 and raised two children together before a road trip took them to Northwest Montana.

Although they’ve lived in states across the country, their commitment to 12-step sobriety program gatherings, known by those in the sober community as meetings, has remained strong.

“Whenever we go on vacation we look up where the local meeting is,” Nino said while stirring fresh fried tortilla chips through bubbling oil at a community gathering at their home.

The couple attends some version of a meeting nearly every day all over the valley, connecting with other people who know the pain and redemption they’ve experienced. They recently started leading a meeting at the Flathead Warming Center, a Kalispell homeless shelter.

On this day the Gabaldons welcomed friends into their home for a weekly event they like to refer to as “stone soup.”

The tradition refers to folk stories in which hungry strangers convince the people of a town to each contribute an ingredient to a communal cauldron, and then each share in the resulting meal.

“We’ve always felt a purpose to serve,” Nino said as he prepared the chips for the evening’s “stone soup,” a shrimp ceviche. “The love and community is what goes into the food.”

Although the Gabaldons can be found at nearly every community event, their dream is to launch a tiny house community, with the name New Now Village that will provide the full gamut of social services including affordable housing, job training and addiction and mental health counseling.

They envision a village that will also have studio and maker spaces for artists and craftspeople, as well as a shop for the items produced, with funds sustaining the village and royalties going to the artists.

A core part of their vision includes providing homeless people with permanent housing — believing tiny houses as an affordable and scalable solution to the Flathead’s growing crisis — but they also want to welcome those of all socio-economic levels and backgrounds.

As they’ve pitched the idea at meetings and events over the last year they’ve received interest from more than 40 people regarding living in such a community, according to Nino.

They foresee people building their own tiny houses in order to develop a sense of pride and “sweat equity.”

They are attracted to the tiny home movement in part because they believe that minimizing material possessions helps with the difficult work of recovery and personal development.

“Tiny houses give the opportunity to confront issues and grow,” Nino said.

Victoria said they’d even offer free rent in an exchange for professionals with needed skills such as counseling.

Although they don’t have degrees in social work or psychology, the Gabaldons feel that their lived experience and outsider status gives them a unique perspective and ability to connect with others.

“I think I just speak the language,” Nino said. “I can meet people where they’re at.”

To get New Now Village off the ground, the Gabaldons are still searching for the right plot of land, ideally, one that already has water and electricity, as well as a sustainable funding source such as federal Medicaid or Housing and Urban Development funds earmarked for supportive housing programs.

Although the search has been demanding, their energy is boundless. Victoria says their devotion to helping others and realizing their dreams keeps them focused on maintaining their own sobriety and feeds their underdog mindset.

“Everybody says we can’t,” Victoria said. “And that’s motivating.”

Reporter Adrian Knowler can be reached at 758-4407 or aknowler@dailyinterlake.com.

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