Through his nonprofit, Kasita, professor Jeff Wilson designed a prototype of a 208-square-foot micro unit. At a 2016 South by Southwest Conferences & Festivals panel, he said he aims to help solve affordability with the units.[/caption]

For one year professor Jeff Wilson lived in a 33-square-foot dumpster on the Huston-Tillotson University campus in East Austin.

That experience gave him insight into the opportunities and challenges of creating a new type of tiny urban housing to address the city's affordability issue.

Speaking to a crowd at the 2016 South by Southwest Conferences & Festivals on March 15, Wilson said he founded the nonprofit Kasita to design and create a prototype for a mobile urban dwelling that would also be affordable.

“The problem we’re solving for is folks who cannot afford to live in the heart of the cities they love, in particular some of our most critical folks—musicians artists, teachers [and] firefighters,” Wilson said. “I think we can even have a solution for homeless here. Housing is really at the center of everything, and we need to solve this problem at its core.”

A cantilevered glass cube will allow users to customize their space. The micro units will be 270 square feet and include a full kitchen and bathroom.[/caption]

The first four units will be available by August in East Austin, he said. The prototype is located at 1304 E. Fourth St., Austin, next to the Historic Scoot Inn.

A couple of years ago Wilson sold his 3,000-square-foot home and belongings to move into the dumpster. He fixed it up by painting, adding a sliding roof and installing air-conditioning.

Wilson formed Kasita and hired an industrial designer to create the prototype, which ended up being 208 square feet. The unit has a full kitchen and bathroom and living space.

“A lot of folks live in apartments or places where they don’t have a washer and dryer or dishwasher,” he said. “We have everything in a typical home, including a queen-sized bed.”

Professor Jeff Wilson, who founded nonprofit Kasita, discusses during South by Southwest Conferences & Festivals how the micro units he created could help with affordable housing in U.S. cities, including Austin.[/caption]

The units that will be for sale will be about 270 square feet, and nine will be able to fit into one rack on a 1,500-square-foot space, he said. They also will be customizable. If a person wants to relocate, Wilson said they can schedule it on the Kasita app. The company will pick up the unit and move it to the desired new city, he said.

The units are designed for individuals, but Wilson said Kasita is considering options for families and for other countries to add them.

He said he also wants to work with cities to ensure locations of the racks are in the urban core and on the edge of neighborhoods. After discussing his plans with one East Austin neighborhood, he said people do not want them to infiltrate their neighborhoods.

“We don’t want these to be gentrification pods where the only folks living in them are wealthy, white [and] privileged moving into heart of areas that are traditionally low-income and not white,” he said. “We want to be very careful and thoughtful.”

Tackling the issue of affordability will require assistance from cities, he said.

“I’ve already been approached by developers who want to buy them all up at X and put them on the market for 2X, and you end up with the same situation,” he said. “We need to stay focused on our north star which is solving affordability. Those risks are real.”