One young woman wants you to consider renting to the housing insecure instead of to tourists

Published June 21, 2023 at 9:20 AM EDT

Precious Price's tiny home. (Courtesy of Precious Price)

As a determined 22-year-old, Precious Price bought her first home in the Atlanta area. Then, when the marketing consultant traveled for work, she rented it out to tourists.

She was well aware that the world of online rentals represented a path to wealth for entrepreneurs of color, often blocked in more traditional fields. She shared her advice in videos and tutorials, built a tiny house on her property and bought another house. But everything changed after COVID, when local people with nowhere else to go called looking for housing.

The inside of Precious Price’s tiny home. (Courtesy of Precious Price)

So Price pivoted, lowering her profit margins, but focusing on giving people a place to live. She became an advocate for creating accessory dwelling units (or ACUs) like tiny homes, in-law apartments, or home attachments to create housing without buying new lots. She joins host Robin Young to talk about affordable housing.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.