Tiny Living in 2020 - An Interview with Jewel Pearson of Ms. Bohemian Soul

Jewel Pearson is a Tiny House owner, consultant and advocate who has been an active and outspoken leader on creative, accessible small space living since 2006. Drawn to her vibrant style, her deeper dissection of the world of tiny living, and her sheer love of sunshine, I finally connected with Jewel over Instagram after long admiring her from afar. 

Jewel believes that "you don’t have to give up luxury to go tiny,” just as I believe that “you don’t need to live large to live beautifully.” She shares her knowledge and extensive work in tiny house designing, building and living in order to help others explore this distinctive and delightful pathway to home ownership. 

Personally, as a 39 year old small business owner who has never owned her own home, and who is raising a family that cherishes experiences over belongings, I am both professionally and personally interested in Jewel’s work. As such, I was overjoyed when she generously agreed to do a Q&A for this blog. 

I haven’t introduced many outside stories to this site over the years because there are countless other home decor and lifestyle sites that curate and publish interviews and home tours full-time. What I believe sets The Tiny Canal Cottage apart is that it’s a real-life, decade-long experiment in small space living as an evolving, growing home and company. But Jewel and I share enough overlap that I know her story will resonate well with this blog’s readership, while her expertise, history and viewpoints offer vital insights that I cannot.

When devising the questions for this interview, Jewel and I wanted to avoid the typical inquiries that she and I both receive routinely from other media outlets. We aimed to redirect the light away from the extensively-covered topics such as storage and decor, and focus instead on the more meaningful issues behind small space living, such the role it can play in this era climate crisis, and its importance in an increasingly polarized economy and society that’s rife with social and racial injustices. 

Want to know more about Jewel’s business? Visit her website and Instagram, and explore her professional services, such as her tiny house plans (available for purchase), tours, consultations, workshops, and public / virtual speaking options. 

Photo courtesy of Jewel Pearson © Ms. Bohemian Soul.

Question: What draws you to tiny living, Jewel?

Jewel’s Reply: My initial draw to tiny living was having imagined it being my retirement plan, once my daughter was successfully headed off into her own. I had dreamed about it as living in a RV and traveling nomadically throughout the country, but as I got closer to the time and was looking at RVs I realized the ones from my dream weren’t in my budget, if I wanted to “retire”.  I later stumbled on a story about a now friend, who’d built a tiny house around 2013 that resonated with me and then decided that’s what I was going to do. 

For me tiny living represented freedom and “lightness”, freedom from having had to be so responsible as I did raising my daughter as a single mom and having to make decisions focused more so on needs and requirements. The RV life, as I had imagined it, meant opportunities for “irresponsibility” and the ability to make decisions based on wants and desires. I saw it as an opportunity to not have roots and attachments, but exist kind of nomadically – which, while I don’t actually travel with my house, I am still able to feel that personally as I am able to travel more (pre-Covid) because with tiny living my responsibilities and expenses have been reduced and that is the dream.

Photo courtesy of Jewel Pearson © Ms. Bohemian Soul

Question: Do you find your passion for tiny living growing, receding, or generally evolving over time? 

Jewel’s Reply: I find my passion for tiny living growing and evolving. After 5 years I still love my house and love living in it. I love that I can quickly change my décor and make it feel refreshed and I have added and enlarged my outdoor spaces to make everything even more enjoyable. My passion has grown and evolved in what I feel is my community involvement and “responsibility” to represent people who look like me and weren’t being seen in this movement so they and their voices are included. My involvement has also evolved into conversations with government officials around legalizing tiny homes. It is also my desire and almost bucket list item to build a tiny house community.

Photo courtesy of Jewel Pearson © Ms. Bohemian Soul

Question: What you believe tiny living has to offer in an era of climate crisis? 

Jewel’s Reply: Tiny living helps you to think more about your footprint and impact on the world. Living smaller offers a lighter footprint; you are consuming and wasting less almost automatically. Many tiny houses are designed to be more energy efficient, as they’re solar powered, have compost toilets, rain catchment systems, etc. The owners are or become more focused on the earth, with gardening and farming and become more focused on the food that they eat and the food’s source. It’s almost as a natural progression that you want to become a better steward of the earth through tiny living, even if that wasn’t your original focus and intent, and there is a lot of value in that in light of our climate crisis and certainly more value in it if more people took that path. Tiny houses on wheels, which offer mobility options should be and are a valuable consideration for the areas often impacted by fires, they present options for safety and less loss of property.

Photo courtesy of Jewel Pearson © Ms. Bohemian Soul

Question: What you believe tiny living has to offer in our increasingly polarized economy?

Jewel’s Reply: Each major city is currently experiencing an affordable housing crisis and issues with homelessness and the crises are increasing with no real end in sight. Tiny living offers viable solutions for both, if cities would just consider them. The west coast is doing a good job in doing so with the legalization of tiny houses on wheels as ADUs in many cities, which just makes sense as that option eliminates the major financial expense associated with building an ADU on foundation, it provides housing for the tiny house owner and it provides financial support for the conventional homeowner. If you consider how many backyards are available that aren’t being used for anything that would support the concept, it’s a win and no brainer. For the majority of my tiny house living I have been located in that same scenario, though not with official approval as it is currently not technically legal to do so here in Charlotte and in 2019 the city officials required me to move my home. However, I continue to try to have the conversations here with city officials and I continue to share the examples of what is being done in other progressive areas, as considering tiny houses on wheels offers an immediate solution for housing and it offers financial support for conventional homeowners and people are struggling and need solutions. It not the end all solution by any means nor is it something everyone is interested in, but it offers a very viable solution that should be considered.

This has also been a big consideration of mine as I’ve focused on the Black and brown communities missing from the larger tiny house conversations and movement. Much of the reasoning of why people get involved with tiny living is for the opportunities it presents for less debt/debt free living and the ability to own your home quicker, without the standard constrictions of mortgage loans. That is something that is sorely needed in those communities as the communities continue to show up last, year after year, in the rates for homeownership and in light of what should be major concerns with the existing wealth gap in this country and it’s continual increase without remediation. There are numerous historical and systemic issues that have led to and continue to contribute to both of those problems, but tiny living offers a viable solution for getting to homeownership quicker, for less debt/debt free living and opportunities for wealth building. The opportunities are something definitely worth consideration as so many people continue to pursue the very elusive “American Dream.”

Photo courtesy of Jewel Pearson © Ms. Bohemian Soul

Question: What sorts of microagressions do you experience as a Black woman in both the tiny home and design spaces? 

Jewel’s Reply: One of the things that I’ve learned recently is to call “microagressions” what they really are, which is trauma. As a Black woman in this movement I’ve experienced trauma in the racism I’ve had to deal with in attending events in rural areas, in Facebook groups where participants used ethnic slurs and it is permitted and I’d receive racist comments on social media posts. I’ve received an anonymous threatening email message from someone clearly associated with the movement, as I’ve been very vocal about the lack of representation and inclusivity within the movement and people felt “attacked” because I was calling it out. As a Black woman living in my tiny house, I’ve twice had to relocate my home due to personal safety concerns due to experienced racism, once when my house was located in a RV Park and then most recently where it was located on a farm in a rural area right outside Charlotte. 

Interestingly, in the design space I had a situation occur with a woman who bought my plans and built her tiny home from them. I ended up spending a lot of free consulting time with her during her build, as she was experiencing a lot of issues with her builder and I coached her through her build, as I could relate and felt compassion for her situation. Her house turned out fabulously, with obviously my plans as the foundation. Fast forward to last year, she shared she was going to be filming with “Living Big in a Tiny House” so I reminded her of the plans purchase agreement which requires properly crediting the design owner. After the filming had been completed and shared on social media, people who recognized her home’s design started tagging me in the posts as they were inquiring about her design and the correlation to my home. I then look at the interview and see that when asked about the design of her home there is this weird awkwardness and explanation of the design idea/inspiration being a result of her research and her design style, blah, blah, blah. She never credits me as the owner of the plans or the design. So I reach out again to remind her of the contractual agreement, she then shifts the responsibility to the host saying he agreed he’d include the info and loops him in and instead of either or both of them doing the right thing, his response to me is that he felt like what I was trying to do was ride his popularity to gain personal exposure. I had absolutely zero interest in his “following” as they aren’t actually my audience, nor do I need his “exposure” and I’d actually declined a prior opportunity with him to film my home. What I was requiring was that proper credit be given, as per contractual agreement. Never mind the fact that it was absolutely the right thing to do. His recourse was to add a note to his notes in YouTube, which had I not been dealing with a number of other priorities at the time would not have flown and I would’ve involved my attorney. What I know to be true is that disrespect would not have happened to a white designer, man or woman and it was uncalled for and came from a place of privilege.

Photo courtesy of Jewel Pearson © Ms. Bohemian Soul

Question: Has the pandemic shifted your views on where you want to be or how you want to live once travel becomes safer and more accessible on the other side of Covid?

Jewel’s Reply: There are actually a couple of pandemics currently occurring, one being Covid and the other being racism, both of which are very negatively impacting the Black community. With that in mind, once travel becomes safer and more accessible I know that I want to live somewhere I feel welcome and safe. Since early March I have been living in an apartment in the city here and have not been living in my tiny house since due to the incidences of racism I experienced, and because I’d experienced some challenges with the farm director and his management and direction of the property. I’d been on this 11-acre farm alone for 7 months and I didn’t feel safe, but didn’t have anywhere to relocate my house at that time. I was able to relocate my house in August and am planning to move back into it once the site’s infrastructure work is completed at the new location and I’m looking forward to that. 

Longer term, I am considering places outside of the country for at least part time residence. Cartagena and Medellin, Colombia are areas of interest as is Mexico. I work remotely, but am required to be in a located in a place where my company has offices so that’s a big factor and also a limitation. My plan would be to still maintain my tiny house in the US, but I want to have options outside the US.