My time off-grid inspired me to plan a future for COVID-cautious community in our rapidly changing climate.
I’m writing at my kitchen counter in a 160-square-foot tiny house overlooking a stand of tall, regal pines laden with snow. The wood stove is going. A whiteboard is on the wall, listing daily chores like “chop wood” and “shovel driveway.” There’s also a quote from Dean Spade in red that says, “No one is coming to save us.”
It’s quiet. The only consistent sound is wind rustling snow out of the branches; it falls to the ground in plops. An occasional hammering from a hairy woodpecker floats into the space, along with the chirps of chickadees. In the mornings, I sometimes find remains of a gift from the fox who lives nearby.
Ask me before the pandemic if I saw this in my future and I would say yes, but in my forties. I’ve wanted to live in a tiny house for over a decade but thought it would only be possible after I’d saved enough to do it right. Having free, open space for my community to root down was a priority given what I knew about climate change. I learned about environmental collapse in college and became something of a “doomer” when I was 21 — but preparing for it was a long game. By my mid-twenties, I’d clinched a well-paying job, and this dream inched ever closer.
However, that agenda was irrevocably altered with the arrival of COVID-19. A symptom of the larger picture, COVID-19 shows the ever-increasing risk of spillover of zoonotic diseases. The ongoing pandemic is one of many ways nature demonstrates that environmental collapse isn’t some far-off thing; it’s taking place right now. Communities who have been living under colonialism will tell you this collapse has been happening for centuries. We need to take these warnings seriously if we want to be ready for what’s ahead. Sitting back and letting everything fall apart is not an option — at least not an option that most of us would survive.
We need to take these warnings seriously if we want to be ready for what’s ahead. Sitting back and letting everything fall apart is not an option — at least not an option that most of us would survive.
In 2024, my partner and I found ourselves face-to-face not only with worsening disabilities from COVID-19 but also with the very environmental destruction we were told wouldn’t occur until we retired. Due to the fatal, unprecedented flooding that hit our state, the 90-minute drive to her place from mine took almost three hours, with parts of the road sinking into ravines, entire buildings collapsing under the weight of muck.
My partner and I didn’t live together yet because we believed in giving ourselves time to enjoy the dating stage. We believed we were doing it the “right” way — letting things unfold naturally.
Yet like many with Long COVID and associated conditions, we faced serious considerations regarding finances and housing. One 2024 study found that people with Long COVID were almost twice as likely to report housing insecurity as those who did not experience long-term symptoms after COVID-19. Additionally, the environmental crisis, dangerous political rhetoric about trans people, and the lack of jobs that paid a living wage made us feel like we couldn’t play by the vague rules society had laid out for a couple like us. After less than a year, we decided to cohabitate.
This also came with complications. The savings from my job, which I left due to Long COVID, would not have allowed us to rent close to our community for long. Landlords would be suspect of our inability to hold down a 40-hour workweek.
Buying a house was not an option, either. The ones in our price range would need repairs up front to even be habitable. Some of them wouldn’t qualify for flood or fire insurance as the climate crisis worsened.
Such constraints left us with few options. Eventually we agreed to “go tiny” together and find land to make that a reality. There was a lot of trepidation, especially given our health. We found ourselves consumed yet again about doing it “right.”
But how do you wait for the right moment in such conditions?
As a society, we have to start asking ourselves different questions. Climate change is increasing in severity every year. Our bodies recognize this fever pitch; it’s why billionaires build bunkers on remote Hawaiian islands and governments turn to fascism.
With this escalating crisis swirling in our heads, my partner and I made the difficult decision to move to a remote area in the Eastern United States where land was more affordable. It was more than ten hours away from our community and four hours to the closest city with decent healthcare. But it was the best we could do given the funds we had.
The first night on the land, which we’d found on Facebook Marketplace less than a month before Trump’s second inauguration, we slept with a hole in our roof under every blanket we owned. Our electric heating pads struggled to run on camping batteries. It was well below zero, the wind howling so fiercely it shook the walls. We looked at each other in the dark.
What are we doing?
We asked ourselves this question a lot in that first year. Every morning, I woke up with a panic attack, often not well rested because of histamine dumps. My partner would struggle with mood swings and joint aches. We set ourselves up for success as best we could: We did priority tasks first, like getting water and chopping wood. If we only had energy for that on a given day, then so be it.
It’s a myth that time is scarce; it is a convenient lie to prop up racial capitalism. Yes, maybe my only daily task was cutting wood on my knees with a hammer and a chisel, because my muscles were spontaneously weak. Maybe my partner had to take several weeks to figure out chimney issues, because the steps were too overwhelming with brain fog. The world didn’t end when we spent an entire day on the couch with a pile of thrifted DVDs and medical cannabis. The work would still be there tomorrow or next week.
The world didn’t end when we spent an entire day on the couch with a pile of thrifted DVDs and medical cannabis. The work would still be there tomorrow or next week.
And on the other side of it, there were long afternoons walking in the woods, not running into anyone else. There was the kindness of our neighbors who taught us how to milk goats. I grew fresh vegetables that summer. My partner found a vintage carpentry book from which she designed her own storage system. Giving ourselves grace to move at the pace of our bodies, working less, and choosing a place where most things happen at nature’s rhythm, ultimately allowed us to stabilize. Are we healed? No; we both have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and still experience “bad days.” There are just more “good days” to balance those out.
Living more simply also ensured we’d have the capability of maintaining our space with limited energy. It takes only half an hour to do weekly house cleanings. When there’s an issue like a leak, we don’t have to search many places before locating the source. In just one morning, we can heat our place, fill our water tanks, and shovel paths through the snow.
As neurodivergent people who find crowds overstimulating, prioritizing access to remote, outdoor space over urban amenities improved our mental health greatly. Of course, the bonus is that we run into fewer (if any) other people, meaning we aren’t on constant alert for reinfection.
Realizing this, we reframed how we wanted to grow our community: What if this land was specifically offered to COVID-cautious people, especially BIPOC and queer folks who face compounding difficulties for housing?
We began to imagine a disability-focused project, where support and healing could happen in real time, while members learned skills that build resilience in the face of environmental catastrophe. Like other tiny house communities, which often rally around shared values and are overwhelmingly queer, we see an opportunity to change the way COVID-cautious people are living. We recognize the need for more truly safe physical spaces for disabled people to feel truly safe and believe that a person needs to feel secure before they can build community.
Even if people aren’t on board with rustic living — it’s admittedly difficult with limited mobility, and it’s something we’re adjusting for actively — there are other options. The U.S. Department of Agriculture offers a loan program for low-income buyers looking to purchase a single-family dwelling in rural areas, which further decreases the barrier. Also, three households I know of started COVID-cautious co-ops in single-family homes. Like me, they were lucky and had career savings — but with the USDA loan program, such a co-op could be feasible without that cushion.
As people who still take COVID-19 seriously in a society swallowed up by cognitive dissonance, we are uniquely positioned to see this larger picture and do something about it. So many organizers are already working toward this future, with mask blocs and regional gatherings. We have tools to meet these disastrous times.
No one is coming to save us.
But we can try to endure what’s coming together.
No one is coming to save us. But we can try to endure what’s coming together.
Jasper Brown (he/they) is a transmasc disabled writer and artist. They are passionate about too many things and probably obsessed with your cat. He can be found at jasperbrown.net.
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