In the backyard of Edwina Robinson's O'Connor home are two remarkably tiny houses.
They were both built by her older son Lachlan, one from an old shipping container and the other from scratch.
![Edwina Robinson in one of the micro-houses built by her son.](http://web.archive.org./web/20171022190401im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/z/2/s/h/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gz4uv7.png/1508479850897.jpg)
The tiny homes have given her sons, 21 and 23, an affordable and sustainable way to live, and allowed two generations and their partners to keep living together.
Ms Robinson's younger son is currently living in one tiny house while her son's girlfriend is living in the other.
![A micro-house in O'Connor.](http://web.archive.org./web/20171022190401im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/z/2/s/h/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gz4uv7.png/1508479850897.jpg)
But she thinks they could also help solve Canberra's housing affordability problems.
Ms Robinson - a landscape architect by trade and executive officer of see-change - submitted to the ACT Government's housing strategy the idea of using tiny houses in a homesharing program.
She said older people with available land who wanted to stay in their homes could be matched up with people looking for more affordable housing.
"In return for using their land to put the tiny house on, they would help out that older person around the house," she said.
![Mezzanine level of a micro-house in O'Connor.](http://web.archive.org./web/20171022190401im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/z/2/s/h/s/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gz4uv7.png/1508479850897.jpg)
She also suggested a social enterprise where the government gives people land who are then skilled up to build the tiny houses.
But she said regulations around land use needed to be more flexible..
![A micro-house in O'Connor.](http://web.archive.org./web/20171022190401im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/z/2/s/h/w/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gz4uv7.png/1508479850897.jpg)
"We really need the ACT Government to be thinking creatively and it looks like they're going to be, hopefully that will include where people can put [tiny houses]," Ms Robinson said.
"You also don't want to create a ghetto in a way."
![Edwina Robinson and two micro-houses in O'Connor built by her son.](http://web.archive.org./web/20171022190401im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/z/2/t/t/9/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gz4uv7.png/1508479850897.jpg)
Ms Robinson has also looked into how the Nightingale model could be brought to Canberra.
It is one of three pilot programs the ACT Government has committed to exploring.
It revolves around building "developer-free" apartments, where instead a small group of investors take less of a profit.
The apartments - sustainably designed and built - are also prevented from being sold at a significant profit and often have an element of co-housing with residents sharing facilities such as a laundry or garden.
Ms Robinson and other inner north residents have been discussing was to create a co-housing options in Canberra
"Our ultimate aim is to build at least one co-housing complex in Canberra's inner north but also be an advocacy group for other co-housing," she said.