Retired Women Build Tiny-House Village to Avoid Nursing Homes

As of August 7th, 2025, 11 women aged 60 to 80 years old live in a tiny-house village called The Bird's Nest in East Texas. The women, who are mostly single, divorced, or widowed, have come together with the explicit goal of keeping one another company into old age, possibly until death.

The Bird's Nest is a women-only community, and the inhabitants broadly agree that at this stage of their lives, women make better long-term companions than men. The women have diverse backgrounds, including a former first-grade teacher, a pricing specialist, and a home health aide. Some have grown children and grandchildren, while others have strained relationships with their adult children.

The women have established a set of unwritten rules to maintain harmony, including a strict "no drama" policy. They have also had to navigate issues like dealing with pets, managing the community's shared spaces, and deciding on the role of men in their lives. While they disagree on many topics, especially politics, the women have found ways to respect each other's differences and support one another through life's challenges.

The community was founded by Robyn Yerian, a 70-year-old extrovert who was looking for a way to reduce her expenses and maintain her independence in retirement. Yerian's initial vision for The Bird's Nest was to create a tiny-house community that would generate passive income, but it evolved into a women-only sanctuary after she hosted a successful women's power tools workshop on the property.