Housing/TinyHouseTeachIn
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This event took place on March 2, 2015 at Impact Hub Oakland, hosted by the Sustainable Economies Law Center
Dignity Village - Portland
- Dignity Village in Portland - founded in 2000, started this movement
- Styled as 'innovative design and sustainability' (ps it's for homeless people)
- TEDx talk - Badass Democracy - Reclaiming the Public Commons
Opportunity Village - Eugene
- Opportunity Village in Eugene - about a year and a half old
- Houses 42 people, about 30 houses, 8x8 or 8x10 and small huts
- Andrew Heben
- 1 acre plot in an industrial part of town, donated by the city as a pilot project
- Scary town meetings when attempt was made in more public parts of town
- Shared toilets and showers, sign up for a shower
- Kitchen trailer, front desk, community yurt
- Village council makes decisions
- City planner wrote a biz plan, then they built a structure and travelled around getting local stakeholders and the city interested
- No existing zoning for the units - often considered trailers. No real precedent, city tends to approve
- Playing the game, of 'transitional housing' toward transitioning back into society
O.M. Village - Madison
- O.M. Village in Madison
- Well-insulated, have heaters in each residence
- Currently 3 structures, 9 planned
- 1/3 of an acre, purchased for ~150K
- Build out of the old gas station garage
- Want to train people to build them
- Residents also help build, sweat equity involved
- Build and sell furniture made from recycled pallets
- One of the activist-organizers a former city councilwoman
- Movement toward zoning/coding regulations for tiny homes
- Brenda Konkel
- Also on the outskirts of town
Discussion
- Trying to start one in Santa Cruz
- Some more in Seattle, Fresno, Ventura, Chico
- Right to Dream 2 - tent city in downtown Portland - supported by a private individual
- 15 people living there, ~70 folks who can come in to sleep for the night
- Portapotties for the public
- Large tents - mens and womens - and residents tents in back
- Part of the deal for living there is 20hrs/wk of shifts and some involvement in activism
- Food Not Bombs makes food in the communal kitchen once a week, otherwise donations
- Group creating a tiny house development - one structure has all the things. But camps/RV parks etc have lots of restrictions
- Postworks in West Oakland
- No stated minimum dwelling size in original International Building Code; worked out ~220 sq feet. Removed req. for a 10x12 room in the IBC on Jan. 1,
so now is 126 sqft
- Costs: Opportunity Village - $100K + donated land for 1yr + materials
- Community Land Trust - you own improvements to the land, but not the land
- Governance - committees to decide admission; Village Council elected by the residents
Questions:
- Where to house released prisoners?
- How do we hack the city?
- Partner with Habitat for Humanity & Timebank
- What counts as an official 'dwelling'?
- No plumbing and heat
- Dwelling includes food prep *and* bathing
Other projects mentioned:
- Tiny Home Village Project - becoming a 501c3 - want to provide support for groups that want to form a village
- Transition Albany
- Dancing Rabbit in Missouri
- Atchinson Village in Richmond for workers in shipyards - now a successful cooperative with 40-60 homes. Houses date back to early '40s
1930s - housing villages supported by the federal govt, created as cooperative worker housing. Part of the public housing policy in the US until 1981
- --> true still in some public housing in SF, working to reclaim them as cooperatives
- Emerald Village in Eugene is in planning
- Quixote Village in Olympia
Works Cited
Meetup tomorrow!
- Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage @ East Bay Media Center, details @ EBCOHO website