Nine small houses quietly nestled in a residential area, surrounded by wooden fences and greenery. With its colorful siding and roof, it looks like a human-sized birdhouse. And they fit perfectly.
Genecox, 48 years old, too. He hasn’t been homeless for over seven years. That is the point of this small development.
“This is the longest time I’ve stayed in one place,” says Cox, who is breastfeeding coffee and cigarettes outside his little house after working on a second shift as a benefits manager. I did. “I am a very nomad. I have traveled to Wisconsin many times over the last 22 years.”
After Cox divorced in 2009, he flew around for rent before living in a van for a year. He tried a local men’s shelter. He lasted only two nights.
Then in 2014, he heard that the community was planned by the occupation of Madison, a spin-off of the national movement against income inequality. Cox began helping out with one of his passions, gardening. A few months later, he moved to one of the 99-square-foot homes (reflecting “99%” of the population that Occupy intended to represent).
As housing costs rise, smaller homes are becoming the homeless solution in California, Indiana, Missouri, Oregon, and more. Arnold Schwarzenegger received considerable publicity in December when he donated money to 25 small homes for homeless veterans in Los Angeles. This reflects a growing interest in the non-conceptual idea of expelling uncontained people from the streets, especially during the cold winter months and in the midst of 19 pandemics.
“Anything that increases the supply of affordable homes is fine,” said Nan Roman, CEO of the National Alliance to End the Homeless. “We have a huge shortage of homes. There are about 7 million less affordable homes than households that need them.”
Housing and health are inextricably linked. In a 2019 survey of 64,000 homeless people, street-dwelling individuals report more chronic health, trauma, substance abuse, and mental health problems than those who are temporarily protected. It was likely.
However, not all small homes are made the same. From cots and heated cabins to miniature houses with kitchens and bathrooms.
The community itself is also different. Victory LaFara, a program specialist at Dignity Village, a small home camp in Portland, Oregon since 2000, said, “The agency manages to use pods instead of traditional gymnasiums full of bunk beds. A shelter. ” Some are autonomous, such as Dignity Village and Occupy Madison, while others offer a path to ownership of a small home.
However, many are remote in town, far from work, grocery stores and social welfare facilities. Luis Kintero, a housing researcher at Johns Hopkins Carrie Business School, said:
Donald Whitehead Jr., executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, considers small homes to be a good urgent option to protect people from elements and violence, but in long-term solutions such as rising living wages. Said not. Financing wage jobs, housing stock, and housing vouchers.
“Since the 70’s, there has been this theme that there are people who are not very suitable for society,” he said. “And something like a small house fits into that idea.”
Due to zoning regulations and building codes, it was not possible to build small homes in some cities, as in neighboring countries. According to village organizers, the opposite often diminishes when the community is up and running. Amber Fogarty, President of MobileLoaves & Fishers, Austin’s homeless outreach group, said: Texas runs the country’s largest small house project.
With approximately 270,000 residents and the Wisconsin State Capitol and Flagship University, Madison has three small homes on display in three locations.
The latest village that occupies Madison opened in late 2020, about a mile north of its original location. Next to the bar with shutters, 26 Conestoga wagons, similar to the old western pioneer covered wagons, line the fenced parking lot. The 60-square-foot temporary structure will eventually replace a small house, which is expected to help residents build this house.
In industrial development near the interstate highway on the outskirts of the town, the city’s new small house project features parallel rows of 8 x 8 feet white prefabricated shelters that look like ice fishing huts. Unlike the two occupied territories, the settlement has full-time staff, including social workers and addiction counselors. Recently, residents have moved in and out of small offices to use the phone or get muffins and cookies. People took the dog out.
Thirty residents previously lived in Madison’s bustling Reindahl Park tents.
“The city was solving political problems first and foremost,” said Brenda Conkel, president of the Occupation Department of Madison and executive director of Madison Area Care, Homeless One Health. Setting up so-called protected camps costs about $ 1 million, and operating them costs about $ 800,000 to $ 900,000 annually.
Jim O’Keefe, director of city community development, said housing people in traditional shelters would be significantly cheaper in the short term. However, small home villages do not want or cannot stay in a collective environment because they have pets or partners, have serious emotional or psychological problems, or are banned from the shelter system. Often helps people.
“Everyone who spent any time in Rheindar understood how dangerous and unacceptable it was to the people staying there,” O’Keefe said.
Sara Allee-Jatta, clinical director of Kabba Recovery Services, said that residents’ drug use increased after arriving at the municipal site. She hopes that their newly discovered silence also gives them space to recover when they are ready.
This place was a heavenly blessing for Jay Gonstead, a lifelong Madison who moved to the camp after the camp opened in November. After his divorce, he lived in a tent city for seven months.
“Towards the end, it got really terrible. I didn’t think I had to shoot Narkan at someone in my life, but I did,” he reversed opioid overdose. Mentioned and said the treatment to make. “I witnessed a man being shot. I witnessed a puncture wound. It wasn’t a good place.”
The 54-year-old regularly rides his bike and is looking for a job. “I have a criminal record. I’m an alcoholic,” he said. “It makes it difficult.”
But for the first time he noticed a smile on the face of his neighbor that he could remember. He said that electric and hot showers tend to have that effect, along with a sense of community.
“When you have a locking roof and door, it’s a house,” he said with tears. “We are not homeless.”
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