Tiny Houses Built for Homeless in Madison Wisconsin
Last weekend, (November 15th, 2014) in an effort to keep people off the street, a community of tiny houses for the homeless opened in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. These homes were built by a coalition of homeless people and members of the group, Occupy Madison.
With help from the community Occupy Madison has built nine tiny houses, a day resource center, laundry facilities and a community gardening space in the village. Each tiny house is 96 square feet and is made of recycled and reclaimed materials. They include a bed, a toilet, solar panels for electricity and propane heat. Each house costs around $5,000 to build, the money was raised with private donations.
he village is located on county owned land that is leased for just $1 a year to the non-profit organization that developed it. The members of Occupy Madison won the approval from the city with assistance from a local Unitarian-Universalist congregation. Some of the donations came from local businesses such as: Friends of the State Street Family, The Bubbles Program, (which provides free laundry services) OM Build, Homeless Ministry at Bethel Lutheran Church and Madison Street Pulse.
Some of the Occupy Madison organizers have stated in regards to working with the system rather than against it: Our approach to working within the system came only after we realized that without dotting every i, and crossing every t, the city and the county would never let us operate they used every opportunity to enforce ordinances, regulations, and seemingly arbitrary whims against us. This paralleled precisely the persecution of everyday, unaffiliated, homeless individuals. When you are homeless, the system is rife with obstacles designed to prevent creative innovation or adaptation we at Occupy Madison experienced the same headaches. organizers also stated In many ways, we have had much more success since we changed our approach. This was due not only to how we communicated with city and county offices (we never shirked from being open or transparent), but how we are perceived by Madisons genteel liberal population. Its stunning how a flowerbed on a windowsill can be so much better for PR than the window itself, or the house its attached to.
There are six other cities across America that are adopting tiny homes, while others are installing homeless spikes. I would like to know how exactly these city officials believe that these spikes will solve anything.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/11/20/village-of-tiny-homes-built-for-the-homeless-in-madison-wisconsin/
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I am so into these tiny homes. There is a great documentary call "Tiny" about it.
And what a novel idea to end the homeless problem!
These are the kind of projects we should be funding instead of shelters, which actually cost more.
Every person deserves to have a roof over their head.