Alejandro Hernandez and his girlfriend, Lendsey Walker, have lived in a tent on a dirt median between a Burger King and Interstate 880 in Oakland for a year, ever since he lost his construction job. Five days ago, Walker gave birth to a baby boy, Alex.

On Sunday, the couple stood outside the skeleton of their tiny home, being built by a small army of volunteers who spent Martin Luther King Jr. weekend constructing a community. They planned to move in by Monday.

“The fact that there are four walls and a floor, you can keep it clean. A tent is just fabric,” Walker, 41, said as she stood beside her future 8-by-12-foot and 12-foot-high home with a loft. “It’s just nice to have a real building, a home.”

Organized by the Village, a homeless service and advocacy group, the micro-development of 11 small homes, dubbed the Right to Exist Curbside Community, could be bulldozed like other such projects built without the city’s permission. But the organizers hope it provides a blueprint for how to quickly provide transitional housing for Oakland’s homeless population, which grew by 47% last year, according to Alameda County’s tally.

“We’re trying to present a model for new, rapid rehousing in an unbelievable housing crisis,” said Needa Bee, a Village founder and organizer. “Our intention is to keep them up here until there is permanent housing for these folks.”

About 100 people spent Sunday building garden beds out of recycled tires, painting homes, creating a community kitchen, bicycle-powered washing machine and solar-powered shower. In total, the volunteers plan to house 14 individuals who have lived on the dirt median.

By Sunday afternoon, three houses were finished, another nearly done and three others framed.

“If they won’t take care of us, it’s our right to do this ourselves,” said Ayat Jalal, a 46-year-old carpenter overseeing teams of volunteers, some with construction backgrounds and others just there to help. Jalal is also homeless, living by himself in a two-person tent in Oakland and Berkeley.

The East 12th Street project raised $8,000 through an online fundraising effort and hoped to double that, but the labor and materials were all donated.

Bee, who lives in a camper with her 17-year-old daughter, previously lived in a similar Oakland DIY community before it was bulldozed in December 2018. She has spent the past four Martin Luther King Jr. weekends building such villages.

“Historians and politicians have rewritten who MLK was as a passive man. He was radical and militant,” Bee said. “We are definitely in line with the types of projects he launched at the time of his assassination.”

Late Sunday afternoon, Hernandez was excited to move his young family into the home as he continued to look for a job.

“I think it will be for the better,” the 21-year-old new father said. “And it’s my birthday today, so this is great.”

Matthias Gafni is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: matthias.gafni@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mgafni