Written by: EV

A group of activists in Madison, Wisconsin, with the help of homeless individuals, are in the process of building housing for the homeless. Efforts for the project grew after the Occupy Wall Street movement dispersed and shifted from political to community issues.

98 Sq. Ft. $3k

The project began when police shut down the original Occupy Madison encampments back in 2011, which had become a safe haven for the homeless in the city. After the encampments closure, those who were being provided with help had nowhere to go.

“We had all these people, about 80 to 100, that were stuck with no place to go. In Madison there’s no legal place to sleep outdoors, and you get 60 to 90 days in the shelter—after that you’re on your own. We tried to stay together, we said if we had our own land perhaps we would be able to make a solution out of it,” Luca Clemente, a representative for Occupy Madison reported to Al Jazeera.

“We were left with more flexible, pragmatic, non-ideological people who were committed to the idea of ‘Tell me about your life, your needs, how you are suffereing, how you are thriving,’ and I’ll tell you mine and we’ll figure out how we can help each other. Occupy Madison evolved into a group based on human solidarity—we don’t care if you’re democrat or republican. The point is do you want to come together to cooperate, to pool your resources, creativity and physical labor to make each other’s lives better,” Clemente added.

The idea behind the creation of this tiny community for the homeless is based on agorism—“a strategy of noncompliance that uses counter economics and underground markets as a way of keeping power in the hands of the average people, thus slowly diminishing the power and relevance of the control structure.” Growing food, starting mutual aid or charity groups, homeschooling, running small businesses without licenses, and bartering are all examples of agorism.

The tiny house movement has made its way to other states as well. In Syracuse, N.Y., a nonprofit group has proposed building tiny townhouses for the homeless that would cost less than $14,000 each to make. A Tiny Home for Good Inc. is also looking for a location to build its tiny houses for the homeless. In Huntsville Alabama, university students are building a village of tiny houses, complete with a shared garden, and in Portland, Oregon discussions are underway for the creation of a tiny house community as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzhS9HuGzy4

____________________________________________________________________________________

Sources:

Jobs AOL. Dec 14, 2014 (http://jobs.aol.com/videos/job-interviews/tiny-houses-to-help-homeless-problem/518136560/)

Knauss, Tim. Associated Press. Dec 14, 2014. (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NY_TINY_HOUSES_NYOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)

Vibes, John. True Activist. Nov 18, 2014. (http://www.trueactivist.com/homeless-people-build-community-of-houses-for-the-homeless/)