Tiny Houses for Berkeley Homeless
Meets first and third Wednesdays (next meeting March 2)
6:30 - 8pm, 1740 Alcatraz Street, Berkeley
Contact Sally Hindman Hindmansally@gmail.com
Ecology Center presents a Film:
Thursday March 3, 2016, 6:30-9pm
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall
1924 Cedar Street, Berkeley, CA
Includes panel discussion led by members of
an interdisciplinary collaboration of UC Berkeley
students designing and building a zero-net-energy
tiny house on the Berkeley Global Campus.
PUTTING TOO (TINY HOUSES) and
TOO (MANY HOMELESS) TOGETHER
Written by
Ashby Village Member Irene Rosenthal
I’m a long-time member of Ashby Village, love my home; feel incredibly lucky for both. There’s so much talk lately about affordable housing (and I am so pleased that Ashby Village is involved in promoting discussions about this).
AND, while I totally agree that the issue is incredibly important, when I walk down Shattuck avenue these days, I am so aware of the plight of the homeLESS - increasingly the elderly homeless - our least served (it seems to me) “population” This was even more striking for me recently when I heard about the recent Berkeley Council resolutions regarding the homeless - much of which seemed to further restrict their living conditions on the streets of Berkeley.
It seems to me so obvious: The solution is housing and associated services. I’ve been so encouraged recently by the Salt Lake city and other similar projects that have successfully shown that homeless people, given their own apartments without the usual qualifications that limit tenancy to relatively well-functioning non-alcoholics, are more successful in finding employment, using services and working constructively on their addictions. People who know they have a safe place to eat and sleep and access to help with social problems are better able to focus long-term on life problems.
This should not have been a big surprise to me; I’m a Psychologist (retired), but somehow I was so used to thinking of the condition of long-term homelessness as sadly an insidious but seemingly unsolvable problem. The reports of success gave me great hope; I looked for a true working group that was hopeful and energetic and I think I found it in the Tiny Houses project; a very diverse group of people who have just started meeting to figure out a way to provide tiny houses within Berkeley to homeless people.
I don’t know much yet, but I see people with lots of experience in this area, people who have participated successfully in such projects elsewhere, homeless people who are in agreement with building such a project, people who are knowledgeable and skilled in construction and related issues and others like me who are excited, energetic and hopeful. It’s a project I hope to see implemented.
My 9 year old grandchild recently had to be informed that there was a time when homeless people were not forced to wander the streets of Berkeley. This was new information for him. He asked twice to make sure he heard it right. Yes, I know, fewer people are now incarcerated in mental hospitals. But we have a long long way to go. Join me in getting there.