How about something positive for today . . . my blogs have been quite depressing.
Unfortunately, I did find another building removing all the people who were once homeless, just need another day to track it all down.
VILLAGE THREE
Meanwhile . . . Occupy Madison is working on its third tiny house village! And we are fundraising as much as we can because of course, we are having cost overruns due to inflation, tariffs and with all remodels, surprises. We built a new garage so we can build our tiny houses fully inside. I think it had its final inspection yesterday and we can have occupancy! If so, we will be building new tiny houses in the fall! This village will have 22 units for formerly unhoused people – we prioritize people sleeping outside, then in shelters, then doubled up. Right now we are working on drywalling – hanging, mudding, taping, prep work, etc. When this village will have 22 houses. Later we will be building a fence and landscaping to save on costs. And . . . we are looking for volunteers!
VILLAGE ONE
For those who don’t know, we have one tiny house village at 304 N Third Street that was our first village. It can have up to 9 people living there, but we need to build one more house for that property. This village was 10 years old last November. it has a wood shop, a retail store where we sell products made by the residents and we have a green house. This we have a holiday sale every December and our plant sale in the spring and between these events and online fundraising/sustainerships (people who give monthly donations) this village is able to sustain itself. It was made easier with the addition of solar due to a grant from the City of Madison
VILLAGE TWO
Our second village at 1901 Aberg Ave we built during COVID, people moved in October-December 2020. Initially, due to the emergency, we had 28 units there, but we lost 6 when we converted to what was allowed in our Planned Development Zoning. That village has conestoga huts . . . for now. The conestoga houses will be replaced with the larger wooden houses when we start building. They also have a massive solar installation on the entire roof of what used to be Wiggie’s Bar, also thanks to the City of Madison. This village plans to also have a store and possibly snack shack to help raise funds to sustain itself.
Which leads us to why we need to raise money! When we are all done, we will be able to house 53 formerly unhoused individuals who participate in the governance of the organization and their villages and earn sweat equity to live in their houses and huts. Once people have earned enough hours, as long as they continue to participate and show up to our meetings, they have a free place to live!
PLANT SALE
Our plant sale will be tomorrow from 10 – 4 where we have light refreshments, the band Sunshine Daydrink will be playing, you can have a tour of our tiny house village and maybe see inside one if there is a resident around. You can also check out the items we make in the store and of course, there will be plants . . . oh . . . so . . .many . . .plants!
If you can’t stop by on Saturday 10 – 4, we will be selling plants throughout May and into June. You can order online in advance for pick up or you can stop by our store at the following hours:
- Tuesday 6pm – 8pm
- Thursday 6pm – 8 pm
- Saturday 10am – 2pm
- Sunday 10am – 2pm
Also, if you are not into plants, you can always just stop by and check us out, help us share the facebook event and of course, we love donations!