Our January board and committees meeting is January 21 at 5:30 pm. We currently meet at Lynhurst Baptist Church, 1250 S Lynhurst St. The first hour, 5:30 – 6:30, will be open to the public. There will be a 15-minute window for public comment along with committee reports. At 6:30 the board will go into executive session to process input from public comments and cover any other decisions we need to make.
A Tiny House Village In A Residential Neighborhood
With our current planned location being near residential neighborhoods, a common question is how the presence of a tiny house village will affect the neighborhood. Questions like safety and home values are brought up in conversations about our plan.
In 2016, a team from Des Moines, IA interviewed residents and community members from the OM Village in Madison, WI. This video shows the experiences of people living near this tiny house village and how neighbors and village residents can work together to improve a community.
Our New Site And Design Announced
Tonight the Circle City Villages board met with members of the Greater Gardens Neighborhood Associaton to present our plan to build a tiny house village at 1318 S Lynhurst Dr. We are thankful to partner with Lynhurst Baptist Church in pursuing this project. The plan is to build the village in two phases with 14 houses built in the first phase. After giving the first 14 residents a chance to adjust to living in this type of setting we will evaluate the right time to expand the village to 28 tiny houses. Below are renderings of our current design plan.
This is the first of many public meetings we plan to hold to communicate with neighbors about our plan. Pay attention to announcements of future meetings on this site and on our Facebook page. We look forward to engaging with more community members on how we can work together to create a place where friends experiencing homelessness can find healing and take the next steps to a sustainable life in an environment where they are supported and embraced.
Click this link to download a handout with a summary description of our plan for this site: CCV Handout 10.19.19.
Anything Worthwhile Takes Time
The vision for Circle City Village began with conversations just over three years ago between board members, staff, and volunteers with Food 4 Souls, a faith-based outreach ministry to friends experiencing homelessness. That summer the outreach director for Food 4 Souls visited multiple locations, including Madison, WI, and the Pacific Northwest to tour tiny house villages for those experiencing homelessness and learn from others who were already doing it what was working and what they would do differently. The goal was to take the best practices from these various villages and create a model for a tiny house village for our friends experiencing homelessness in Indianapolis. What started as a suggestion and idea was slowly turning into a mission, one that would require us to create a separate team and organization to support for the long-haul.
What we have learned along the way is that projects like this take patience and a lot of time to do it in the right way. When we first started, we naively thought it would be a two-year process. With the early momentum we had, our team didn’t realize how challenging finding a location and building the political will for this project would be.
Three years later, though, the momentum is picking up again. In April and May, we officially incorporated Circle City Villages and appointed our first board to be the administrative backbone for this project. We are working with a local church to build our village on a vacant property they own. We have professionals from various fields and volunteers from three churches now working with us to help us fine-tune our plans. Currently, a design team and policy team are working on the material we need to have ready to begin the zoning process for this land to be turned into a place where people experiencing homelessness can begin the journey of healing in their lives. Things are definitely moving quickly again.
Along the way, we have met many people wanting to do their own tiny house village. Some have joined with us. Others have made a big stir for a short time only to fade away when things became challenging. Doing anything worthwhile will take time and meet resistance. Learning to have the patience and tenacity is what keeps us going and will lead us to success.
An official announcement of our location and plan is coming soon. In the meantime, keep an eye on this blog for updates on our progress toward this goal.
Follow-up Story On Fox 59
Tanae Howard from Fox 59 did a follow-up story on our project last week. She did a great job of capturing our current situation and the need for community partners to work with us. It also gave people a perspective of what it is currently like for people who are moved from camp to camp while waiting for permanent supportive housing or rapid rehousing options to be made available to them.
Thankfully, we have since received 3 – 5 good contacts from people interested in working with us or having land they think would work for this project. Hopefully, some of these will work out to help us get past the point of finding a location for Circle City Village.
You can see the story by following this link: https://fox59.com/2018/10/10/plans-for-tiny-home-community-for-homeless-stalled-because-group-cant-find-welcoming-location/ .