Tiny Houses for Veterans are almost open in nearby Savannah, GA. Small sustainable communities which can liberate struggling people from the pressures of skyrocketing rents are no longer a fantasy which exists in faraway cities like Portland. On Monday, Martin Luther King day, you have the chance to talk to the man who has made several of these new villages possible, including the one in Savannah. You can follow the struggle and progress in Savannah on this web page: homelessauthority.org/...
Michael Withey, michaelwitheyjr@gmail.com, ph (503) 381-6019, is currently visiting the Lowcountry to evaluate the prospects for building a similar tiny house community here. He’ll be meeting with us following the Martin Luther King Day Marion Square event on Monday, January 14 at 4 pm. We’ll meet on Marion Square at 4 pm at the Flagpole and go to Office Evolution at 460 King Street, Suite 200, Charleston, South Carolina to talk about his work.
We’ll be talking from 4 pm to 6 pm and if you can’t make it at the start, feel free to join us anytime. If you have questions Michael is ready to talk and visit local projects and organizations now. You can read about his work in Portland in this article. http://lifeedited.com/is-portland-getting-ready-for-a-tiny-house-revolution/.
You can sign up to participate and discuss ideas on our facebook event listing at https://www.facebook.com/events/395735490863388/
It’s been two years since hammers began flying on the Tiny House Fit for A King, on Martin Luther King Weekend. Several tiny homes have been completed in the Charleston area since. Some are occupies and other struggle with zoning and permitting problems. The City has passed a 20 million dollar fund to provide affordable housing. At the per unit cost for the veteran’s village in Savannah, that would provide. Funds for 800 tiny houses with bathrooms and microkitchens. While that’s not likely to be exactly what happens here, it does show what might be possible. Leveraging that money with other funds could achieve far more. Other alternatives include a handful of subsidized housing units at high cost which will do little to alleviate our growing affordable housing deficit.
We understand that these are frightening, frustrating times, but we shouldn’t surrender the real power we have to make the Charleston area a better place. In the past two years we’ve passed a referendum to fund better public transit, a ballot initiative to fund affordable housing and fought for higher wages. Over 100 Sunday Potlucks and barrels of stone soup have feed Charleston’s Hungry during that time. We can’t let the discouraging cruelty broadcast from some of our misguided leaders drown out the sound of our voices. As King reminded us, “The arch of the Universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
On Monday, after the (2 to 4 pm) event on Marion Square, come grab an end of the Universe and see if you and your friends can bend it.
We would like to thank Office Evolution for providing discounted access to their space for the meeting. We expect to hold another meeting in late January or February and are looking for an organization or facility to partner with.