The Street Community needs a strategy for exiting homelessness.

Housing is not enough. Human beings have more needs than just food clothing and housing. Without these needs being met, people are set up for failure. Housing and housing programs are simply band-aids. They do not solve the problem. That is because the approach to homelessness has to be made on a community level. It is the lack of community and/or familial support that creates and environment where homelessness can occur. People need to belong. The definition of “home” is “a place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.” To be homeless is to have nowhere and no one for whom one is a valued member.

Ypsilanti activists are currently organizing around procuring a building to use as a permanent, low barrier, community-led emergency shelter and community center.

The Plan: The price on a building in Ypsilanti that is large enough to serve as a community-led shelter is around $500,000. The shelter needs a kitchen, space for daytime gathering, space for sleeping during the day and overnight, and access to wrap-around care and enrichment programing. Approximately 3,000 to 5,000 square feet and at least a half acre lot.

The program would be run by local activists who have successfully managed a daytime warming center in Ypsilanti for over 10 years and an overnight sheltering program during the winter that is going into its fifth year.

If necessary for zoning purposes, there is an ordanance in Kalamzoo Michigan that allows a property owner to establish an emergecny housing zone on their property. The Ordinanace allows a certain amount of automony with a safety-first frame work. If this ordinance was in effect, we would be able to establish tiny houses on the property.

What makes ths solution different is it is “community first” as opposed to “housing first” which only focuses on one individual. People need people. Although some people prefer non-congregate sleeping, there is still a need for a safe supportive place to be during the day. This model provides both

Expansion: To reach further into the root of the problem, Houses of Hospitality (HoH) provide a sense of belonging. In addition to showers, laundry, and a meal, the community builders who run them provide fellowship and companionship. Emotional intelligence is expressed and built in loving, safe communities. This is what houses of hospitality provide and it is something professional and governmental agencies cannot. The activists who run these places are not bound by professional distancing. In fact, that is why the problem still exists (and is increasing) regardless of how many apartments are built. Without true community, there will always be homelessness.

Groundcover News papers are bought for $0.50 and sold for the cover price of $2 netting $1.50 in profit. To earn $280k in one year, we have to sell approximately 190,000 papers. Which would be raised by roughly 7,300 people over the course of one year.

This seems like a daunting goal, however, buying a house with street papers had been done. In 2016, a Tennessee man bought a 2,100 square foot home by selling “The Contributor” Davidson County’s street paper. Check out the full story of Mario Martinez here. It is my goal to repeat the feat accomplished by Mario. Mario bought his house after five years of diligent saving. I believe through crowdsourcing, community action and technology, we can achieve this goal in one year and continue once the first benchmark, a 5-7 bedroom house, is reached. Will you help? The fastest way to accomplish this mission and the only requirement for you the individual is to become a regular reader and encourage other people to read the paper.

For local businesses, word-of-mouth is a vital form of advertising. For information in general, the fastest way is a combination of word-of-mouth and technology. IN the nineties a phenomenon known as “flash mobs” we made possible by pagers. Massive numbers of people would stage themselves near the event epicenter – when the page came, they would dash to a predetermined location and carry out some kind of action; usually a mild prank or performance art. The strength of the flash mob was how quickly a mass could be organized and assembled and how fast a plan could be carried out. For Project Huron House, the same concept can achieve our goal.

The 2023 population of Washtenaw County was 365,536. 7,300 is a meager 2% of the county population. We should be able to accomplish this easily. The simplest way to get this number is to share the QR code for vendor139.com.