Artists and builders take on the housing crisis during the pandemic by forming an organization to build tiny homes.
By Ryan Geller
A group of artists that have turned their focus to housing issues during the pandemic assembled a tiny home in the Wood St. encampment during the last two weekends of August. The home is for Mona who has been living at the encampment for 4 years and is now caring for her dog Little One and her litter of six puppies.
Artists Building Communities, or ABC short, was formed after residents of the Vulcan artist lofts near Fruitvale developed fundraising skills to pay for legal support in a dispute with their landlord. The group then turned their efforts toward addressing homelessness in their neighborhood by raising funds to build three tiny homes. Members of ABC completed the homes as part of a project on E 12th St. at 16th and 23rd Ave. managed by The Village, a community based organization that provides support for homeless encampments in Oakland. Inspired by the experience the group began work on establishing a 501.(c)(4) political organization to promote “housing first” policy.
Mona's new home, an 10’ by 12' structure with pier block footings, press board siding and second use windows is nestled between the “Y” of an unused railroad beneath the overpasses that connect I-80 to I-880 alongside West Oakland. Next door to her new home is a bus encircled with piles of scrap metal and old motors and electrical equipment that she collects to disassemble for recycling. “It might look like piles of trash but actually this is my savings. I just need someone with a truck to help me bring it in,” Mona said.
Residents of the encampment lining Wood St. have been making use of the vacant lots alongside and underneath the West Grand Interchange between the old Oakland Railroad terminal and the edge of Emeryville shopping center. Much of this land is property of Caltrans along with some private holders.
The fencing of the properties has been peeled back or cut and a couple bumpy dirt roads lead to the semi-paved access road that winds in between the support structure of the freeway ramps. There are appliances and mattresses, broken windows and random items strewn about, sometimes in the road or piled beside it. Some of the items are organized and collected around a trailer or a group of tent structures. “Look, do they think the people camping out here brought washing machines and refrigerators? Come on, they gotta know that nobody out here is doing it. Those are all home things,” Mona said, frustrated with the dumping that often occurs at the West Oakland encampment.
The goal of ABC is to demonstrate that building tiny homes for individuals in the encampments and providing supportive services can give folks the boost they need to move away from cycles of crime, violence and drug addiction.
Annmarie Bustamante, one of the Co-founders of ABC, said that they advocate for housing first policies because such policies reduce the barriers that keep many houseless individuals from accessing services. “Programs like Section 8 often have long wait lists for housing and then if you don't have an ID or are not a US citizen or if you are struggling with drug addiction the vetting process can be difficult,” Bustamante said. “To expect someone to fill out all this complex, intensive paperwork and figure out the housing system, while suffering from a drug addiction or other mental health issues, is just too much.”
Mona's house was the first project that ABC has completed as an independent organization. “We picked Mona because she was living in a car and she is tough but it is dangerous to be a woman living in this encampment,” said Bustamante. Mona agreed, “It's hard out here. It’s hard. You got the thieves, you got rapists, night creepers and a community of females. I worry a lot. To live out here as a female I have to portray a hard attitude, like ‘I will fight back!’ I don’t care if you are a man, I don’t care! I'm gonna fight back. Because of that they tend not to bother me as much but I’m still traumatized by a lot of shit that happens here.”
In their selection process for the new homes ABC also looks for people who have shown a commitment to the encampment community. The next house will be built for a man named Wise who is often lending a hand around the camp. “If we can show solidarity with the residents that are already helping out then they can pass that on to others at this encampment” Bustamante said.
Completing Mona's home was a big step for ABC because now they have demonstrated that they can produce tangible results as an independent organization. “Without a finished project it was hard to convince potential funders that we are really walking the talk,” said Bustamante. But now she has noticed that people are comfortable donating to upcoming projects.
The home for Wise is already fully funded and the home after that is ¼ of the way funded. That house will go to a woman living at the encampment who has been homeless for 12 years. The tiny homes cost ABC about $4,000 for all of the materials. Volunteers have been generous with their labor but ABC's organizers are looking to improve their efficiency on the upcoming projects. “Next time instead of just one build director we are going to have an additional role that is dedicated to coordinating tools and materials. We also need someone to do build training and coordinate those that are less skilled. We hope to knock out the next one in 4 days,” Bustamante said.
Many of the volunteers who built Mona's house are workers whose employment was affected by the shelter in place orders. Bustamante is a fashion designer who makes clothing for the festival scene. She also designs fashions for musicians but when the festival and music circuits came to a halt her business slowed down dramatically.
Jah-Know Johnson Wright, the lead carpenter for Mona's home was working for the IATSE set and stage builders union, but the events work also slowed down because of the pandemic. Johnson Wright is a long time burner. He sees the homeless encampments as an opportunity for much needed social change and a way for burner communities to make a tremendous impact by sharing their wealth and success. “Everyone knows that homelessness disproportionately affects Black folks and Burning Man is an event that has struggled with diversity and participation from Black communities. This is partially because of the high cost of the event but there are also safety and cultural concerns that Black people have to consider when participating in a predominantly white community of artists. Burning Man is closed this year and I have been suggesting to my burner friends that we use the resources that would normally go into the event to make encampments livable and healthy” Johnson Wright said.
Bustamante attributed the sudden collaboration of Artists Building Communities to “Everyone being unemployed at the same time.” She and other volunteers said that they were also motivated by concerns about what would happen to homeless communities during the pandemic. Katie Brown joined ABC after she had met Bustamante at a tenant’s rights action. Tenants groups have been regular supporters at the Wood St. encampment often bringing sanitary supplies and even doing extension work for needle exchanges and harm reduction programs.
“Everyone is seeing the vulnerability of society and the system we live under and if or when it crumbles I feel like we need to be ready to support each other in more material ways. I was doing an office job before this. I don’t know what is going to happen with that job but in the meantime I can help someone actually have a stable place to stay during an unprecedented global pandemic. I was restless and frustrated before I found this volunteer job. I think this is a good way to spend my time,” Brown said.
Brown is not a stranger at the Wood St. encampment. She had met Mona while delivering dog food to the residents there before she began working with ABC to build Mona a home. “I have held a drill a few times in my life but I am basically a beginner. I just learned how to seal up the house with caulking the other day. I still have never held a power saw because I want all my fingers but I do want to learn how to operate a saw safely,” Brown said.
According to Mona, when the City began preparing to build a safe RV parking site on one of the Wood St. lots city officials held a meeting to gather input from encampment residents. One of the points that residents raised was the desire for opportunities to participate in the paid work of cleaning up the encampment, Mona said.
“Everybody who showed up gave their ideas. We said we needed dumpsters, we needed hand sanitizer stations, and garbage bags and cleaning supplies to clean it all up,” Mona said. “And we wanted the money from recycling scrap during the clean-up to come back to Wood street. Well that didn’t happen... they took our ideas and came in with a whole crew that had their own equipment and everything and Wood St. didn’t get anything but displacement.”
Mona was hoping to get a job herself with the clean-up crew. “I heard certain people from the camp got work, like the guys, certain guys got paid to do little stuff, but they weren't really doing much of anything, ” she said. “Then my bus got messed up when the City’s crew moved it with a bobcat even though they had no permission from me to do that.”
After having all of her possessions pushed from one property to another Mona said that she is just grateful to have a new home. “Last night I walked in my house,” she said. “I mean the door wasn’t locked because that part was not finished yet, but I went in and shut the door behind me and put a ladder there so nobody could come in. That felt good just to shut a regular door, a house door, not a camper door, not a car door, a house door.”