5 tiny homes at Union Gospel Mission now open
It took about a year, $21,000, and a lot of volunteer labor to stand up the five tiny homes in the downtown gravel lot of Olympia Union Gospel Mission, which began welcoming the first of its new residents last week.
“Camp Mercy,” as the project is being called, is the work of three local Rotary Clubs — Olympia, Lacey, and Gateway* —which donated the structures to Olympia Union Gospel Mission (OUGM). Each local chapter of the service organization donated $3,500, which was then matched by leadership at the PNW subdistrict of Rotary International, to purchase materials.
The 8-foot-by-12-foot homes were constructed primarily by students in the YouthBuild program, until the pandemic interrupted the school year in March. At that time, the homes were nearly complete and Olympia Rotary was looking for an organization willing to site and staff them, according to Partnership Lead Paul Knox. OUGM stepped up at the right time.
They also invested about $12,000-$15,000 in rigging the homes for electricity, heating, lights, and smoke detectors, according to Executive Director Loren “Skip” Steffen, who is also a Rotary Club member.
“I’ve had a dream for many years which was to create an island of refuge in the sea of chaos that is life on the streets,” said Steffen at public event for the village’s opening on Sept. 9. “A place where they are met with love and acceptance, but also a place where they are accountable for sobriety and behaviors accepted in mainstream society.”
Tiny homes in Olympia
Over the past decade, tiny homes have evolved from a DIY minimalist vacation-home-building trend to a tool for creating emergency shelters that aim to provide some security and independence to people experiencing homelessness. For faith communities, it’s a low-cost way to make a small dent in the massive need for shelter.
In Olympia, the Westminster Presbyterian Church began hosting eight tiny homes last year, and First Christian Church is now in the process of developing tiny homes for a community of people who currently live in temporary wooden structures in the church parking lot. Those villages are part of a city pilot program partnership that allocated $125,000 in funding for utilities, sanitation, and staffing to faith communities in 2020. The city expects to fund those projects again next year.
In late 2018, Olympia passed an emergency housing ordinance that allowed religious organizations and nonprofits to host “tents and small structures” on their properties. It essentially created a separate (and much simpler) permitting process for temporary shelters that can be renewed on a yearly basis. (“Tiny homes” are not addressed in the city’s municipal code.)
Unlike those two other tiny home projects, the city was not involved in the five houses at OUGM, which are being staffed and filled by volunteer Jackie Smith. Smith says she interviewed about 15 candidates from the mission’s shelter before finding the people she felt were the right fit for the homes.
Smith said the homes are for people who are serious about making a change in their lives and willing to work hard to make it happen. Each week, there will be a “checklist” of things to accomplish, such as obtaining a driver’s license or job training. The homes are a sober community and Smith will do random drug testing.
“To become housing ready and work ready, it’s going to be a lot of work,” Smith said.
One tenant already has moved in, and the rest are scheduled to move in in the next few weeks, Smith said.
Smith is hoping that the maximum stay will be about 9 months, with several “phases” that will move people closer to being able to secure their own housing.
Smith also said that while religious activities are not required of the residents, those who are interested are invited to participate.
Students build houses
Most of the construction of the tiny homes was done by students from YouthBuild, a program that allows former dropouts to get their degree or GED while learning building construction.
The work was mostly complete when COVID-19 sent students home. You can’t really build houses over Zoom, Knox said, so volunteers from the Rotary Clubs and OUGM added the finishing touches, such as railings, flooring, and paint.
According to instructor Matt Newton, many of the students in the program – which is a partnership between Community Youth Services and New Market Skills Center, a regional vocational high school in Tumwater – have firsthand experience with homelessness.
“Almost every single one of them has been homeless at some point in their life, so the fact that they can wrap their head around being a part of something that’s bigger, and helping solve the problems of homelessness, something that they’ve already been in, I think that’s one of the coolest things,” Newton said.
In the past, YouthBuild students have worked on other affordable housing projects in Olympia, including the tiny homes at Plum Street Village, Newton noted.
Correction: This article previously misidentified one of the rotary clubs that supported the construction of the tiny homes. The three rotary clubs involved were Olympia, Lacey, and Gateway.
This story was originally published September 27, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
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