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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/community-first-village-austin-homeless/>
"When Alan Graham refers to the residents of
Community First! Village as
“neighbors,” he’s speaking to the community created in this enclave of tiny
homes, microhomes and RVs soon to expand beyond its 51-acre plot in East
Austin.
Graham, a former real estate developer who launched the faith-based social
outreach ministry Mobile Loaves & Fishes in 1998 to serve Austin’s homeless
community, conceived of the neighborhood as a way to help people transition
from chronic homelessness.
“I started developing pretty deep relationships with men and women out on the
streets,” Graham says of his work. “In 2003, I started spending the night out
on the streets. I’ve personally spent about 250 nights there.”
In that time, he learned about the work ethic of people living out on the
streets, negating the stereotypes about laziness and homelessness that people
harbor. The greatest cause of homelessness, he believes, is “a profound,
catastrophic loss of family” — sometimes through suffering unthinkable abuses,
including forced drug use and sex trafficking while living with parents and
other so-called caretakers.
“I learned that the greatest yet most ineffective entrepreneurs on the planet
are the panhandlers standing on the street corners, relegated to doing the only
thing that we allow them to do now, which is the First Amendment free speech
right to beg,” Graham says.
Nearly 350 individuals formerly experiencing homelessness reside in the
village, which provides permanent housing and sits just outside Austin’s city
limits (in Texas, MLF notes, there is no discretionary land use authority
outside municipal boundaries, meaning the village faced no zoning issues). As
of March, the village’s retention rate for residents is about 88 percent.
Through a series of new investments, Community First plans to soon triple its
footprint."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
