How have you been involved at EV</a>? — Transformative Housing

LA Course “Design for Climate Action” with Prof. Yekang Ko

I started working as a lab assistant for Landscape for Humanity with Professor Yekang Ko in her “Design for Climate Action” course. I was co-facilitating a group of undergrad students from various departments with Sarah Loquist, a Ph.D. student in landscape architecture. We were tasked with implementing social justice projects on site at Everyone Village. We spent the first few weeks engaging with residents to understand what projects would support them best and the rest of the term creating designs and implementing the work. It provided a great introduction to the Everyone Village community and participatory design as a concept.

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Student and Faculty Contributors: Rosie Yerke, Michael Yoo, Leon Oliver, Lorine Moellentine, Sara Loquist, Summer Putman, Angie Kline, Sage Fetkenhour, Yekang Ko
Special Thanks to: Heather Sielecki, Gabe Piechowicz, Amiel Faran, and residents of Everyone Village
Funding Support: UO Foundation and UO Resilience Initiative

The next term, I took Jennifer O'Neill's “Indigenous Research Methods” course in the Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies (IRES) department. I found overlaps in values between the indigenous research process and the goals and values of the staff at Everyone Village. They both focused on a relational model, centering the relationships in the process of learning and living, and the practice of trauma-informed design was right in line with that.

The Homeless Garden Project “Knowledge Share”

And at the same time, one of the co-founders Heather got us connected with a grant to learn from a transitional employment program in California called The Homeless Garden Project, which used organic farm training as a way to support people transitioning out of houselessness. And thanks to this grant, in the summer of 2022, several EV employees, a couple of residents, and myself—as a representative of Landscape for Humanity—were flown to California to visit their project for a few days and see their operation in practice. We also attended an online, weekly ten-session ‘Knowledge Share’ where they outlined the aspects of their program that were most impactful towards their 30-year success and the challenges and barriers that we may encounter in our own efforts.

We learned so much through this process. Once we’d completed the ‘Knowledge Share,’ everyone—especially the residents—was inspired to start developing a garden-based transitional employment program.

Everyone Village Works

From there, I started to co-facilitate a weekly garden club with one of the site leads at EV, Plaedo. The group just kind of blossomed into an opportunity to understand how the land could provide for the villages, and the residents especially. Also, a transitional employment program at a transitional housing community would provide an incredible opportunity to reinforce the trauma-informed design component of empowerment and community. There was a lot of layering and serendipitous overlapping of in this project.

Great news!

The conceptualization of an agriculturally-based transitional employment program at Everyone Village. After completing a grant application for the initial implementation of this program at EV, we received amazing news. The family foundation believed so much in our vision that they full-funded the initial position for the first year!

ARCH Course “Minimal Dwellings” with Prof. Clay Neal

I also attended a course in the Architecture department with Professor Clay Neal called Minimal Dwellings. I was tasked with leading a group of students from the class in community engagement and design modifications of the cottages of hope and EV site plan.