From Birdhouses to Tiny Houses

Courage Changes Everything

Linda C. Pope

• Publisher: Square Root Press LLC
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780997756036
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Durabilité en architecture

Linda Pope is a practical environmentalist with a sense of urgency. Her research has led her to understand that solutions are already abundant. What’s needed are doers who can step outside their comfort zones and simply “be the change.” From Birdhouses to Tiny Houses describes one of Linda’s experiments inenvironmental courage and her students’ willingness to learn hands-on.

The book demonstrates the power of community-based learning in areal-life sustainability project of 60+ college students, 20+ volunteers, 10+ benefactors and an enthusiastic instructor. The sub-title Courage Changes Everything hints at the essence of this book and others from this impassioned author. In her introduction she writes, “We have little to no time to become experts [in sustainability]. Instead, we have to become courageous, to just step up to the edge of experience and dive in. More often than not, our mistakes will be minimal, or reversible, and we will get a jump-start at transforming our neighborhoods and ourselves.”

Portland, Oregon provides the perfect venue for Pope’s experiment: an ecologically-oriented city culture with significant government and NGO support for solutions to complex urban problems like rapid gentrification and homelessness. Pope originally had her students build birdhouses with repurposed materials and ecoroofs. That experience gave her the courage to attempt the construction of a tiny house with her students. By the end of the third term, a fully sustainable tiny house had been constructed at Dignity Village, a city-supported housing alternative near the Portland airport. Tiny house enthusiasts will find great inspiration here, as will advocates for the homeless and crusaders for low-impact buildings. Faculty in Environmental Science programs can use the book as a course text and as a playbook for similar projects. The Sustainability Avatar Learning Community, launched at the AASHE conference in October 2016, provides a hub for change-agent students and faculty to share resources and stories.

Our Tiny House Community: Members and Organization

Although it is useful to have some idea of what you are doing when you start something, it is much more important to have the courage to jump in and know that while you may make some mistakes, you also have the ability to find the answers you’ll need. Mistakes are okay; making mistakes is how we learn. To live life avoiding any possibility of making a mistake means you will miss out on some outrageous achievements. People with the skills to help you show up when you need them most.

Community is important; it’s more important than most of us realize. And it is something that for many of us has been lost in contemporary living. To just meet and know our neighbors is something many of us try to avoid. However, rebuilding community is essential to sustainable living. Working within the tiny house community of participants (described throughout this chapter), students learn and problem solve together. This type of education is often called community-based learning.

Here is a definition of community-based learning:

A wide variety of instructional methods and programs that educators use to connect what is being taught in schools to their surrounding communities, including local institutions, history, literature, cultural heritage, and natural environments.

(Hidden Curriculum, 2014)

It has been proven that students learn more from hands-on activities. That is why science courses have always had a laboratory component. Fortunately, we are beginning to see that this point of view extends throughout all education. The more contact we have with real-life situations, the better informed and more prepared we are to act as circumstances dictate. Our world is rapidly changing; being able to respond in a positive, productive manner will be critical. We can only change the world by building better connections within our communities. All of us working together can make a difference.

The 64 Students Over 3 Terms

The ability to empower and inspire others is a skill that is much needed in our transition to a more sustainable and equitable world. The students’ enthusiasm for this project was a very important factor in both their learning process and the success of the final product. Long-term relationships and close connections among students in graduate school develop because students work closely together for an extended period of time; this rarely occurs in community colleges. There is not usually enough time during a semester or a quarter that includes weekly reading, lectures, testing, and work and family responsibilities for students to develop deep connections. But this project allowed that otherwise missing camaraderie to develop (Figure 1.1). The same applies to any group of strangers that come together for a single purpose. Lifelong friendships can be created.

Figure 1.1. Student camaraderie grew while building the tiny house, something that does not happen often in community college courses.

The Homeless – Dignity Village Residents

The homeless residents living at Dignity Village added a unique component to our tiny house community, and we could not have succeeded without their contributions. Being able to work directly with these residents added enormously to the learning experience. This community of 43 structures and about 60 residents (Figure 1.2) had a profound impact on all students. It is 1 of 4 city-sanctioned homeless villages in Portland, Oregon. Just east and downwind of Portland’s city composting facility, Dignity Village is next to the Columbia River Correctional Institute to the south, and just west of the Portland International Airport. However, it is also just a half mile south of Marine Drive, one of the most beautiful drives in Portland, with an excellent, unobstructed view of Mt. Hood to the east, which gives the otherwise unfortunate location one nice benefit (Figure 1.3).

Figure 1.2. Dignity Village is a city-sanctioned homeless community, located in NE Portland on Sunderland Avenue. Approximately 43 small houses and shelters form the general community. A security station, an office, an internet-accessible computer building, a community center, restrooms, showers, kitchen, and a storage shed form the central core of the community. (Google Maps, 2016).

Figure 1.3. An unobstructed view of Mt. Hood as seen from Dignity Village, a rare opportunity in Portland, Oregon.

The experience of working at Dignity Village provided students with an opportunity to interact on a regular basis with the homeless. This close contact changed their perception of what it means to be homeless. For many residents, the reasons for their homelessness are simply an unfortunate succession of circumstances that we can easily relate to, given that many of us are just a paycheck away ourselves from being in the same situation.

One person became homeless because he lost his job, then lost his house, and was forced to live out of his car as he tried to put his life back together. Another person waited too long before downsizing from a large house, trying to hold on to it as long as possible. That person lost everything. Because she is not an alcoholic or a drug user, she cannot use social services to help her get out of the situation. Another person was homeless due to a stroke. Luckily, these people have found a place to live at Dignity Village until a new direction can be established.

Having leaders and rules provides this community with a sense of organization, which benefited the organization of our project. Mitch G. was the construction supervisor at Dignity Village. He approved how and when structures were to be built and repaired. He openly gave his knowledge and helped to train anyone who had a desire to learn, providing guidance for construction and roofing (Figure 1.4), and helping a student design a unique grey water system (Figure 1.5). I frequently found Mitch and Rick, another manager at Dignity Village, planning and helping when we began to fall behind in our schedule (Figure 1.6).

Residents constantly made it possible for us to stay on schedule. Nicki (Figure 1.7, left) and others helped with painting. Todd (Figure 1.7, right), along with other residents, was always there to help me unload my weekly truckload of supplies and tools (Figure 1.8). Some weeks I had to rent a large box truck (partial donation from U-Haul) to get everything on site.

Figure 1.4. (left) Mitch G. (pointing) showing the students how to frame a doorway; (right) a student stands on the roof with Mitch instructing him how to install the metal roof panels.

Figure 1.5. (left) Mitch describing the students’ plan for the greywater system; (right) installing the grey water mirror and frame.

Figure 1.6. (left) Rick, left, and Mitch, right, another Dignity Village manager, were often seen together planning how to help keep us on schedule when we began to fall behind; (right) Rick working on the ceiling.

Figure 1.7. (left) Nicki, a Dignity Village resident, helping to prime the tiny house walls; (right) Todd, the Dignity Village fire marshal, was always there to help when we had really heavy lifting to do.

Figure 1.8. (left and right) My little truck got a serious workout every week.

Figure 1.9. (left) Linda (author) getting ready to drive the box truck to the ReBuilding Center, Home Depot, and then to Dignity Village; (right) Ray, a Dignity Village resident, when he looked inside for the first time, came out beaming, and said, “I love it!”

Everyone at Dignity Village was hoping to be the one selected to live in our tiny house (Figure 1.9). Our structure was the first to have a system for getting water into the house and a loft for sleeping. The loft did limit which residents could live there however. Some would not be able to climb the ladder to the loft. Rumors flew as to what method would be used for the selection process. In the end Steve, a very sweet man, was the “winner.” He moved in a few days after we finished for the term (Figure 1.10, left).

In our third term at Dignity Village, we needed to finish the few aspects left undone on our tiny house: getting both water systems functioning, and completing the kitchen counter mosaic. The class had time to also be involved in the repair of two other houses. Mary, a D...