Plans appear to be underway for a “tiny house village” for homeless youth at the current Ohmega Salvage site in West Berkeley.
As Berkeleyside reported in November, Youth Spirit Artworks (YSA), a South Berkeley nonprofit arts job-training program, has been working for almost two years to design and build a collection of 25 tiny houses for the homeless and low-income young people they serve. The structures, part of a larger YSA campaign to build 100 homes in Berkeley, will be built by volunteers, along with homeless and “unstably housed” youth who are getting trained in construction.
Supporters of the project, a collaboration between YSA and a number of community organizations and schools, hope the unique approach will demonstrate how to quickly and inexpensively get supportive housing up and running amid a growing homelessness crisis.
When YSA revealed the tiny house prototype in the fall, the organization said it was in negotiations to rent a West Berkeley lot for the village. In early February, Councilwoman Kate Harrison, speaking to a large group of constituents at a community meeting on homelessness, said a tiny home village would be coming to the Ohmega Salvage site.
April 2018
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/04/16/plans-underway-for-tiny-house-village-in-west-berkeley