EL CAJON (San Diego Union Tribune)—
Could a village of “tiny houses” be on the horizon in El Cajon?
Volunteers from Amikas, a nonprofit that advocates for homeless women, children and veterans, are building a tiny home on the grounds of Meridian Baptist Church near Rancho San Diego. The group started laying the groundwork Friday, clearing weeds from the plot of land where the house is going up.
The group of 20 or so volunteers continued through the heat of the day Saturday and Amikas building leader Rob Bird said the group planned to put on the finishing touches this week.
Amikas and other volunteers working with the group, including Pastor Rolland Slade of Meridian Baptist Church, are moving toward the buildout of several cozy dwellings at the site as a pilot project, but for now are just building the one demonstration home.
“Our interest is putting a roof over people’s heads,” Slade said. “Now we’re just using this property for tumbleweeds. We’d rather have someone there, which would give us a chance to help. It would give us, as a congregation, a chance to fulfill our mission.”
The house will not have plumbing and is being constructed near the church’s restrooms. The volunteers want to see the area turned into a community setting for those needing a safe place to live on a temporary basis. Group leaders say they are looking to El Cajon to set the pace, with a long-term goal that other churches and cities will follow suit.
“We want the community of El Cajon, its government officials and surrounding areas of San Diego County to visit this cabin and observe how this could be an immediate, temporary option to give those most vulnerable members of our homeless population a safe, comfortable place to sleep,” said Shanna Welsh-Levin of Amikas. “This is our proposed solution to a big problem.”
The group stresses that it is offering a hand up not a handout, promoting autonomy so people have an ownership interest and sense of participating in their own solution.
The tiny houses are actually more properly called emergency sleeping cabins, according to Lisa Kogan of Amikas. The cabins are relocatable, hard-sided structures that are meant to be occupied only for emergency housing -- if allowed by the authority having jurisdiction.
A completed cabin’s total cost runs about $4,000, Kogan said. It is made of wood and will be 12 feet by 12 feet with a porch. Inside, the living space is 96 square feet.
The church does not have a permit with the city for the house, but because no one is living in it, there is no need - yet.
Slade said he has already spoken about the tiny home to El Cajon City Manager Graham Mitchell. Slade said the building department has said it’s a no-go and to “make sure we don’t have anyone occupy it and we don’t since it’s a showcase and a display not for occupancy,” but that the plan down the line is to look into asking for a conditional-use permit to have one, or more, on site.
“We want to see where can faith community leaders like myself go and actually see something like this even begin,” Slade said. “This is an opportunity for the faith community to see at least one sleeping cabin in place, in a closed, gated community setting. I’d like to talk about what it would look like if we had a number of these on our property and how to work with the city.”
Slade said he wasn’t sure how the person or persons would be chosen to live inside the cabin, but he said he hoped they would already be connected with the church and some of its parishioners, or at least have been to one of Meridian’s community dinners.
Slade emphasized that the lodging would be for short periods of time, maybe six months before they could bridge into an apartment or program like rapid rehousing, move over to East County Transitional Living Center and spend a year in that program if they want to.
“We’d first like to meet them, get to know them, know their story ahead of time to see how we can help them,” Slade said. “We know they need a place to lay their head, to keep their stuff safe and let them do what they’re looking to do. We’re not going to offer a program but we would want to help them connect with programs, maybe partner with Crisis House or Safe San Diego.
Welsh-Levin said the most important aspect of the home is that the front door locks.
That gives the person living in the home the feeling of security that her belongings will be safe when she goes out to look for work, for example. Many persons who are homeless cart around their belongings and are afraid to leave them behind for even a short period of time because of the chance that those items will be stolen.
In 2015, Kogan helped raise funds to build a miniature home on 16th Street in San Diego for a homeless man. That structure was only 4 feet by 7 feet and the end result is that the man living in it was handcuffed, arrested and charged with misdemeanor counts of lodging without consent and encroachment on the public right of way by San Diego police officers. Public safety officials hauled the little house away.
Kogan said she will continue to work to create a tiny house village for those experiencing homelessness in and around San Diego.
That sounded good to Berl Crist, an advocate for those living without shelter who was watching the build with great interest on Saturday.
Crist is 40 and has been living homeless in El Cajon for about three years. He is part of the East County Homeless Task Force. Crist says he plans to attend a City Council meeting to share his thoughts publicly about what it is like living on the streets of the city.
“I like this idea of the tiny house,” he said. “The whole concept of it being temporary, for six months maybe... and I hope with proper wrap-around services. It could be even less than that for some people. It would give people the opportunity and the dignity of having a safe place to keep their things, having an address to tell employers...
“If every church even had just a few of these tiny houses, maybe rotate people in and out, you would alleviate a big portion of the currently houseless.”
Overcast, 59°