Opportunity Village | |
|---|---|
  Opportunity Village | |
| Coordinates: 44°03′42″N123°07′20″W / 44.0616227°N 123.1223195°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Oregon |
| County | Lane |
| City | Eugene |
| Founded | 2014 |
| Website | https://www.eugene-or.gov/3705/Opportunity-Village |
Opportunity Village is an organized homeless community in Eugene, Oregon. It is supported by the non-profit organization Opportunity Village Eugene (OVE). [1]
The village began in the wake of the Occupy movement in Eugene. After the Occupy encampments had been disassembled, mayor Kitty Piercy assembled a task force to address the housing crisis in the city. [2]
In 2013, the non-profit organization Opportunity Village Eugene (OVE) was founded with the goal of addressing the issue of affordable housing. That August, the Eugene City Council voted to donate land to OVE and approved the construction of a village. [3]
Opportunity Village opened in May 2014. [2] It was funded by $100,000 in private donations, and labor and materials were also donated. [1] Each of the 30 houses was constructed for $3,300. [3] Housing consists of small bungalows and Conestoga huts. [4]
The village is located on a gated, city-owned lot. [5] It has a capacity for over 30 residents and residents share maintenance and cleaning duties. [6] [2] There is no time limit for how long residents can stay in the village, but they are expected to transition to permanent housing. [3]
Each structure is 80 square feet in size. Individual homes are not hooked up to electricity or plumbing, and residents share communal cooking, gathering, and sanitary spaces. [1]
Eugene is the 2nd most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon after Portland and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about 50 miles (80 km) east of the Oregon Coast.
The University of Oregon is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the university also has two Portland locations, one in Downtown and one in Northeast; a marine station, called the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, in Charleston; and an observatory, called Pine Mountain Observatory, in Central Oregon.
People's Park in Berkeley, California is located just east of Telegraph Avenue, bounded by Haste and Bowditch Streets, and Dwight Way, near the University of California, Berkeley. The park was created during the radical political activism of the late 1960s.
A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Typically housing cooperatives are owned by shareholders but in some cases they can be owned by a non-profit organization. They are a distinctive form of home ownership that have many characteristics that differ from other residential arrangements such as single family home ownership, condominiums and renting.
Homeless shelters are a type of homeless service agency which provide temporary residence for homeless individuals and families. Shelters exist to provide residents with safety and protection from exposure to the weather while simultaneously reducing the environmental impact on the community. They are similar to, but distinguishable from, various types of emergency shelters, which are typically operated for specific circumstances and populations—fleeing natural disasters or abusive social circumstances. Extreme weather conditions create problems similar to disaster management scenarios, and are handled with warming centers, which typically operate for short durations during adverse weather.
A tent city is a temporary housing facility made using tents or other temporary structures.
Eugene Franklin Skinner was an early American settler in Oregon and the founder of the city of Eugene, Oregon, which is named after him.
Dignity Village is a city-recognized legal encampment of an estimated 60 homeless people in Portland, Oregon, United States. In the days before Christmas of 2000, a group of individuals living outdoors in Portland established a tent city. It evolved from a group of self-described "outsiders" squatting a city owned land to a self-regulating, city-recognized campground as defined by Portland city code. The encampment is located on land near Portland International Airport, and has elected community officials and constructed crude but functional cooking, social, electric, and sanitary facilities.
Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affordable housing refers to mortgages and a number of forms that exist along a continuum – from emergency homeless shelters, to transitional housing, to non-market rental, to formal and informal rental, indigenous housing, and ending with affordable home ownership.
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Ballet Fantastique is an Emmy®-nominated American ballet theater company based in Eugene, Oregon in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Ballet Fantastique creates and performs all-original dance theater repertoire and immersive audience experiences. Ballet Fantastique became a resident company at Eugene's Hult Center for the Performing Arts in 2014 and tours across the US and internationally.
The tiny-house movement is an architectural and social movement that advocates for downsizing living spaces, simplifying, and essentially "living with less." According to the 2018 International Residential Code, Appendix Q Tiny Houses, a tiny house is a "dwelling unit with a maximum of 37 square metres of floor area, excluding lofts." The term "tiny house" is sometimes used interchangeably with "micro-house". While tiny housing primarily represents cheap, simple living, the movement also sells itself as a potential eco-friendly solution to the existing housing industry, as well as a feasible transitional option for individuals experiencing a lack of shelter. Some states in the U.S. consider any home under 1,000 sq. ft. to be a tiny home.
In the Seattle King County area, there were estimated to be 11,751 homeless people living on the streets or in shelters. On January 24, 2020, the count of unsheltered homeless individuals was 5,578. The number of individuals without homes in emergency shelters was 4,085 and the number of homeless individuals in transitional housing was 2,088, for a total count of 11,751 unsheltered people.
Historically, squatting occurred in the United States during the California Gold Rush and when colonial European settlers established land rights. There was squatting during the Great Depression in Hoovervilles and also during World War II. Shanty towns returned to the US after the Great Recession (2007–2009) and in the 2010s, there were increasing numbers of people occupying foreclosed homes using fraudulent documents. In some cases, a squatter may be able to obtain ownership of property through adverse possession.
Occupy Eugene was a collaboration that occurred in Eugene, Oregon based on the Occupy Wall Street movement which began in New York City on September 17, 2011. Occupy Eugene included peaceful protests and demonstrations. Protesters were concerned about inequities in the distribution of wealth, banking regulation, housing issues and corporate greed. The first protest march was held on October 15, 2011. The march started at the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza and continued downtown before marching over Ferry Street Bridge. It was reported that close to 2000 people were in attendance from all over the state of Oregon. Occupy Eugene continued to hold regular protests and actions until it left the encampment in December 2011. Protesters have stated that they do not have a set group of leaders. Occupy Eugene General Assemblies have met from as frequently as twice a day at times during active occupations, and as infrequently as weekly. Many committees have met since at least the third General Assembly, typically weekly. Decisions are made through a process known as consensus. Occupy Eugene's consensus process operates in a similar fashion to how consensus is being handled in New York City by protesters involved in Occupy Wall Street. Although the exact method varies from Occupation to Occupation. As of October 18, 2011, The Eugene police department was allowing protesters to camp in downtown Eugene, although city law prohibits it. Eugene police also stated that downtown camping won't be permanently allowed.
The Homeless Bill of Rights refers to legislation protecting the civil and human rights of homeless people. These laws affirm that homeless people have equal rights to medical care, free speech, free movement, voting, opportunities for employment, and privacy. Legislation of this type is currently being debated at the state level in the United States. Over 120 organizations in five different states have shown public support for a Homeless Bill of Rights and are working towards its implementation. A Homeless Bill of Rights has become law in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Illinois and is under consideration by several other U.S. states, including California, Delaware, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont.
The San Francisco Bay Area comprises nine northern California counties and contains four of the ten most expensive counties in the United States. Strong economic growth has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, but coupled with severe restrictions on building new housing units, it has resulted in an extreme housing shortage which has driven rents to extremely high levels. The Sacramento Bee notes that large cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles both attribute their recent increases in homeless people to the housing shortage, with the result that homelessness in California overall has increased by 15% from 2015 to 2017. In September 2019, the Council of Economic Advisers released a report in which they stated that deregulation of the housing markets would reduce homelessness in some of the most constrained markets by estimates of 54% in San Francisco, 40 percent in Los Angeles, and 38 percent in San Diego, because rents would fall by 55 percent, 41 percent, and 39 percent respectively. In San Francisco, a minimum wage worker would have to work approximately 4.7 full-time jobs to be able to spend less than 30% of their income on renting a two-bedroom apartment.
We Heart Seattle (WHS), formerly We Heart Downtown Seattle and incorporated as I Heart Downtown Seattle, is a volunteer organization responding to trash and homelessness in Seattle. The group organizes volunteer trash cleanups in public parks in which homeless people have established camps, primarily through a public Facebook group and Facebook events. Their affiliate We Heart Portland started performing similar cleanups in Portland, Oregon in May 2022.
The Mims House in Eugene, Oregon is a Gothic-style, single-family home considered to be one of the oldest homes in the area. It is known for being the home of the Mims family, who became one of the first African American homeowners in Eugene when they purchased it in 1948. During the period of racial segregation in Eugene, the Mims family frequently hosted African American visitors to Eugene both at their home and in the adjoining boarding house which they owned. The building is a Historic Landmark located within the East Skinner Butte Historic District. As of 2021, the Eugene-Springfield branch of the NAACP is located in the Mims House, although the home also operates as a museum.
Hazelnut Grove is an organized homeless community located in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 2015, and since its inception, has survived several attempts to disband or relocate the community. It is recognized and supported by the city government.
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