Taja Sevelle, the founder and executive director of Urban Farming, a Detroit-based nonprofit dedicated to eradicating hunger, had just such a query for architect Robin Osler when the two met last year for the first time: If sedum and other non-edible plants thrive on green roofs and walls, why not tomatoes, peppers, and onions? If so, she reckoned, these gardens could supply free, healthy food for economically distressed neighborhoods.

Each 30-foot-long-by-6-foot-high wall contains 4,000 plants growing in 180 square panels made of stainless steel; the panels, in turn, are divided into 4-inch-by-6-inch dirt-filled cells. Drip lines irrigate the crops from above and water drains through X-shaped slits on the underside of each cell. A fully loaded wall weighs roughly 15 pounds per square foot and can attach to an adjacent building or a freestanding metal framework.

Irwin adds that the green walls are about “more than just crops.” Projects like this can help create a sense of community among disadvantaged residents. “Sitting down to dinner,” he says, “always seems to bring people together.”

The brief called for a more holistic and thoughtful strategy, which would integrate well with the urban environment and have a more longterm approach than immediate survival and comfort.

The project will create a new ‘neighbourhood’ with a mixed demographic: 30-40% residents will be ‘formerly homeless,’ the rest will not. The idea here is to further encourage integration with others and develop a sense of community.

The neighbourhood will have a series of public programs as well as being partially residential. These programs will activate the neighbourhood and provide activities & jobs for the homeless, enabling them to develop a sense of responsibility & self-worth within their new community.

There are innumerable vacant strips of land created by train and tram lines – obstacles that can be readily ‘bridged’ to form vibrant neighbourhoods that re-integrate the homeless. So take a look around your city… how many sites would be suitable for a project like this?

Most homeless have none of those things. Without a car they are stuck walking and that in turn reduces the range of where they can get help or a job. Without a phone, they have to rely on stores and the goodness of a clerk to make a call. When was the last time you saw a payphone? Many times the homeless can’t even pay to use one if they could find one.

Without a phone and a fixed address, most people could not get a job as those things are at the top of any application. No way to get a callback for another appointment – opportunity lost. No fixed address – no job. Some libraries deny a card to anyone without a fixed address. No library card, no Internet access. No clean clothes, poorly nourished, unshaven.

Why? For one, weather.

Two, security.

Three—most pressing and predominant—personal crisis.

I have also heard mention of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (see the above image) as the impetus of this approach. Basically, each human need requires a foundation of other needs already met, starting with physical needs, achieving those, and then moving up the list, one level at a time. A feeling of security cannot be achieved if the physical needs have not been met. A sense of belonging cannot occur until one has achieved a level of security, etc.

Brilliant inventions usually result when someone asks the right question at the right time. Taja Sevelle, the founder and executive director of Urban Farming, a Detroit-based nonprofit dedicated to eradicating hunger, had just such a query for architect Robin Osler when the two met last year for the first time: If sedum and other non-edible plants thrive on green roofs and walls, why not tomatoes, peppers, and onions? If so, she reckoned, these gardens could supply free, healthy food for economically distressed neighborhoods.

Images courtesy Urban Farming Food Chain

In Los Angeles, walls covered in food plants are being installed in areas rife with homelessness. Each 30-foot-long-by-6-foot-high wall contains 4,000 plants growing in 180 square panels made of stainless steel.

Sevelle had consulted the right person. Osler’s Manhattan-based atelier, Elmslie Osler Architect, created a 2,000-square-foot green wall—the largest in the United States—for the Huntsville, Alabama, location of clothing retailer Anthropologie. After meeting Sevelle, Osler contacted George Irwin, whose firm Green Living Technologies manufactured the Anthropolgie wall system, and discovered that he was already experimenting with how to grow lettuce and other crops vertically. The team quickly came together and dubbed their project the Urban Farming Food Chain. It debuted this summer at four sites in Los Angeles’s Skid Row, a district that contains one of the nation’s largest homeless populations. The sites include a courtyard at the Michael Maltzan-designed Rainbow Apartments, a transitional housing facility for the homeless and mentally ill.

Each 30-foot-long-by-6-foot-high wall contains 4,000 plants growing in 180 square panels made of stainless steel; the panels, in turn, are divided into 4-inch-by-6-inch dirt-filled cells. Drip lines irrigate the crops from above and water drains through X-shaped slits on the underside of each cell. A fully loaded wall weighs roughly 15 pounds per square foot and can attach to an adjacent building or a freestanding metal framework.

“Bees and butterflies arrived within seconds after we put the walls up,” says Joyce Lewis, Urban Farming’s L.A. project manager, who organizes local volunteers to tend the vertical gardens. “They greened an environment that would otherwise just be concrete and steel.”

Lewis is still raising money to complete the first L.A. sites, but she’s already eyeing new locations across the city. Osler and Sevelle likewise hope to take the project to Chicago or New York, forming a nationwide “chain” of green walls akin to Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace park system.

“There’s been a definite shift across the country in understanding the value of locally grown food, but as a society we’re not very good about giving up valuable urban real estate for parks,” Osler explains. “The advantage of vertical farming is that it doesn’t take up a lot of space.”

Irwin adds that the green walls are about “more than just crops.” Projects like this can help create a sense of community among disadvantaged residents. “Sitting down to dinner,” he says, “always seems to bring people together.”

In our increasingly interconnected global society more and more people are becoming aware of the disasters that impact populations of people around the world. This simple post-disaster home designed by Encore Heureux to be pulled along by a person or hitched to a bike.

The fact that this design is modest in scale, scope and material expense makes it all the more practical to build on-site after emergencies. Likewise, since it can be pulled by anything from an individual to a car it is also useful even for those without vehicles.

There is of course also no reason these nifty miniature mobile homes would have to be used exclusively in emergency situations – they could also make camping companions for people on rural long-distance bike trips or work in urban areas as portable homeless

This winter we set the hard challenge of coming up with designs to rehabilitate the homeless, after last year’s competition “Let it Snow” which looked mainly at providing essential shelter for people living on the streets. The brief called for a more holistic and thoughtful strategy, which would integrate well with the urban environment and have a more longterm approach than immediate survival and comfort.

Below is the winning design from Sarah Crowley in Melbourne, Australia (http://sararchitecture.blogspot.com). We really like the wide and multi faceted approach to rehabilitation which she has manifested in her design, through creating a strip of community buildings, housing, and facilities all the way along a strip of railway in her city. It’s architecturally a very strong solution, and although the capital cost would be high it has a wider outlook and attitude towards the entire city, stitching over a scar created in the urban landscape by the train line. The rehabilitation solution she presents is sustainable and even profitable with the inclusion of markets and ‘big issue’ offices, and although the graphic takes a while to read it is convincing and clear

This project explores a long-term solution to housing and rehabilitating homeless individuals & families. Homeless people often congregate in cities because of the infrastructure & resources available. They tend to appropriate under-used & empty spaces for living. To link in with this concept, it seemed logical to design a long-term solution to homelessness using vacant plots of land in cities. There is a lot of neglected land in & around cities throughout the world, so… let’s use these sites to re-integrate the homeless!!
The site explored in this project is a 1km strip of currently neglected land abutting the city grid of Melbourne, Australia. A train line runs through the site, making it problematic for housing, so I designed a bridge that covers the train line, which effectively reduces the noise and vibration of the trains, but also helps to increase porosity and permeability of the site.

The neighbourhood will have a series of public programs as well as being residential. These programs will activate the neighbourhood and provide activities & jobs for the homeless, enabling them to develop a sense of responsibility & self-worth within their new community. They will also provide a source of income to maintain and potentially help fund the development. The ‘development’ would be funded both publicly and privately.

Bill S.’s paraSITE shelter. He requested as many windows as possible, because “homeless people don’t have privacy issues, but they do have security issues. We want to see potential attackers, we want to be visible to the public.” Six windows are placed at eye level for when Bill is seated and six smaller windows for when Bill is reclining.

George L.’s paraSITE shelter. Made on a budget of $5.00 from trash bags, ZipLoc bags, and clear waterproof packing tape. George requested a system of “ribs” that would be made of semi-translucent trash bags. In between the ribs, he wanted windows to expose the “meat” between the bones.

The windows are made of Ziploc sandwich bags and serve as pockets to display personal items and signage for the public. Privacy and publicity can be regulated by adding or removing objects.

Bill S., Freddie F., and George L. with Freddie’s paraSITE shelter. An avid science fiction fan, Freddie requested a shelter in the shape of Jabba the Hutt.

Joe H. using his paraSITE shelter in February 2000. Joe is a homeless man who lived on the streets near Battery Park City in Manhattan. In the 1970s, he became a contractor and was responsible for building over fifteen buildings in Brooklyn. He was diagnosed with cancer in the 1980s after being exposed to Agent Orange while serving in the Air Force in Vietnam. After forty-seven different operations to treat the cancer, the Veteran’s Association of America ceased paying his medical bills and he went bankrupt.

Michael M. using his paraSITE shelter on 26th Street and 9th Avenue in New York. Michael was a homeless man who worked for the United Homeless Organization. He wanted to respond to an obscure anti-tent by-law being enforced by the Giuliani administration, which stated that any structure 3.5 feet or taller set up on city property would be considered an illegal encampment.

We designed his shelter to be closer to the ground, more like a sleeping bag or some kind of body extension. Thus, if questioned by the police, he could argue that the law did not apply because the shelter was not, in fact, a tent. On more than one occasion, Michael was confronted by police officers. After measuring his shelter, the officers moved on.

Design process sketches for a shelter built for Artie, a 62-year-old homeless man living near Madison Square Garden. Artie often stands in line for concert tickets at the request of scalpers. For his paraSITE, Artie requested a domed sitting space for himself and his girlfriend, Myra, connected to a lower, intimate sleeping area for two, “the lovin’ room.”

Halfway through construction, I received a call from Artie ordering me to stop building. “Myra talks way too much!” he explained, and asked that I make two domed sitting areas, separated by the lovin’ room. “It should look like a bra, or a dogbone.”

What the homeless need most

Most of us need a little help now and then. Help painting, doing the dishes, with homework, looking after a pet, changing a tire, or maybe with a financial problem. Very seldom do we fall into a situation that requires help to survive. You read about people that are stranded on mountains, lost in a wilderness, stuck in a cave, or more commonly, involved in near deadly accidents and need help getting out or getting well. Thankfully they are still rare occurances.

When it comes to the homeless, needing help is an every day occurrence. Yet the most often heard phrase is “Get a Job!”. Some help that is. This country will spend millions to get someone off a mountain that had been warned of the danger. We will send dozens of men with heavy equipment to get a horse out of a mud hole and every news outlet will feature it. We will organize fleets of ships and planes to hunt for a stricken boat with a missing man on the high seas.

Yet, when it comes to the homeless, other than those who engage in the homeless service industry and the homeless activists among us, there is little or no help when a homeless person is found laying in a doorway near death from freezing, or beaten half to death in an alley where he had been trying to sleep. Hospitals are even being accused of “dumping” homeless patients on streets near shelters. I can point you to many notable cases.

(Picture by Oldtimer.) Can you tell which one was not homeless?

Homeless people need help. They need our help and they need it almost continuously. Consider this: If you have lost a job recently and as a result lost your home, you probably have friends and family to fall back on for much needed help. You probably have a cell phone and a relationship with a doctor for medical care and probably still have a car. You are probably not homeless long.

Tell me friend, when you say “Get a job” how do you do that?

I have a need to work…

But I have no ID,
No phone,
No residence,
No transportation,
No references,
No clean clothes,
No place to wash or shave.

And if I do find work,
I can’t cash my check

I’m Homeless

More on this later. I have a poem that I want to illustrate this with. I call it a poem but maybe it doesn’t fit the framework. It really doesn’t rhyme but I think it at least tells the story. I call it My Rights - coming next.

You can make this a Summer of Hope for our homeless and hungry neighbours.

There’s a perception that during the months of summer, the basic needs of homeless people are lightened; and as it happens, our support drops off in summer.

But the demand for food and shelter are as great in June, July and August, as in winter.

CLICK TO TWEET

Why? For one, weather.

Even though we live in a northern city, dehydration and heat exhaustion can still threaten during our mid-summer hot spells. As well, we’ve all witnessed the unstable moods of summer; thunderstorms, driving rain, high winds, make the risk of exposure an ever present reality for the homeless.

Two, security.

Violence is a constant threat for people living on the street. What’s more recent studies show a correlation between heat and violence. Assaults, domestic violence, ethnic violence, and random street violence can be a greater hazard for the vulnerable in summer.

Three—most pressing and predominant—personal crisis.

Addictions, mental health issues, family violence and abuse, job loss, injury, and social systems that fail are all dangers that don’t take summer breaks.

That’s the reality. And that is why we’re asking—over these three months of summer—for three special gifts of compassion. Because those who come to us during this season also deserve a chance to change their lives—deserve a Summer of Hope.

Please help. Your gifts of $10, or $20 or $50 over each of the next three months will make a huge Summer of Hope impact. But any amount will help give hurting people hope and the opportunity of a new life.

And please know that our gratitude runs deep. We recognise that in giving during this time of year, your own holiday time, you will be going the extra mile.

On behalf of the men and women and young people who will be restored because of God’s grace and your care, Thank You!

The term "Continuum of Care" comes from the health care industry. It is used to describe the type of services required by people needing a variety of services over a long period of time, such as people suffering from cancer. For people suffering from homelessness, the Continuum of Care would include getting a homeless person into a Single Resident Occupancy (SRO) apartment, making sure they have food and other necessities, and then arranging services for them such as addiction rehabilitation, mental health therapy, employment, etc., leading up to the point of self sufficiency. Often you'll hear this referred to as "wrap-around services". I have also heard mention of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (see the above image) as the impetus of this approach. Basically, each human need requires a foundation of other needs already met, starting with physical needs, achieving those, and then moving up the list, one level at a time. A feeling of security cannot be achieved if the physical needs have not been met. A sense of belonging cannot occur until one has achieved a level of security, etc.

In 2009 the McKinney-Vento Act was amended with the HEARTH Act. Among other improvements to the governments response to homelessness, the Hearth Act consolidated three previous HUD homeless assistance programs, repurposed them, and gave it the name, Continuum of Care Program. HUDs CoC Program is a competitive funding source for those communities that are implementing CoC strategies in dealing with homelessness. If on inspection HUD determines that a community is moving in the right direction in improving services to the homeless, HUD will award funding to help pay for these improvements. Learn more about HUD's
Continuum of Care.
https://www.onecpd.info/resources/documents/coc101.pdf
Back to Homeless Terms To Know

Every day. Some more research.

miercuri, 29 octombrie 2014

luni, 27 octombrie 2014

Program

Why? For one, weather.

Two, security.

Three—most pressing and predominant—personal crisis.

research on Monday

program story.

What the homeless need most

Tell me friend, when you say “Get a job” how do you do that?

You can make this a Summer of Hope for our homeless and hungry neighbours.

Why? For one, weather.

Two, security.

Three—most pressing and predominant—personal crisis.

joi, 23 octombrie 2014

programme collage day 2

programme collage