Most of my research for this week was focused on my second book report and the internship progress reports that were done last Thursday. While doing work for both of these projects I noticed that the most important thing people can do for homeless people is to give them a hand up, not just a hand out (which is actually one of the motto’s of my internship organization). I focused a lot on this during the last week but now that those are mostly finished I have looked deeper into one of the topics that interested me about a month ago.

One thing that I found to be really interesting from a couple class sessions ago was the video we watched about homeless “villages” where people either live in tents or have erected low-cost structures for a large number of people to live in as a type of community. I was doing more research into this when I came across an article published by the New York Times called “Small World, Big Idea”. It was published very recently, about a month ago, and focused on a place called “Quixote Village” in Olympia, Washington. The idea behind Quixote Village is that small one bedroom, one bath “cottages” were erected as a community for homeless and unemployed residents of Washington State would have a place to live. The structures are modestly built, but have provided shelter and living space for these people for months now.

Quixote Village is an anomaly. There are almost no other villages like this one, espeically in Western Washington. Many of the homeless camps in that area are tent villages erected in the woods or on the sides of train tracks. Michael Tortorello, the author of the article says, “Beyond its recent good fortune, the settlement was — and is — exceptional.Quixote Village, as it is now called, practices self-governance, with elected leadership and membership rules. While a nonprofit board called Panza funds and guides the project, needing help is not the same thing as being helpless. As Mr. Johnson likes to say, ‘I’m homeless, not stupid.'” This statement definitely makes one think about the fact that there are no other places like this for people who just need a way to get back on their feet.

A quote from the article gives a good snap shot of the community that makes up Quixote Village. The writer describes the community, saying, “Most of that demographic, an estimated 450 souls, is unemployed. While the residents of Quixote Village are expected to pay 30 percent of their income toward rent, 15 of the 29 individuals reported a sum of zero. Ms. Segel added that the average annual income for the rest of the residents — including wages, pensions and Social Security payments — is about $3,100 each.” (Tortorello, 2014)

Overall, I am very intrigued by the ideas behind places like Quixote Village and want to know if anyone else thinks that this is a viable option for changing the way homeless people are living.