AUSTIN (KXAN) — On Wednesday, a community of tiny homes in east Austin marked 10 years of helping people find permanent housing.
Community First Village opened its first tiny home in 2015. Since then, hundreds of formerly homeless people have called the village home. After its expansion is complete later this year, there will be 1900 tiny houses spread across two acres.
“When you’re driving around Austin and you’re looking under the bridges and on the street corners and the alleyways, there’s a sense of hopelessness out there,” said Alan Graham, the village’s founder and CEO.
“When you come into this village, and you drive around [this place] – occupied by that population of people, what you walk away with is this extraordinary sense of hopefulness,” he continued.
Blaire Racine, a seven-year resident known around the community as its “mayor,” said the community has offered him a new family. He was homeless for four years before.
“The reason they have such a high retention rate here is because people belong here,” Racine said. “One of the biggest problems people experiencing homelessness have is low self-esteem, and we can rebuild that feeling.”
According to the nonprofit, the community has an 85% retention rate. Further, residents report 42% less alcohol use, 47% less drug use, and 30% lower feelings of depression compared to when they arrived.
During the 10th anniversary celebration, Graham said retention is so high that the most common reason people leave is death. The average age of a resident is 65, and the average age of death in the village is 61.
The Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, or ECHO, reports the average age of death for someone living unsheltered in Austin is 48.
“These are the exact kind of solutions that our office is focused on to help ensure people can get off the streets and stay off the streets,” Director of Austin Homeless Strategies and Operations David Gray said.
While he said the village is doing “impactful work,” Gray said this model won’t work for all people at risk of or who are experiencing homelessness.
“Our goal is to prevent people from needing a resource like this,” Gray said
“Usually if you’re moving into a community like this, you’ve been homeless for multiple years, you don’t have income, maybe you have a permanent disability,” he continued. “A lot of the work that we’ve done over this last year was built out other parts of our homeless continuum, so that households who are currently housed have a fighting chance to stay housed.”
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