#6: Missed Opportunity Village

In the summer of 2018 I made the trip up to Eugene Oregon, a beautifully crunchy place where homelessness is an equally tricky issue. I pitched a tent and stayed for 3 nights in a pretty well known place called Opportunity Villiage. Opportunity Villiage is experiment born from research documented in a book you should read if you’re listening to this podcast called Tent City Urbanism: From Self-Organized Camps to Tiny House Villages, written by city planner named Andrew Heben. The 30 person city sanctioned villiage on the outskirts of Eugene is about half tiny homes, these are basically four walled structures with a bed and space for furniture and half of the housing are quonset huts which are canvass tent numbers on wooden platforms. Each participant pays 30 dollars a month to stay there and has to do a weekly shift working security at the front gate and pitch in for grounds maintenance. The village is most known for its self governance structure and I really wanted to see this place first hand. My time there was extremely eye-opening. It wasn’t perfect, there was drama, but overall most people I interacted with there were thankful that project existed and served as a resources to them in their lives. My guest today, Ren, was one of the Villagers and this is their story. Show notes: [National Suicide prevention Lifeline](http://http://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/) **1-800-273-8255** [Square One Villages](http://www.squareonevillages.org/) [Tent City Urbanism: From Self-organized Camps to Tiny House Villages](http://http://www.tentcityurbanism.com/)