Description. Home About Services for Homeless Services for Community Publicity. Ways to Help. Please create an account to get started.

Transcription

1 Members Search Home About Services for Homeless Services for Community Publicity Ways to Help Description The Ashland, Oregon Homefree Hostel For the past couple of years, hundreds of Ashland homeless and travelers have been collaborating to create a new type of shelter model for themselves; work-trade houses where they help the community for free, doing what they love(web design, auto repair, music lessons or whatever their passion)! This group of homeless started an LLC(limited liability company) that was needed to rent houses without the landlords having to worry about liability issues. These new shelter houses are designed to integrate the homeless back into society instead of keeping them segregated off to the side like regular shelters or encampments. These houses will also motivate the homeless to get their own home in society again by reminding them of all the benefits that an actual house has to offer. In return for receiving these house benefits, the homeless will pay-itforward by helping neighbors or the community each day that they stay. The homeless will be able to provide the services that they want to give as long as there are enough people that want that free service. The first house managers will be providing neighbors with free website design, auto-mechanic work, permaculture gardening and yard services, hand-built chicken coop, setting up composts, dog walking and training, back massages and survival skills training among many other things. This invested interest will give the homeless more respect for these houses and their communities, than would a free shelter model or free encampment. This daily neighborhood help can also be photo/video recorded for the homeless to post to their optional portfolios at homefreehostels.com. Quality portfolios will assist the homeless in attaining future employment and that will give them the motivation to help more each day. Other citizens in the community can then search this website and request free help or hire instant, affordable labor! Please create an account to get started. Username Password Remember Me Log In Meta Register Log in Entries RSS Comments RSS WordPress.org Search Recent Posts Give Homeless a Sleep Slip Dollar! The sustainable solution to homelessness! Homeless prove they can manage a shelter by themselves! A-Street Copy supports Homefree Hostels

2 These houses will each be self-managed by up to 5 local homeless who have an invested interest in Ashland, with guests being able to stay each night. The neighbors will be encouraged to pop in whenever they need some help which will also help to manage/ monitor the houses. Sound decibel meters that look like traffic lights will assist the managers in maintaining acceptable noise levels at these houses. The first house s managers will be Jay Fellers, Kevin Edwards, Aaron Fletcher, Cody Meyock with one possible manager position still open depending of the size of the first house. New managers have to be unanimously agreed upon by the managers of each house based upon who has signed up first, seniority in Ashland, responsibility level and passing a sex offender background check. These shelters are being funded using house-shaped donation boxes, where people can drop change over the roofs and the gutters will catch the money! In addition to these donation houses being inside local businesses, the homeless also have a larger version that they generated $618 in just 4 days of downtown sidewalk collecting. The collections are counted in public by the Ashland homeless while the results are video/audio recorded and a witness signs their ledger. This homeless group has also held two Free Rummage Benefits last year that raised an additional $419. ALL money raised for this program will be used to rent additional houses that each will have their own unique managers, characteristics and rules(co-ed, female only, male only, families only, veterans/elderly only)! Ruth Coulthard, who runs the winter shelter in Ashland and works for Peace House, volunteered to be this project s treasurer. Donations are now accepted at Umpqua Bank account # and will be made publicly viewable by displaying the monthly bank statements in the Ways to Donate button at homefreehostels.com. This project was born out of the Ashland Homeless Protests and the subsequent Fire Councel meetings we had back in We then grew the idea by collecting signatures and suggestions from new homeless/travelers who came through Ashland over the next several months. Another Free Rummage Success! Recent Comments Brandy de St. Phalle on The sustainable solution to homelessness! Brandy de St. Phalle on First hosting of homeless is a success! julian spalding on Help Spread The Word Aaron and Samdog on Donations are made transparent to the community! Aaron and Samdog on Donations are made transparent to the community! Archives June 2015 November 2014 December 2013 August 2013 June 2013 May 2013 March 2013 January 2013 Categories Uncategorized

3

4

5

6 Additional information about the Homefree Hostels: -The definition of homefree is the opposite of homeless, it means getting past the problems of homelessness. The homeless are perceived as taking more from society than they give back, whereas homefree is giving back to society at least as much as they take. -Will provide the homeless with the ability to train each other and gain job opportunities. -Will make neighborhoods more sustainable.(gardens, chickens, composts, etc.) -Will connect neighbors with other neighbors. -Won t create a mecca effect by attracting unwanted numbers of new homeless like the regular free shelters and encampments tend to do. -Won t employ people with houses to manage or help the shelters. -Won t be funded or dependent on ANY federal grants, only community grants and donations. A voice from Ashland s business community about our project. From Allan Sandler(downtown property owner) The concept of living the lifestyle one wants is being created by a group of Homeless people right here in Ashland. Once this group of homeless understood that they can be the driving force of their concept of living which is to do good to others who need help while living the life they want it became a insperational movement. Once they understood that they can have the protection of the law by living under the law and respecting the community they would in fact be the stewards of their own life. This group has now set up an operating agreement under the State of Oregon for an LLC, they will, within the

7 next two weeks be a legal entity protected by the law. They want to be a part of the community, but want to live by their life style under the law. This is probably the first LLC formed by a Homeless contingent in the US or anywhere in the world that is fully controlled and operated by themselves. The purpose is to design a working model for housing as a place to function to help the community around them. To help less fortunate elderly or others who need help with out charging any money for their help, services or time. In turn for this help they hope to receive support from the community that can help their effort. This is a kind of passing it on. Everybody wins Hopefully this is only the beginning and with some luck and help this concept can flourish just like this across Oregon and across the country. Leave a reply Your address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Name * * Website CAPTCHA Code *

8 You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong> Post Comment Proudly powered by WordPress and BuddyPress.