Mobile Loaves & Fishes began when five parishioners of St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Austin, Texas were inspired by their faith to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Alan Graham and his friends began delivering meals out of the back of a minivan to men and women they found living on the streets. Graham readily admits that the group’s original approach for serving the homeless had some flaws, but with the help of a formerly homeless man they perfected the model that Mobile Loaves & Fishes successfully uses today. It is worth noting that the original impulse by his original group of five, expended to be known as the ‘six pack’ received critical input from the impacted community to refine their approach. Here is hoping that the Santa Fe City Council sees the wisdom of consulting with those who have yet to be included in its visioning effort related to the Santa Fe University of Art & Design.

That initial effort by five folks began in September 1998 by handing out peanut and jelly sandwiches from the back of a minivan. It has evolved and grown to where Loaves & Fishes volunteers have served now more than 5 million meals with a side of hope to homeless men and women living on the streets. Delivering more than a sandwich, Mobile Loaves & Fishes volunteers hit the streets 7 nights a week, 365 days a year to provide food, clothing, hygiene products and other life-sustaining items to our homeless neighbors who are struggling to survive.

And they didn’t stop there. Realizing that a sandwich and supplies was not leading to any kind of substantive relief, Loaves and Fishes decided to develop a permanent community for chronically homeless individuals and they didn’t think small.

Beginning in 2014 they began planning a development that was not just housing. Today, just four years later, Community First! Village is a 27-acre master planned community that provides affordable, permanent housing and a supportive community for 240 disabled, chronically homeless individuals. A development of Mobile Loaves & Fishes, this transformative residential program exists to love and serve neighbors who have been living on the streets, while also empowering the surrounding community into a lifestyle of service with the homeless. Community First! Village includes:

The surrounding neighborhood was not initially very welcoming and Loaves and Fishes had to fight to overcome the NIMBY response. But, over time the neighbors came to know their new neighbors and relationships developed. They also appreciated the political leverage resulting from a voting block of people who are not afraid to raise their voices and vote. Public transportation came to the area, along with sidewalks. Neighboring residents are now active as volunteers and instead of opposing the Village, they are active supporters of the next phase, addition of another 380 homes on an adjoining property that is bought and paid for. Truly, what these folks have done in just 4 years boggles the mind.

As we learned on a two hour tour of the resulting development, Community First! was not just a name, it was a philosophy. Indeed the Village philosophy is shaped by the understanding that what individuals who have been homeless for many years need most, is not housing, it is community and so every effort is made to make entry into the Village, not just accessing housing, but joining community.

We were told that the average length of life on the street of those living at Community First! was 20 years, i.e. they were not working with the easy to serve. Their process is sensitive to the human aspect of homelessness from the first effort to engage. They reach out to homeless individuals on the street; they talk with them, exchange names and handshakes; they create human to human contact and they begin a normalization process, the establishment of trusting human relationships, something that needs to learned by people who have lived on the streets for 20 years.

When Loaves and Fishes staff or volunteers ask people if they are interested in coming to Community First!, they ask if they want to become part of a community, a permanent community, one where every person there–volunteers or residents–has an abiding respect for the humanity of each individual. Volunteers or staff work 1-1 with each prospective resident. They identify if they have any benefits that they receive or could receive (Vet benefits, disability, SSI, etc.) and they determine what kind of ‘job’ they may be able to do at the site to earn a dignified salary. As we toured the village we saw an auto shop, iron works shop, a wood working shop, a catering operation, a farm, a hair salon, and their community movie theater. And all this, developed in just 4 years.

Those interested in moving into the Village do not just get assigned a ‘tiny house,’ they choose their tiny house. They select a home that meets their needs. their potential ‘income’ does play a part in their selection of housing as Tiny Homes rent for between $200 a month for the kind of Tiny Home in which Roxanne and I stayed, to $600 a month for these amazingly comfy brand new RVs, complete with kitchen shower, sink, toilet and TV.

The Tiny Homes are all built by community volunteers, sometimes assisted by residents. The homes all have unique features with all including community facing porches, but with different features in the home. No one lives at Community First! for free. They either work at one of the many businesses launched at the Village or they do custodial work on the commons or in the farm. In the work they find not just work, but human dignity. They are supporting themselves for the first time in many years.

The community garden, Genesis Gardens is far more than just a garden. It allows neighbors from all over Austin to come together to roll up their sleeves and engage with Community First! residents, practice hospitality, recall what it means to put down roots, and share the abundance of the garden’s yields. The produce from the garden is washed, bunched, canned, pickled, preserved or cooked and provided to neighbors throughout the Village — giving them direct and free access to the best vegetables on Earth!  The farm at Community First! Village features:

• More than 3 acres of organic vegetable production
• Hundreds of fruit and nut-bearing trees
• Dairy goats, chickens, rabbits, donkeys and honeybees
• Geodome and aquaponics system

The Community Art House provides a means through which our highly creative artists at Community First! produce and sell some of the best works of art in Austin. The art program provides a safe and supportive environment that fosters healing and creative expression for our formerly homeless friends. Mobile Loaves & Fishes partners with our Community First! artists to assist with the promotion and sale of their artwork, supporting their efforts to earn a dignified income through the beautiful use of their long suppressed talents.

The design of the Tiny Homes intentionally fosters community and serves to prevent isolation. Tiny Homes have microwaves and fridges but do not have water. Each small cluster of Tiny Homes has a centralized building with lockable restrooms, showers, and laundry facilities and they are immaculately maintained. Each cluster has a common kitchen and barbecue and the equipment is top of the line, as are the furnishings in each Tiny Home. Each detail is meant to convey: you are a valued person; your home is not filled with donated, frayed furnishings and your kitchen it top of the line.

Once they have picked a place, they then go through a welcoming ceremony with other residents coming to celebrate their arrival. Also included at the welcoming are the volunteers who together built the Tiny House and the welcoming includes food, song and prayer.

The map below is of CommunityFirst! This site is roughly 1/3 the size of the Santa Fe University Art & Design. Kinda makes the mind swirl with the possibilities.  To be clear, we are not saying that this, or any model from another community can or should be exported wholesale to Santa Fe, but a development such as the Village should inform our thinking and open our minds to what is possible–a good reason to slow the process and open the process to new ideas that may be more responsive to the needs of underserved and under-heard communities.  So please plan to come to the Wednesday night City Council meeting and raise your voice in support of Councilor Villarreal’s amendment to create an aggressive outreach process to obtain input from communities and populations who were not part of the SFUAD process to date. To read more, click here and you can take a visual tour of this remarkable community initiative.