inspired by Occupy camps, Oregon allows bare bones permitless shed village for homeless,
Http://www.citylab.com/housing/2014/11/eugene-oregons-radical-solution-to-homelessness-a-bare-bones-shed-village/381970/
Http://www.citylab.com/housing/2014/11/eugene-oregons-radical-solution-to-homelessness-a-bare-bones-shed-village/381970/
Bathroom building
The city agreed to donate an acre plot of land to the project and gave them a year lease as a pilot project. Heben and the other organizers raised $100,000 in cash donations and about another $100,000 worth of donated materials to build the village, which would ultimately provide shelter for 42 previously unhoused people. (By contrast, the median value of a single family home in Eugene is $250,000.)
Heben's idea to help Eugene's homeless was to move from a model of scattered and temporary "tent cities" to a consolidated village of "tiny homes.
They built small wooden sleeping units measuring either 8-by-8 feet or 8-by-10 feet. (Heben eventually replicated plans for some of the units and formed a company called Backyard Bungalows to supply them to others interested in the designs. However, his village designs predate the company, and neither he nor the company made any profit from the Opportunity Village project.) They also put up several smaller, domed shelters called conestoga huts, designed by Michael Carrigan, a community organizer and Opportunity Village board member. Kitchen and bathroom facilities for everyone are located in communal buildings.
None of the shelters fit the city code’s definition of a dwelling or residence, so, while a building official did inspect them for safety, the units were given an exemption from official building code restrictions.
“If you get the right people supporting a project, they can find a way to do it if they want to,” Heben says. Wisth, who was the city’s lead staff person working with Opportunity Village, says the mandate from city council led him and other city staffers to make it happen. “We interpreted the building codes in terms of what applied to the project. It was like finding the roundest square peg to fit in an octagonal hole,” he says.
Today, Opportunity Village features brightly painted shelters, garden boxes, a communal yurt with public computers, weekly village meetings, and a seven-member council working continually to improve the quality of life of the village’s residents. It would be wrong to glorify the place as as a permanent way out of homelessness for the people living there, but the community is something special in its own right.
= new reply since forum marked as read
along with a fair amount of technical assistance and moral support. It was
about 14 years ago, I served as one of DV's founding supporters and was
eventually hired to assist with their incorporation as a 501c3.
It was seriously one of the most awesome "jobs" I have ever had. The
concept is very simple, just let homeless people have a little public land
to organize themselves into a caring community, with minimal shelter
and code requirements. It's amazing what the previously homeless people
come up with, as they have had to be very resourceful living on the street.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity_Village
Don't be surprised if she doesn't want to leave. 
equipment takes up a lot of space 
and bike in.
to keep poor folks from the elements.. YES... but god damn...
we're better than this folks... we're the richest nation on earth and these poor people can't get suitable housing
