Founders Dinner
We’re Finished……at least with our Construction
After selling, and trying to retire, I got really bored. I flipped a house and made maybe 10 bucks on that. I bought a fishing boat and sold that boat 3 years later. Tried to keep busy and volunteered a lot in the foster care world initially.
Then a little over 5 years ago I started volunteering in the homelessness area, with John 3:16, The Merchant, and City Lights. At John 3:16 I’d sit down and ask people to tell me their story, such as Kenneth, who is now a neighbor at Eden Village. As I learned more about the problem and got to have many conversations and get to know people experiencing homelessness, it seemed that God was leading me down this path.
In 2021 I learned about this non-profit up the road in Springfield that was building tiny home communities for the homeless there, so my wife and I went to visit Nate and Dr. and Mrs. Brown the founders there that December. As I looked at what would be required to build a tiny home community, with fundraising, building and leading a team, resources, contacts, creativity, hard work, and a little basic construction knowledge, I thought….Hey, I can do that!
So, in the spring of 2022, after attending a conference in Springfield put on by Eden Village to cities interested in doing their own tiny home community, Becky and I signed the agreement 4 years ago this month to become one of the new Eden Village Licensees.
Looking back on this….I really didn’t have a clue! I knew it would be hard, but little did I know the challenges and complexities involved in pulling this off. I was not a builder or developer by trade, I mean I was a teacher and a lawn care guy. But I was a good businessman, so I took more of a small business approach to developing this. And I had a calling, a passion to make this happen, and simply stepped out on faith. If you know the story of Nehemiah, I’ve felt a little like him, seeing a problem and just doing what God has set before me to do my part in solving that problem. I asked for favor (not from a king, but the city development department), I built a team, raised support, dealt with critics and nay-sayers, prayed for success, and worked really hard.
Everyone knows the weak link in solving this homeless battle is there are simply not enough good housing options for the thousands of people living on the streets, with the supportive services they need to thrive. I didn’t need to spend years going to meetings, getting more data, and making sure we had the perfect plan before we started. I’m the classic entrepreneur, it’s “ready-fire-aim”. Zebulan Pike is in my family tree, so I guess I inherited some of old Uncle Zeb’s explorer qualities with blazing new trails and leading the way into uncharted territories and then turning it over to others to develop. Our mantra at Eden Village is “we’ll figure it out”. What that really means is, God will provide a way…and He has.
This is what’s needed to really solve this problem, get out of the box, be bold, be different, lead with Love, and go to battle for our homeless friends. I’m grateful that we’ve been able to build this project, with 63 homes, community center, storm shelters, lots of green space, and now a farm. Through the generous support of so many families, businesses, churches, foundations, and the state, federal, and county governments, we’ve built this for $7.6 M, all paid for, with money in the bank for future operations.
With a total of 17 acres, we did not want to fill that all up with 150 or so tiny homes, as that’s too many. So, in line with being good stewards of our land, we built and opened the Restoration Farm. The Cox Foundation has been the major source of funding with their generous gift of $400K.
The Restoration Farm is just that…a place where lives can be restored, using good old fashioned hard work, digging in the dirt, and working with animals, all of which are therapeutic. Our 4,000’ barn has a room for processing our agriculture products, with a store for the public to come purchase fresh eggs, vegetables, fruit, kumbacha, and our secret recipe Mrs. Johnson’s pickles that we’ll be famous for. We have a grow room to start our vegetables in before transporting them to the hoop house where they will mature. We are already harvesting cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, squash, and soon will add okra and sweet potatoes this fall. Our chicken operation had a setback recently, but by fall, we’ll be producing over 100 fresh eggs daily to sell. We have a woodshop in our barn, where we’ll take beetle kill pine logs, which I have access to in Colorado, mill them, and turn them into beautiful wood products.
All of these efforts not only add the dignity of work and all the benefits that come with that, in the end, it’s about making money, for our neighbors and for Eden Village. With time, I believe that up to 20% of our operating budget will come from the sale of products from the Restoration Farm, along with providing thousands of dollars in income to our residents, along with job skills they can take elsewhere.
Looking back four years ago, I felt it wise to hook up with Eden Village in Springfield to learn from them, rather than trying to re-invent the wheel. We have a growing family of communities, all sharing common practices and learning from each other. Springfield is now building their 3rd community, Kansas City on their 2nd, and Wilmington, NC is on their 2nd. Other cities such as Richmond and Phoenix are in development. And, some of these cities are already coming to Tulsa to learn from us, as we’ve made pretty good progress over a short period of time.
Our Vision is to help make Tulsa be a city where No One Sleeps Outside. It’s on the front page of our little brochure. But, do we really think we can do this? Can we really make Tulsa be a city where no one sleeps outside? This is what our Mayor has said is “zero functional homelessness”. We’ll never completely solve this, as the factors that lead people into homelessness are not going away anytime soon. But…..we have to do better in caring for the least of these, our neighbors on the streets without a home.
Well, I’m just naïve enough to believe that we can. It’s not going to be easy, and it will take many years to happen. What it’s going to take first is the community will to make this happen…..and right now, I’m not sure we really have that. Yes, we have many good people and organizations doing great work, much longer than I, and making a difference. But the numbers keep going up with the people living without a home. I do think the needle is starting to move in the right direction, with the new Mayor’s efforts, and with over 130 formerly chronically homeless people soon to be living in a home between Eden Village and the City Lights project in north Tulsa opening up later this year. These are good steps, especially for the people fortunate enough to get one of those homes. But, we have so much more to do in order to really solve the problem.
So, can we make Tulsa be a city where no one sleeps outside? Well, we do that one person at a time, one community at a time, invest in the resources to build more communities, and bring more people into the battle.
Our mission at Eden Village comes from Psalm 107:4-8
Some wandered in the wilderness, lost and homeless.
Hungry and thirsty, they nearly died.
“Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble, and He rescued them from their distress.
He led them straight to safety, to a city where they could live.
So, let’s be that city Tulsa, and we need your support to make that happen!