It takes a village to raise a village—especially when that village is made of tiny houses, big-hearted volunteers and a plan to shelter Richmond youth.
Now, after three years of planning, building and community muscle, the village is ready for its public debut.
The Richmond Tiny House Village Farm & Garden will mark its “Grand Opening” Saturday, Sept. 26 onsite at 2200 Bissell Ave. in Richmond, also accessible via 175 23rd St. The celebration will spotlight the new emergency housing community for unhoused Richmond youth ages 18 to 24, with a youth-powered program and ribbon cutting, clergy from multiple faith traditions offering prayers, an Indigenous prayer, an appearance by Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez, Councilmember Doria Robinson, leaders from partner organizations, food and live music by Benja Soul.
For Sally Hindman, executive director of the nonprofit Tiny Village Spirit, which is the project’s developer, the grand opening event is a public exhale after three years of planning, building, fundraising, listening and showing up.
“It’s going to be a real celebration of hope and what we can do together when we come together to do something to care for the least of us,” Hindman said. “The grand opening program is youth-led, so that will be, and the ribbon cutting will be youth-led, so it’s going to have the strong presence of young people leading, as it should.”
The vibrantly mural-decorated village will include 13 emergency housing units when complete, one of them for an on-site resident assistant. In keeping with neighborhood agreements, the project will open with about half of the homes occupied, then pause, evaluate and return to local Richmond Neighborhood Councils for input before adding six more youth the following year.
Hope Solutions will operate the village from day one, with staff including a resident assistant, a village manager/social worker and a housing navigator to help residents move toward affordable housing. Youth will be selected through Contra Costa County’s Coordinated Entry System, with a focus on Richmond young adults.
Hindman was clear about who the village is for: “This is a village that is for unhoused Richmond youth, ages 18 to 24, and it’s specifically for Richmond young people.” She added that the project is particularly concerned with young people pushed out by gentrification and displacement, including black and brown youth who grew up in Richmond, as well as LGBTQ young people who “really need our support.”
Each tiny house is designed as a small bedroom with the essentials: A Murphy bed that becomes a desk during the day, a chair, table, wardrobe and, in some designs, a closet. Shared community spaces include a kitchen/dining yurt, a living room/maker space yurt and a shared bathroom building with three private units, each containing a shower, sink and toilet.
The “Farm & Garden” part of the name is no add-on. Hindman said the garden will connect with Richmond Police Activities League’s (RPAL’s) Culinary Club, a program with a farm-to-table approach that uses produce grown on-site. The space will also offer education, picnics, volunteer opportunities and stipend/paid work for village residents, doubling as a job-training ground rooted in food, land and community.
“The farm and garden is going to play a really cool role in the project as a whole,” Hindman underscored.
If the village sounds stitched together by many hands, that is because it was. Hindman described the project as involving more than 3,000 volunteers (“probably 4,000,” she estimated, noting she had “kind of lost count”) from 83-plus organizations, schools, congregations, businesses and nonprofits.
Those partners and helpers include Tiny Village Spirit, RPAL, Hope Solutions, SOS Richmond, GRIP, USF Architecture, City of Richmond YouthWORKS, Rebuilding Together, Richmond Neighborhood Councils—including Richmore Village/Metro Square, North & East, Belding Woods, Coronado and Pullman—Richmond youth, Richmond High School students, Kennedy High School, Salesian High School, Richmond Indivisible, Reimagine Richmond, East Bay Heritage Quilters, First Congregational Church of Berkeley members, Strawberry Creek Friends Meeting, Temple Beth El, Ashby Village, NIAD, artist Jimmy Evans, Williams Sonoma and many individual volunteers, donors, congregations and private foundations.
Tiny Village Spirit raised most of the funding through individuals and private foundations, according to Hindman, who shared that similar villages funded primarily with government dollars can cost around $14 million. She said this village is expected to come in under $1 million because nearly all the labor was volunteer.
For more information about the Richmond Tiny House Village Farm & Garden, text 510-282-0396 or visit Tiny Village Spirit’s Richmond project page.
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