TEDxSalem speaker has big ideas for small houses

The Rev. Dan Bryant didn’t set out to rev­o­lu­tion­ize hous­ing for the home­less, it just sort of hap­pened.

Bryant is one of 13 speak­ers at this year’s TEDxSalem Oct. 3. His home base is First Chris­t­ian Church in Eugene where home­less and low-income res­i­dents go for help, meals and an empa­thet­ic ear down­town. So when Eugene strug­gled with an influx of home­less res­i­dents in 2011, the city invit­ed Bryant, along with many oth­ers, to brain­storm solu­tions.

“A place to be” topped the list of needs.

Then in walked Andy Heben, a guy who spent his sum­mer vis­it­ing home­less tent cities around the coun­try to under­stand what works and what doesn’t. Bryant hired Heben and togeth­er they per­suad­ed the city to let them pilot a home­less com­mu­ni­ty on one acre of unused city land in 2013.

That’s the gen­e­sis of Oppor­tu­ni­ty Vil­lage Eugene, the city’s first suc­cess­ful self-gov­erned home­less com­mu­ni­ty.  As many as 35 res­i­dents and five dogs call the vil­lage home at any one time.

“This isn’t some­thing I set out to do,” Bryant said. “I was more of a peace and social jus­tice guy work­ing on glob­al issues.”

Now he describes him­self as an acci­den­tal hous­ing wonk, and he has big ideas for the next evo­lu­tion of hous­ing for the home­less: Micro Hous­ing.

Cur­rent­ly there are few afford­able hous­ing options for home­less res­i­dents ready to strike out on their own. There is a five-year wait­ing list for sin­gles and cou­ples to get Sec­tion 8 Hous­ing, a fed­er­al hous­ing pro­gram for low-income res­i­dents.

But Bryant hopes to pilot a solu­tion this year that involves 1.2 acres, tiny homes and big ideas that pick up where Oppor­tu­ni­ty Vil­lage Eugene leaves off.

“It’s a game chang­er in many ways,” Bryant said, “They have their tiny ver­sion of the Amer­i­can dream.”

To hear how Bryant plans to rev­o­lu­tion­ize hous­ing for the home­less and to lis­ten to oth­er TEDx Salem speak­ers, get your tick­ets here.