Lower Lake >> Even as Valley Fire evacuation orders are lifted, many Lake County residents have nothing to go home to. Cornerstone Villages will host a meeting Thursday about building one or even several tiny homes transitional villages to give people a place to stay while their new homes are being built.
“What inspired us was seeing the tent cities pop up around Clearlake, like Wal-Mart and at the senior center,” said Derek Joel, who is part of a team of dedicated Cornerstone Village volunteers.
He was one of the hundreds displaced residents camping out at the Wal-Mart parking lot. While Joel was appreciative of the space and donations provided by the retailer and residents, “we could do that, way safer and drier using tiny homes.”
The concept of the village is based on Tent City Urbanism, a model founded on building accessible, sustainable and inexpensive homes ranging from 100- to 250-square feet in size.
Originally named LC Tiny Home Village in Clearlake, the organization had a mission to make a “self-managed, self-governed community of small, inexpensive dwellings for those in need of transitioning into permanent housing.”
By the time the blaze broke out, the organization had changed its name to Cornerstone Villages, symbolic of the basic stepping stone a tiny home can provide – “a foundation to move forward with their lives,” Joel said in early September.
A tiny homes village would provide mid- to long-term solutions for people who lost their homes and have no alternative housing.
Thursday’s meeting will take place at 6 p.m. at the Fiedler Chiropractic Clinic, located at 9667 Highway 29 Suite 103 in Lower Lake. The public is invited to attend.
The Cornerstone Villages team will get together to asses needs and “see what the network web looks like and move forward from there once we have a clearer vision,” Joel said. For more information, call Joel at (707) 533-9792.
