 When you first become homeless you kind of figure oh well you kind of still are going through a little bit of shock like I can go home but then every time you think I can go home then you don't have a home to go to. Thimby stands for tiny house in my backyard. Thimby started off as a sustainable tiny house composition where group of students entered and it was really just around the sustainability part of it. Now we moved into more of our social justice issue so we work with the city of Richmond and a couple other NGOs to build the same sustainable tiny houses but as transitional housing for homeless folks. And so we partnered with GRIP which is Greater Richmond Interfaith Program. They're a transitional homeless self-shelter and while we were in talks with them about getting help placing tiny houses that we are going to build ourselves we met Constance who is staying at GRIP at their shelter. After five minutes we knew that we were gonna be working with her. Constance used to be a bus driver but unfortunately broke her back and was unable to continue her work but because she had this old Graham bus from her bus driving days we have decided that that's what we're gonna help her remodel as our first project. Constance had been trying to get Kathleen from GRIP to help her build out her bus which is totally not the protocol for them to transition people out of homelessness into tiny bus house buses. The bus thing you know just didn't click for me initially but after some time went by we started finding ourselves getting more creative than you could ever know about trying to find a place for people to live. The bus thing started to take on a whole different kind of thought process. GRIP was our third shelter and this is the only place that really heard me when I was talking about I wanted to fix up my bus. A lot of people were telling me that it's not realistic and I just wanted to say people are laying on the street if it's not realistic then why is this happening? Constance is a force to be reckoned with. She's just one of the most inspiring people I've ever met. It's insane how positive and grateful and joyous she and her kids are and how together they are to you know you talk to them and you never ever guess that they've been homeless for the last two years. You can't use your hands. I have two children Miracle and David. I feel like they cope pretty well except for when I don't cope well. One day I was just crying out loud and I'm at a place that they got to be with you. I can't go be on my own and cry so they heard me cry and all I was saying is I just want some peace. I just need some peace and then my daughter said if you die you will have peace. If they have to regroup and say no because I don't want her to think like that. I'm not fulfilling what I supposed to be doing for them and I can't help it. The first step is cleaning out the tiny house which we actually just did for our first volunteer day. We had students come. We cleared out all of her old items, cleaned out any trash and got it all nice and ready to start the actual remodel and then from there we're going to be doing campaign fundraising through a GoFundMe reaching out doing grants and then we'll be putting the flooring as the next step and we'll begin actual construction. It's going to require installing solar panels, putting in proper beds, putting in a new shower, toilets so it's going to be a completely standalone tiny house in this bus. We were already working with the City of Richmond trying to figure out a way to build tiny houses for the homeless and finding a lot of issues with finding places to put them and that's always the hardest thing. We've got land right across the street. It belongs to the City of Richmond. The problem with that encampment for the City of Richmond is it's a liability for the city to have people living on their property but you know my thought is give the land to us. So I'm in a pursuit give me that land for $1 and then once we buy it then it is that we can explore what is some of the feasibility of what can go on that low plot of land over there where these people have a place to live. The goal is to create a sustainable program that houses a lot of people for a low budget and can be replicated out of places. We have been working with GRIP and with the City of Richmond on creating a program that continually builds tiny houses and places them for the homeless. The City of Richmond has a carpentry training program called Richmond Build where they continuously train union carpenters and it's a 10-week program. They build multiple structures as part of their training and they're always building these structures and just tearing them down and so we're gonna partner with them and they're going to do all the rough builds of the tiny houses and then our student volunteer teams are going to finish them out with the electrical plumbing and furnishings and then GRIP they're going to place the houses on private properties that they're in communication with and they're gonna fill them with their clients that they transition out of homelessness. This is something people can get motivated and excited about because it opens up the door as another idea of hope for other people. I'm not under the delusion that like what we're doing is gonna save the world or solve homelessness. There's a lot of fundamental issues that need to be addressed but tiny houses are really good like intermittent solution where you can build them really fast and really cheap and get people sheltered while you're waiting for more housing to get put in. I have family history with homelessness and it just feels good being part of a solution rather than just like complaining about it even if even if you're only helping like an inch of an entire mile at least if everyone did an inch then you'd make it to mile. This is the beginning of something bigger than one person getting their bus fix. It's a problem that can be solved.