A Solution to Homelessness In Your Town: Valley View Senior Housing, Napa County, California

(Paperback)

---

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Homelessness is one of the monsters that haunts our society. Thousands of people are trying to address the challenge but fail to come up with a solution.
Valley View Senior Housing, built in 2019 in Napa County, CA, is a VERY affordable community of 70 cottages. This groundbreaking homeless project was organized by American Canyon's city government, for older homeless people and homeless veterans of the area. This solution-oriented book shares the inspiring story of a compassionate & humane project. Imagine if every city could do one community like this and we can begin to make headway to solve the homeless problem. Every city can do this! And from this we can grow to do even more.
Durrett and his team at The Cohousing Company have designed more than 50 cohousing communities in the United States and around the world, including Muir Commons in Davis, California, the first cohousing community in North America. His work has been featured inTime Magazine, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, Architecture, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist,and many other publications.
Charles Durrett has received numerous awards, which include the World Habitat Award presented by the United Nations, the Silver Achievement Award for Active Adult Community by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) 50+ Housing Council, the Silver Energy Value Housing Award by NAHB, the Mixed Use/Mixed Income Development Award presented jointly by the American Institute of Architects and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and a recipient of the Global Over 50's Housing/Healthcare award. He was also recently declared as a "visionary of the Sierras" by the Sierra Business Council, and the International Property Awards.

Reviews

"Have you ever seen a homeless person in the area where you live Have you ever taken the time and shown the compassion to buy that person a meal Have you ever thought, "I wish there were something I could do to help the homeless" If so, this book is for you. Charles Durrett in A Solution to Homelessness not only issues a call to compassionate care for the homeless, but he also shows the way. This book is the story of the village for the homeless that Charles Durrett designed and then implemented with the help of volunteers and lots of funders. The wonderful thing about this development is it proves that a cost-effective community can be built to house those who were formerly homeless.

You can be the change! In his book, A Solution to Homelessness, Charles Durrett equips the reader with the tools needed to be the catalyst in solving the homelessness epidemic. Many of the homeless in the US are veterans who need a little help to get back on their feet. With the information contained in this book, you can be the point person to start a local movement that will end in providing housing and so much more to the homeless. Charles has been involved with dozens of projects across the nation to provide a solution to homelessness. He shares his expertise with his readers. His story is gripping and exciting. It will touch your heart. Hopefully, it will move you to action." --Daniel D Staats for Readers' Favorite

"In the quest for more sustainable cities and towns, few challenges are more important than providing decent housing for everyone. Homelessness has been a growing problem in countries like the United States, with tent encampments spreading in many communities. Creative, context-appropriate solutions are much-needed. In this short book, architect Charles Durrett provides a wonderful example of how to think outside the box when pursuing a particular affordable housing development. Rather than adopting the conventional design solution for a hillside site--a large, boxy building with double-loaded interior hallways--he envisioned a village in which each resident would have their own cottage with direct access to the out-of-doors. His use of color and vernacular design elements is particularly noteworthy.
Amazingly enough, Durrett and his collaborators were able to develop this concept in such a way that it provided just as many units at a comparable cost, while creating a variety of attractive outdoor and indoor common spaces. Seventy formerly homeless or at-risk seniors now have one-bedroom units where they can live with dignity and build community with their neighbors. The Valley View project also met stringent sustainability criteria in terms of its materials and energy use. This beautifully illustrated case study communicates several key principles that will be useful for many other types of sites elsewhere: the need for a context-sensitive design process rather than reliance on formula; creative reuse of existing site elements; and integration of the needs of future residents in ways that honor and enhance their humanity. As societies seek to respond to the problem of homelessness and to house an aging baby boom generation, we need many more examples such as this one of creative affordable housing design. The Valley View Senior Housing project and other work of McCamant & Durrett Architects and their partner organizations supplies important inspiration for communities everywhere." - Stephen M. Wheeler, UC Davis
"The Valley View project is impressive considering all the obstacles the team faced Including the terrain of the property not to mention needing the financial and political support from the town and county. There are lots of boxes to be checked to make it work. I am impressed with the mission and accomplishments of the SAHA group which I found on their website.

This book might be most appropriate for smaller jurisdictions in Pima County, like Marana, Oro Valley, South Tucson or even Green Valley though the latter is unincorporated and basically run by Pima County. SAHA focuses on smaller communities in California. But I can see that the City of Tucson might be interested in a pilot project on land available for such an endeavor." --Freda Johnson

"Finally, a book that any city, county, or state official can look at and say "Well, if this brand-new town, American Canyon, can build housing for 100 homeless veterans and seniors, so can we."

Charles Durrett's A Solution to Homelessness in Your Town beautifully describes the nuts and bolts of going from initial vision, to ground-breaking, to move-in. Anyone looking for an effective way to address the problem of homelessness will find this book to be a valuable resource for realizing that the problem of homelessness can be affordably, effectively, and beautifully addressed. Like many other "well-housed" folks I tended to think of homelessness as a formidable social problem that defied any practical solution. In this case, I couldn't have been more happily wrong. In partnership with city officials and the non-profit Satellite Affordable Housing Associates (SAHA) Durrett's visionary project became not only a functional, but a beautiful haven for the homeless. From the beginning, The Cohousing Company architects didn't merely seek to put a roof over people's heads but to re-create the sense of living in a small village where neighbors become friends who can rely on each other to help meet their basic needs. A large and welcoming clubhouse with a common kitchen, dining room, and adjoining terrace serve as the focal points of village life where residents can meet to talk, work, and play together, and occasionally share common meals, but most importantly to figure out the next step necessary to a better life and to support each other in moving toward that life. Too often municipalities seek to address the problem of housing the homeless without realizing that these future residents can be a wonderful resource for each other and the community at-large if a felt-sense of living in community is intentionally built into the overall design of the project. One of the most surprising and inspiring aspects of Durrett's story is how the obvious human need created by the ever growing problem of homelessness forged a synergistic bond between city officials, architects, contractors, and future residents that motivated all involved to build a community that everyone could point to with pride saying, "We did this ourselves." A Solution to Homelessness in Your Town goes way beyond the nuts and bolts of "getting it done", creating not just houses for the unhoused, but homes for human beings. As one resident, Matt, a Vietnam veteran put it, "When I came to see my new home for the first time, I thought I had gone to heaven." How wonderful it would be if every homeless person could experience that overwhelming sense of finally arriving home." - Carl Hall, Professor of Philosophy, Housing Activist

"If I may rework an aphorism about the weather often attributed to Mark Twain, everybody sees and talks about the homeless, but no one ends homelessness. We all have a gnawing, enduring awareness of legions of the homeless in a modern, affluent society, but real solutions to the problem seem beyond our grasp.

But finally we have plan that has real promise-one based on a vision of a better way to exist, but also rooted in the realities of modern industrial civilization and property ownership. Charles Durrett has not just talked, but acted. He has overseen the building of a village housing the formerly homeless that should be replicated thousands of times. The homeless in America number in the millions. They have been among us for far too long. They represent a waste of human resources, because many of the homeless could, if they had housing, hold down jobs and make solid contributions to society. They also soak up huge amounts of public and private money with piecemeal programs that provide soup kitchens, hospitalizations, hotel rooms, policing, and much more. The stereotype that depicts the homeless as mainly mentally ill, or unwilling to work, has been contradicted by a growing body of research. This new book shows a practical approach to ending homelessness. Valley View Senior Housing has already been built and provides a working model for the many, many housing units that we as a society desperately need. How to eradicate homelessness How about building homes, and making them efficient and economical The time for housing as if people mattered is here, and so is a sensible plan. This book points the way forward." - Timothy Miller

Author Bio

Charles Durrett is an architect, author, and advocate of affordable, socially responsible and sustainable design, and has made major contributions to community-based architecture and cohousing. Charles has designed hundreds of villages in North America and around the world. He is the principal architect at McCamant & Durrett Architects, based in Nevada City, California.