(gentle music)
- At Community First! Village
we are creating a new movement
for how we care for the
chronically homeless,
how we lift them off the
streets into a community
that they can call home for
the rest of their lives.
We are pushing the envelope.
We are not afraid to be entrepreneurial,
and do things that have
never been done before.
- Vulnerable communities are
almost never the first people
to get access to
breakthroughs in technology.
And what we get to do here
is deploy these breakthroughs
in the service of humanity.
- Oh!
- If you wanna see the
most extraordinary movement
in building community,
you need to come to Austin, Texas.
(mid-tempo music)
- There she is.
This is my new home, upcoming home.
- Today we're gonna meet Tim
who is gonna be one of
the first human beings
ever to live in a 3-D printed house.
- I'm excited because this afternoon,
I'll be able to go and
actually get on the premises,
go actually touch it.
I don't know what to expect,
but I'm ready, you know?
I'm really looking forward
to it, I'm psyched.
What's up, neighbor?
- We started 21 years ago
very simply going out on
the streets to feed people.
But, what we're doing is
taking those trucks out there
to create relationships,
to hear their story.
We realize that when we create community,
that's how we make ourselves whole.
The way that the homeless system
works in the United States,
it is purely a transactional model,
a meal, an apartment, a job.
But, for someone who has been
homeless five, 10, 15 years,
they have experienced so much trauma,
those are the folks that most
cities across the country
just don't have a great
plan for how to serve them.
- That led us to build a village.
It was designed to lift
the chronically homeless
of Austin, Texas up off the streets.
- We firmly believe
that the single greatest
cause of homelessness
is the profound
catastrophic loss of family.
And one of the most
important things that we do
is create family.
Every single neighbor
that calls Community First! Village home
pays rent in order to live here.
- We create micro-enterprise opportunities
for our neighbors to
earn a dignified income
doing things that they love to do.
- Phase One of Community First! Village
is almost at capacity.
We have about 230 people
living in micro-homes and RVs.
On Phase Two, we will add 300 more homes,
and introduce something that
has never been done before:
3-D printing three houses at a time.
- The collision of our two organizations,
it's the perfect place to
try somethin' like this.
- The housing of the future
has to be different than
the housing of our past.
ICON is a construction technology company
born out of a frustration
with what's going on
in the housing industry.
It's very wasteful, it's very slow.
With 3-D printing, we have a pathway
to deliver half-price
homes in half the time.
We are not there yet,
but that's the kind of
order of magnitude we need
as we approach solving
issues like homelessness.
So, once the printer's set up,
the operator pulls up, sort
of, an app store for houses.
He selects what he wants to
print, and you press print.
And they monitor it,
but the printer really
is running on autopilot.
And layer upon layer, the
house is built up onsite
from the ground up.
- We firmly believe that housing alone
will never solve homelessness,
but community will.
No one even knows where this will go,
but right now we are
bringing people together.
- We're going to need more
than just the housing.
We're gonna have to show
up with our full humanity
as we tackle problems like this.
- Hey, man.
- (laughing) Hey, brother.
- Yo, my brother from another mother.
- All right.
- (murmurs) Tim.
- Can we go inside?
- Yeah, after you.
- Let's do it.
- This is your house.
- Look at this, how big it is!
Sit out here and look at the sunset.
Oh, my lord.
Amazing.
- This is an honor.
- Thank you, brother.
- I can't wait for you to
make this place a home.
This is how I want to live my life,
in partnership with people
solving problems like this.
I'm getting goosebumps talking about it.
I mean, like, it makes
me proud to be a human.
- At Community First! Village,
we see incredible
possibilities for the future,
and we are hoping to see
this model replicated
across the country.
With the help of Stand Together
we have created an entire
replication strategy
so that we can provide
the support and guidance
to the social entrepreneurs
and organizations
able to make this happen in their city.
We've had people from 29
states come to learn from us
to create their own version
of Community First! Village
so that they can care for and serve
the chronically homeless in their city.
- Holy moly.
For a lotta people across this country,
I think this is gonna be an answer.
- At the end of the day,
this is all about people,
and the dignity of human beings.
- I think that all of us
are here to love people.
Community First! Village
was designed for connection,
it was designed for community.
We are saying there is a new way
to care for those who
experience chronic homelessness.
(gentle music)
- In our series Catalysts,
we're profiling
inspiring social entrepreneurs who are
developing bold solutions
to our biggest problems.
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