Alan Graham's career in real estate development has finally come full-circle. Twelve years after leaving the field to follow a calling to serve the homeless, Graham, founder and CEO of Austin-based homeless ministry Mobile Loaves and Fishes (MLF), is once again focused on real estate — this time to secure the land and funds for MLF's "Community First!" initiative.
"Community First!" is a program to provide affordable and sustainable housing to the chronically homeless by putting them in low-cost park homes, RVs and camping cottages in RV communities. "Our goal is to lift homeless brothers and sisters up off the streets and get them housed so that they can begin to heal from the ravages of life on the streets," Graham says. Graham believes that without housing, the chronically homeless can't address the many factors that may be keeping them on the streets, such as unemployment, addiction, disability, disease and mental illness.
Graham's belief in a "housing first" approach is built on an in-depth understanding of the chronically homeless. He's been providing them with food, clothing and dignity from the backs of catering trucks for more than 12 years. Since starting with 75 sack lunches and a group of volunteers at St. John Neuman Catholic Church, MLF has served more than 2,255,000 meals, put trucks in six other cities and expanded services to include a sustainable gardening project, a literacy training and a grocery voucher program. Those catering trucks are the core of MLF's mission, which Graham says is not to feed the homeless, but to empower people to serve the homeless. With an estimated 250 volunteers (15,000 volunteers nationally) manning 13 catering trucks in Austin every night of the week — as well as scores more in New Bedford, Providence, San Antonio, Minneapolis, Nashville and New Orleans — Graham and MLF are succeeding in that aspect of their ministry.
Yet for all the much-needed help the catering trucks provide, they don't change the status of a homeless person. Graham says just putting a roof over a homeless person's head doesn't do that either. His vision is to put the chronically homeless into community with each other — to provide them with "home" and all the welcoming connectedness that word imbues. "Home is a place of permanence, a place of hospitality [and] a place of affiliation and belonging," Graham says.
That sense of affiliation and belonging is evident at the Royal Palms RV park, the site of MLF's "Community First!" pilot with more than 20 park homes and RVs housing homeless people. There's a community center where residents gather for potlucks and Bible study; gardens tended by the residents themselves; and access to services like health care. There are also all the subtle hallmarks of well-loved homes: deck chairs, birdfeeders, hanging plants and welcome mats. Including the site at Royal Palms, MLF has more than 50 residents living independently in 45 RVs in six communities throughout Austin. Some residents have been housed in communities for more than five years, and Graham estimates that their success rate in keeping residents housed is 85 percent.
To get even more homeless people "home," MLF is developing the full-blown vision of "Community First!": a 100-pad RV community with site-built park homes, RVs and camping cottages that can include everything from a fitness center to a computer skills training center. Because of the relatively low cost of RVs (around $12,000), park homes ($14,000) and camping cottages ($2,500), this community can house people at a fraction of the cost of traditional affordable housing initiatives. It's an affordable, sustainable approach to addressing both the economic and emotional impact the issue has on the city of Austin. "We know that when people have adequate housing and have access to nutritious foods, the cost to our society, both economically and emotionally, is reduced — including less need for emergency medical care and diminished use of criminal justice system, " Graham says. MLF is currently in talks with the City of Austin to secure low-cost leases on two tracts of land and is working to raise $5 million to build the infrastructure and complete the vision for "Community First!"
According to Graham, MLF's central mission of empowering people to serve the homeless will be at the heart of "Community First!" Whether it's a local congregation adopting a pod of camping cottages to lead residents in prayer; a high-school drama department putting on a play for residents; or a volunteer lawyer teaching dispute resolution techniques, MLF wants individuals, organizations and businesses to create their own visions for the village and its inhabitants. Graham says the vision is for a community — created and driven by the community — of unrelenting service, kindness and hospitality.
For more information, contact Anna-Marie Phelps at annamarie@mlf.org or 512-328-7299.
