Community First! Village: Where Everybody Knows Your Name
By Martin Hunt, WHPC Elder and Mission Committee Member
Do you remember the sitcom “Cheers” and the theme song “Where Everybody Knows Your Name”? I am showing my age a bit, but you can still find it on Hulu. I like the lines in the theme song:
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see
our troubles are all the same.
You wanna be where everybody knows your name.
On the show, every time one of the main characters walks into the bar, all the patrons and bartenders call out his name: “Norm!”
This is how I feel about Community First! Village and the importance they place on all neighbors being known, supported, and valued as individuals and children of God. This emphasis makes Community First! much more than simply housing for people who have been chronically homeless.
---
The vision for Community First! grew out of the food truck ministry of Mobile Loaves & Fishes (MLF) and a group of folks that recognized a more holistic approach was needed to support individuals’ transition out of homelessness. Alan Graham and others at MLF began to bring this vision into reality in the early 2010s, first buying gently used RVs, refurbishing them, and then placing several together in RV parks. Individuals the food truck teams had met on the street were given the opportunity to move into the RVs, receiving shelter and an address, but moreover becoming part of a fledgling community of support.
WHPC was involved early on and provided funding to purchase RVs as well as getting to know the folks that were moving into them.
Fast forward a few years to Aug. 27, 2014, when ground was broken for what is now Community First! Village. The community would be centered around a shared garden, with homes and gathering places, and opportunities for work and physical and mental care. Through the vision and dedication of staff, volunteers and donors this “RV park on steroids” (Alan Graham) started to become a reality, and members of WHPC were participating in various ways.
WHPC members outside a microhome the church funded and built in 2015.
The microhome construction process.
WHPC funded two microhomes with the 2014 Christmas Eve Offering. A team of WHPC volunteers built the first house, 712 Grace & Mercy Trail, in Oct. 2015. We didn’t know the name of the person who would move in, but we prayed for their arrival and for the home to bless them as they transitioned off the street and into the community. We trusted that God had plans for this home and knew the name of the one who would come to live in it.
It would take almost a year. During that time, professional crews completed the metal roof and siding and installed electrical service, and many hands from WHPC helped to furnish the home, decorate it, and stock the pantry.
In October of 2016, Robert Maresh moved in and began a new phase of his life at Community First! Several members of WHPC would call on him to say hello and see how he was doing. We might or might not connect with him—and when we did, he was reserved, and the conversations on his front porch were short—but we knew his name, and he knew there were people who cared about him.
WHPC neighbors meeting neighbor Robert Maresh at home, bringing items donated as a house blessing.
Over the next few years Robert started to open up and engage in conversations with a few folks from WHPC. We got to know him. We learned he was an avid reader of science fiction and cyberpunk, and that his favorite author is Neal Stephenson. He loaned me a copy of his favorite, Cryptonomicon, a 1999 novel that concerns the facilitation of anonymous Internet banking using electronic money, anticipating bitcoin by ten years. We also learned that Robert was an outstanding artist when we saw a pen-and-ink drawing of several microhomes, the view from his front porch. A group of WHPC folks purchased the drawing and gave it to Nancy Pickett in honor of her dedicated service to Community First! I have since commissioned him on several occasions since to draw the homes of family members.
The author Martin Hunt with his friend Robert.
A pen-and-ink and watercolor painting by Robert, commissioned by Martin for his daughter.
Robert now has his own art station in the Community Works Entrepreneur Hub (formerly known as the “Art House”) and is selling his art in several venues. Robert has been a homeowner in Community First for almost five years and is known within the community as the artist and the guy with the green scooter.
---
WHPC recently used donations from the 2019 Christmas Eve Offering to fund and build two new microhomes in the second phase of Community First! With COVID-19 restrictions the size of the build crew had to be limited, but on Nov. 14, 2020 and Mar. 27, 2021, two teams each built microhomes: 1556 Patterson Pass and 1909 Su Casa Dr. These two homes are now awaiting the two folks who will come out of homelessness and to a community where they are known by name.
Teams from WHPC built microhomes funded by the 2019 Christmas Eve Offering last fall and spring.
My desire is that you take the time to ask the name of the next person you pull up next to that is panhandling or camping around Lady Bird Lake or washing your window at a stop light. Try to remember their name the next time you come to that same location and recognize them and greet them by name. They may turn out to be the next resident at Community First! and become a friend, as Robert has for me.
