Work is underway on Mission Waco’s next big project to help Waco’s unsheltered people, with tiny homes.
City of Waco leaders, ministers and community members held a ceremonial groundbreaking Tuesday for Creekside Community Village at 3810 S. University Parks Drive. The 68-acre gated tiny home community will be able to serve 346 residents, based on the model of Community First Village in Austin.
“Creekside Village will be a transformative community for our brothers and sisters and friends coming out of homelessness, combining permanent supportive housing and wraparound services with the life-giving power of community engagement,” Mission Waco Executive Director John Calaway told a crowd of over 200 gathered for the ceremony.
The land has been purchased, and Mission Waco has raised $5 million out of $6 million required to run utilities, build streets and prepare homesites for the tiny houses.
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“Creekside Village will offer more than just a house,” Calaway said. “It will offer a safe place to live and stability through community. Housing alone won’t solve homelessness, but housing along with community will.”
The city of Waco contributed $1 million for Creekside Village.
“The thing that jumps out at me is this is a public-private partnership,” Waco Mayor Jim Holmes said at the ceremony as he pointed out names of private donors, businesses, churches and nonprofits that have contributed money to Creekside Village. “You see all these names over here to my right and you see the city of Waco getting involved. You see all of these involved under the management of Mission Waco. You see all of these peoples’ and organizations’ hearts in the right place on this project.”
Holmes also said Creekside Village supports the city’s housing objectives. Waco has housing challenges, and the public-private partnership is part of the solution for people in the city experiencing homelessness, he said.
The same master planners and architects who designed Community First Village in Austin for Mobile Loaves & Fishes founder Alan Graham are putting together the plans and designs for Creekside Village, said Megan Snipes, Mission Waco board chair.
Creekside Village began as an idea in 2021 that Billy Davis Jr. brought to Calaway, Mission Waco founder Jimmy Dorrell and Holmes, who was District 5 city council representative at the time. Mission Waco bought the 68-acre tract with donations from the Don Behringer family and the city.
The land has been cleared and leveled for development, and roadbeds have been dug.
The first phase of development will consist of building roads, running water, sewer and electrical utilities and building 40 of the tiny homes, Calaway said.
“We have started construction on Phase One with pipes going in the ground in the coming weeks,” Calaway said. “We have financing in place, if needed, but are hopeful community members will partner financially to help us build all the homes in Phase One over the next 12 to 14 months.”
When the community is fully built out it will be able to provide a permanent home for each of the approximately 220 Wacoans experiencing long-term homelessness as well as missional residents who can afford a place to live, but chose to live in community with the residents coming out of homelessness, he said.
There will be on-site access to wraparound services including, medical care, case workers, nutritional support, a convenience store and a community kitchen, Snipes said. The back half of the acreage will remain as green space.
It will also feature an amphitheater for community outdoor movie nights and concerts, Calaway said.
Tommas Jefferson, a Mission Waco client now experiencing homelessness, said having a safe place to call home would give him and others a place to find clear thinking again.
“The body will heal, too,” Jefferson said. “Mind, body and soul, it will all heal. We can find our way back to the people we used to be: happy, joyful, cheerful, loveable.
“Living on the streets, we see a lot, we go through a lot.”
Calaway said there will be three sizes of tiny homes: a one-room efficiency with minimal kitchen facilities for people just transitioning out of homelessness; a one-bedroom, one-bathroom, with a living room and other common amenities of a home, for people who have adjusted, who may have jobs and be able to pay $800 a month; and an in-between size.
Mission Waco client Timothy Turner said the small one might not be enough, but he would like to live in one of the larger ones.
Creekside Village would be for McLennan County residents who have experienced homelessness for longer than a year, Calaway said.
“We know who our community of homeless people are and who uses our services,” Calaway said. “We have an information system as required by the federal government to share who is who, between Mission Waco, The Salvation Army, the shelter, and other organizations that provide services to the homeless.”
When someone from outside McLennan County passes through the shelter, Mission Waco provides for them three days of food, clothing and a safe, dry, air-conditioned place to sleep.
“Then we try to connect them back to the place they’re coming from or where they’re going to and get them back there,” Calaway said.
The location of Creekside Village is an 11- or 12-minute drive away from Mission Waco’s Meyer Center at 1226 Washington Ave. or The Salvation Army shelters for men and women near 300 Webster Ave. The Meyer Center is where Mission Waco provides most of its wraparound services for people experiencing homelessness, including case management and job training along with a Waco Family Medicine health clinic.
“When we move our first residents into Creekside Village, it will make more sense for us to provide them with a van or shuttle-bus transportation back to the Meyer Center for their services,” Calaway said. “But when we get more residents moved in, during the latter phases, we will also build buildings to provide the wraparound services right here in the village.”
Calaway also said Mission Waco is working toward adding a bus stop in the later phases to take Creekside Village residents to jobs, appointments and other activities.
Waco Transit plans to start service to the site when the first 40 residents have moved in, Waco Transit System general manager Serena Stevenson said by email.
"WTS is considering a route deviation, which is also known as a flexible route or flex route service," Stevenson said. "This will allow a WTS vehicle to deviate from its regular route to pick up or drop off riders at Creekside Village and feed into our transit system."
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Christopher De Los Santos
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