The Homeless Garden Project

Santa Cruz has proven to be a good place for Field Trip fodder, even though I mainly came to visit my friend and long-time S Cruz resident, Autumn. I arrived here Thursday morning, and decided to search the web for good happenings about town. First, I discovered the Homeless Garden Project.

The Project was founded in 1990 with the aim of helping people who are homeless or formerly homeless transition into stable housing and work. The Project serves as a liaison to many systems of help, as well as providing several job training programs. Participants not only learn to garden on their 2.5 acre CSA farm at Natural Bridges, but also help run two businesses: a flower shop and a plant nursery. Through this work, people can gain skills and experience for future job opportunities. What I like about this program is its emphasis on small business, local economy, and handcrafted/hand-propagated goods.

So, I went for a visit, and toodled a borrowed beach-crusier bicycle over to the Natural Bridges Farm. The peeps there were welcoming, and chatted with me a bit. The farm is always open to the public, for anyone who would like to take a stroll and check it out. No fences needed, it seems. I biked up and parked in their bike parking spot (made of old bike frames). I approached and introduced myself to a woman named Suzie, who told me more about the farm and the project.

When I told her that I was interested in local ecnomies, she began discussing the economic hardship their program is under. It's not exactly a big money-maker, she said, and they're in a catch-22 situation in which they cannot afford to hire a grant-writer. I wonder, though, if these programs would be easier to support if they were the norm rather than the exception- if nearly everyone in a community made something to add value and exchange with others.

I took a walk around and ended up chatting with a volunteer, Sam, for about 20 minutes. He continued his weeding down the crop row as we talked, and I periodically moved along to catch up with him. Sam is a Santa Cruz native, and studied.... economics! at UCSC. He is now preparing to work with the Peace Corps in Africa doing agricultural development. He said that the practice of slash-and-burn agriculture is a detriment to the environment there, and his job as a Peace Corps volunteer will be to educate farmers on more concentrated farming techniques that allow a high yield from a small area by nourishing the soil. Sam volunteers at the Homeless Garden Project to satisfy a request by the Peace Corps that he gain more experience in agriculture. He also said that he plans to get a Master's in Alternative Energy following his Peace Corps time.

I asked him why he thought it was important to participate in community agriculture, and he cited the "dire situation of the Earth." He believes that sometime in our generation, the planet will either go on a trajectory of depopulation, starvation, and desertification or a trajectory of renewing equilibrium. Sam is hopeful for the future because he believes that places like the Homeless Garden Project indicate that "there are people out there thinking these things." It is a "manifestation of the recognition of a problem, and a sincere desire to change the course of history." He believes the Homeless Project does indeed affect real change, but that the scale is not magnificent. "It's less 'save the world,' and more small-scale community building." He believes that the program's main accomplishment is that it has significantly changed specific people's lives by giving them activities that make their lives more meaningful as well as preparing them for a job. I agree that work that someone can feel ownership of and be proud of is the most important economic requirement we can hope for in this small-scale setting.