For the Homeless, Some Unorthodox Success : Genesis I: Despite a rocky first year, Downtown’s dome village has become a viable alternative to the more rigid shelters.
Before a throng of well-wishers and skeptics at the opening of his Genesis I dome village 12 months ago, homeless activist Ted Hayes relished the end of an eight-year struggle to build his experimental homeless community, and in the same breath cautioned that there would be rough roads ahead.
They were rougher than he thought.
In the year the cluster of 18 geodesic domes has operated in the shadow of Downtown Los Angeles, it has been riddled with crises.
Money and donated clothes were stolen. Some residents were ejected. Organizational problems arose, along with criticisms of Hayes’ autocratic style. The most jarring incident came in January with the arrest of two residents on kidnaping and rape charges.
Despite these stumblings, Genesis I has managed to stay afloat, receiving worldwide recognition as a transitional housing development for chronically homeless people who had been living in street encampments. It has become a viable alternative to the more rigid shelters and missions, a place where residents set their own rules and divvy up the chores, aided by a few resident volunteers.
The idea seems to have caught on. Other groups are making proposals to build two more domed communities in South-Central Los Angeles and a third in Long Beach.
The simple fact that the village of fiberglass, igloo-like spheres has lasted a year “is a testimony of Ted’s leadership, of the sense of community it’s created and most of all to the idea of the domes,” said Mike Neely, executive director of the Homeless Outreach Project.
Nevertheless, Genesis I is not out of the woods. It has been operating on a financial tightrope since the summer, always one month away from closure, and bailed out on several occasions by supporters in government and the entertainment industry. Hayes says he is not even sure he can scrounge up next month’s $2,500 rent.
The turnover of residents has been high. About 50 homeless people have passed through Genesis since it started. None of the original 24 who moved into the village amid the hoopla last year remain. Several of the 19 current residents have lived in the village for only two or three months.
Hayes, 43, began promoting the dome village concept in 1985 when he set up the first urban campground, dubbed Justiceville. A $250,000 grant from Arco enabled him to open the dome village.
The intention was to give the formerly homeless control of their lives. They would then graduate to run future dome villages in other parts of the city and country.
The village created a sense of community for the homeless that is not available in shelters or missions, homeless advocates and residents said.
“When you live here you’re not made to feel like you’re less of a person or that you don’t have the common sense to take care of your own life,” said one resident, asking to be identified only as Angela, who has lived in the village since September after coming from a West Hollywood shelter.
“At the shelters they talk down to you,” Angela said. “Here, Ted’ll tell you that he’s no better than anybody else. It’s like we’re all in this together.”
Over the course of the year, residents have cleaned up the surrounding neighborhood and received support and praise from local businesses, including Holiday Inn and United Parcel Service, both of which operate next door to the village.
Discipline has been a problem. The resident-run Council of Justice, which was supposed to govern the village while Hayes served solely as an adviser, grew so weak it was temporarily dissolved. It took months to deal with some residents’ drug problems by getting them enrolled in treatment programs offered by organizations that visited the village.
Hayes--who hopes to open another dome village within a few months that will include a health center and AIDS hospice--does not apologize for the high turnover or the problems that arose in the early months. He opened the village as a laboratory, he said, and it has run that way.
The structure and intention of the Genesis I program was not the problem, Hayes said. The people were.
“What we were dealing with was straight-up wild-bunch people,” he said of the first group of 24 residents who moved into the village from a neighboring encampment and other projects Hayes had run in the past as part of Justiceville.
“Now it has changed somewhat,” Hayes said. “It still may take some pushing to keep these people on their toes, but they’re on a better track.”
Since January, the village has implemented an in-depth application process that includes a two-week trial, a review of candidates by the Council of Justice and a requirement that people volunteer at the village before moving in.
Hayes is also pushing to get more non-homeless volunteers to live in the village as part of what he calls the community’s Domestic Peace Force, which now has three members.
“I recognize that homeless are not going to empower themselves without the assistance of the partnership of non-homeless people,” he said. “That’s why we created the Domestic Peace Force. Unless you amalgamate some kind of equal proportion of non-homeless people with homeless people, things will not get done.”
The village stayed afloat with $22,500 in emergency government funding a few months ago from the offices of City Councilwoman Rita Walters and County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, in whose districts the village is located. An anonymous $10,000 donation has kept it afloat this month.
Residents chip in, paying $50 a month with food stamps or money from their welfare checks. Most of that money goes to buying food for the village or incidentals. Despite the financial difficulties, Hayes is looking to create a dome village project that will become financially self-sustaining in the future.
Jerry Eisan, a resident of the village who has been involved with Hayes’ Justiceville since the 1980s, said the fact that residents are chipping in financially and taking on more responsibility points to better possibilities for the village.
“It takes patience,” said Eisan, 56. “People expected everything to work as smoothly as it was to build these domes, but we’re not dealing with materials here, we’re dealing with people. And all people have their own problems,” he said.
“We went through some of the hardest times I think--I hope--this village will see, so the only place to go now is forward.”
Fighting Homelessness
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