Your Tiny Farm provides seeds and shelter while Reach for Home provides clients
The nondescript, single-story house in Cloverdale blends in with the other homes on the street; nothing about the potential it has for changing the life of the family of six who currently reside there is immediately evident.
The family was once homeless, but with transitional housing help from Healdsburg’s Reach For Home and a plan from Carolyn Lewis, the owner of the house, they have a roof over their heads and hopefully, soon, fresh fruits and vegetables from the garden to add to their meals.
Lewis, who is also the founder of Your Tiny Farm, has a goal to turn unused backyard city spaces into fruit and vegetable gardens that will supply fresh food for clients in Reach for Home’s transitional housing program. A longtime volunteer with Reach For Home, Lewis wanted to do more to help ease homelessness in Cloverdale.
“It’s always been a problem, and after the fires it’s gotten worse,” Lewis said. “I just saw an encampment by the river that has over 70 occupants. We have to do better — these individuals deserve security and jobs that are stable, too.”
Orbelina Landaverde, a case manager from Reach for Home, concurs. “A lot of these families work hard. It’s just finding the year-round jobs that pay the rent can be challenging in this area, especially for families with small children,” she said. “What we do is help the family with the child care, supplying them with the basics — like shampoo, soap and toothbrushes — and rent subsidies that start at 70 percent of the amount, decreasing as the year progresses until they’re able to pay it on their own. We depend on donations for home supplies and toiletries. We hope that people can help with supplying us with quality goods and not just their unwanted furniture or old, ripped clothing.”
Lewis has been a Reach For Home volunteer for the past four years and says that she brought up the idea of using the yard space around the home for food to Colleen Carmichael, Reach for Home’s executive director, and from there it’s being implemented on other properties. Reach for Home recently purchased two additional houses in Cloverdale, with plans to follow Lewis’ lead and use the yards for edible gardens.
Lewis’ home purchase was finalized in November, allowing the family of six time to move in before Christmas, giving the once-homeless family the gift of a holiday under a roof they can call their own and a way to start interacting with society on more equal footing.
The garden hasn’t been planted yet, but Ana Rangel, another case manager from Reach for Home, and Landaverde led a short tour of the home Lewis owns, pointing out the narrow area on the side that was benchmarked for vegetables and the place where herbs would be planted in the front.
Stepping into the backyard, Rangel gestured at the sizable yard, which is currently home to an orange tree ripe with fruit and a newly planted citrus tree.
“This was overgrown,” she said, pointing toward a shed with a cement patio in front of it. “There were vines and weeds everywhere — it was almost impossible to walk through.”
Now the back looks ready for planting; the weeds are gone, the ground’s prepared, and soon the garden can be brought to bloom.
The idea of change appears to be a theme for this home, with Landaverde pointing out another upgrade. There’s a half-completed addition on the backside of the home that was used as a laundry room, and a previous tenant with contractor experience began converting the room into a studio that could house another couple or small family. He left before the room was completed, but it’s well prepared for completion and a new beginning.
When asked for her thoughts on the Your Tiny Farm project and how it fits with Reach for Home’s long-term goals, Landaverde said: “We are extremely fortunate to have Carolyn Lewis as a partner who shares the same passion as us and believes in our work to help our participants reach optimum success in stable permanent housing.”
Landaverde and Rangel spoke further about how the idea of an edible garden at the home is a way to provide clients with work around the house that may provide them with a new set of skills — such as starting a garden from seed — that they can carry with them when they find permanent housing.
Your Tiny Farm’s premise, besides providing food for those in the house, is to compensate clients for the work they do in the garden as well as take part in local farmers’ markets as the gardens begin to produce a surplus of fruits and vegetables.
The idea of having an edible garden isn’t necessarily a new one, but what Lewis has added to it with Your Tiny Farm in partnership with Reach for Home is a way that could change lives.
You can find out more about Reach for Home at reachforhome.org. For more information about Your Tiny Farm, visit yourtinyfarm.com.
