“I would never give anyone anything I wouldn’t want to live in,” said Alyssa Nolan. She is a single mom who works part time. When she’s not busy with her everyday life, she spends her time building tiny homes on trailer bases for displaced fire victims.
“I did lose my home in a fire, I get what the people are going through, and you know, we can’t wait for the government to do everything and I think that’s why our grassroots movement has really taken off,” said Nolan.
Nolan is the director of Tiny Pine Foundation. She founded the organization after the Paradise Fire back in 2018.
She gathers volunteers, donations and materials in areas hit by devastating fires, then spends a month building a tiny home.
“We raise $7,000 a build. The builds actually come in closer to the 12 or 15,000 dollar mark and in the past, how we bridged that gap, is through donations.”
Nolan says her foundation has already created 16 tiny homes for families in California. Each home is uniquely designed.
“I ask them, you know, what are your colors? What would you love to see? And then I go and shop our storage of donated items and then I decorate it all for them,” Nolan said.
Nolan says around 250 southern Oregonians have volunteered to help construct and decorate tiny homes for Almeda Fire victims.
Additionally, over 300 southern Oregonians displaced by the fire are on Nolan’s waiting list for a tiny home.
“We’ve come up with this wonderful model, it’s cost effective and it just really makes sense in the face of the housing crisis and all these natural disasters we’re having,” Nolan said.
Tiny Pine Foundation is always accepting volunteers, needs construction materials and is seeking a place to build tiny homes.
For more information or to get involved with the cause, visit tinypinefoundation.com
You can also email Alyssa at [email protected].
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