Fresno City Council approves construction of 26 tiny houses for unhoused people

By Jackie Schuster, Fresnoland

[This story was originally published by Fresnoland, a nonprofit news organization]

At its Feb. 23 meeting, the Fresno City Council approved a grant of $964,482 in federal pandemic relief funds for the Poverello House to construct 26 tiny houses that will become permanent housing for unhoused people.

This grant comes from State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, received as part of the American Rescue Plan Act. Once established, the houses will be developed in a cottage-home community that’s owned and managed by the Poverello House.

The community will be located in Council District 5, with one potential location at Cedar Avenue and Heaton Avenue, per the project’s report. Although the exact location is undecided, the community will ultimately be placed on land owned by the city and leased to the Poverello House.

What will the houses look like?

Each tiny house will be a minimum of 288

... Cowboy cont’d from pg 3 of California’s agricultural industry. Mexican migrant labor continues to be the backbone of agribusiness in the state to this day.

Of the remaining vaquero population, some found work in a new form of entertainment born from post-expansion romanticism, called the “Wild West Show.” Entertainers such as Wild Bill Cody toured the country with a variety of performers whose acts revolved around various aspects of frontier and cowboy life. Sharpshooters like Annie Oakley, cowboys like Will Rogers, Bill Pickett, and Pawnee Bill, and other skilled shooters and riders like Calamity Jane, Tilly Baldwin, and Geronimo were part of Wild Bill’s famous touring show, performing all over the United States and Europe until the 1920’s. Both on stage and behind the scenes, Mexican vaqueros were a fundamental part square feet in size and will include a living room, kitchen and bathroom.

The living room will have space for one bed. Kitchens will include a refrigerator, stovetop and oven, or kitchen range. They also must have space for preparing, storing and serving food. Bathrooms will have a tub or shower, sink basin and flushing toilet. Houses will have appropriate heating and cooling as well as doors that lock. One to two people can be housed in each unit.

Am I eligible for a spot?

Eligibility for these houses will be determined through the Coordinated Entry System (CES), a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) mandated process that is designed to prioritize housing assistance based on an individual’s needs and preferences. The Poverello House has not yet determined the exact requirements to be eligible for a spot with this project.

The Poverello House is the management entity of the CES. Sara Mirhadi, Poverello House chief programs officer, said of the cowboy entertainment industry. Their riding and roping skills were in high demand as they trained performers, worked as extras, and starred in their own productions.

By the end of the 1920s, the touring wild west shows had lost their popularity with American audiences. Television westerns, dubbed “horse operas,” sated America’s obsession with tales of the old west instead. The cowboy entertainment industry found itself at a turning point, it needed to find a new way of attracting an audience to stay alive. Once again, the vaquero culture would come to the rescue.

It was common for vaqueros to engage in friendly competition with each other as a way to pass the time and blow off steam during and after long rides. The men would challenge each other’s riding and roping skills for money and bragging rights. These competitions became the foundation of the that, ultimately, the CES is “a uniform way to receive supportive and mainstream services.”

The CES process first determines if you are eligible to receive services based on if you are actively homeless, at risk of soon becoming homeless, or attempting to escape domestic violence.

You can use a variety of evidence to prove you are experiencing a housing crisis, including an eviction notice, a referral from a service provider or written documentation that you do not have the financial resources needed for permanent housing.

Once you are identified as eligible for services, staff will work with you to determine and document your housing needs and preferences; then your needs will be prioritized based on vulnerability. Your needs will be compared to the eligibility requirements for various permanent and temporary supportive services offered. You will then be placed with available resources that are determined to be an appropriate match.

You may begin the CES process at an access site. In Fresno, access sites are lo- modern rodeo, and many of them are still part of today’s competitive rodeo events. cated at:

Despite the importance of vaquero culture to the cowboy/western entertainment industry, vaqueros themselves were omitted and whitewashed, particularly in Hollywood, where cowboys were exclusively portrayed by white men and both Mexicans and Native Americans were vilified as bandits and savages. Despite their marginalization in pop culture, vaqueros continued to be essential to both entertainment and agriculture. The horse riding skills of the vaquero, including the use of horse bits and the braided lasso (from the Spanish lazo, meaning “rope”), are still fundamental to modern riding and roping training. Likewise, vaquero ranching techniques are employed by modern cowhands around the world.

For as long as a cattle industry exists in America, the vaquero legacy will endure.

• Poverello House, 412 F St.

• Golden State Triage, 1415 W. Olive Ave.

• The Welcome Center, 2904 E. Belgravia Ave.

• Fresno EOC, 1046 T St.

• Marjaree Mason Center, 1600 M St.

• Clinica Sierra Vista, 302 Fresno St., Suite 106

• Fresno Home, 2550 W. Clinton Ave. Unit 213

A complete list of the Fresno Madera Continuum of Care access sites can be found at fresnomaderahomeless.org.

You must be matched with this project through the CES, but beginning the CES process does not guarantee a spot.

“There’s no way to go to an access site and say, ‘I want to be a part of that tiny home project,’” Mirhadi said. “You might be matched to several services at the same time and choose what the best fit for you is.”

Everything from saddles and chaps (from chapperas, meaning “leather leggings”), to the practice of roping horses, to the use of spurs and branding, and even the existence of rodeos as we know them today, all come from the vaquero culture. Many California missions, including Mission San Juan Batista, honor vaquero cultural history with displays, while touring events like Fiesta Del Charro bring the traditional Mexican rodeo experience to California state fairs and festivals.

Still, there’s nowhere else that showcases just how much the vaquero legacy has endured like the modern rodeos that continue to tour the US. From the competitive events and the equipment used, even to the clothes the cowboys wear, vaquero culture is the heart of modern rodeo - which beats as strong today as it did during California’s infancy and the dawning west.