Replant Roots
Donation protected
The Roots Story
Roots is an environmentally-focused housing cooperative in Austin, Texas. Our focus is on environmental sustainability and community building. We are governed through consensus process and highly value nonviolent communication. Roots was founded in 2012 by 10 activists out of the Occupy movement and promotes awareness of societally generated oppression with the goal of creating a new standard for non-hierarchical relationships.
Now, we are being threatened with eviction from our home by our absentee landlord who wants to sell the property to greedy corporate investors gentrifying our historic South Austin neighborhood. Instead of pouring of energy and resources into fighting for this space which we know will eventually be sold by our landlord, we have decided to relocate to a new space in Northeast Austin where we will work to develop an ecovillage.
Creating an Excovillage
An ecovillage is an intentional, traditional or urban community that is consciously designed through locally owned, participatory processes with the goal of sustainability in mind. Ecovillages are living laboratories pioneering beautiful alternatives and innovative solutions. They are rural or urban settlements with vibrant social structures, vastly diverse, yet united in their actions towards low-impact, high-quality lifestyles. Ecovillages have the potential to model environmentally and socially sustainable ways of living.
Now at Roots, we endeavor to create an ecovillage in order to achieve our goal of environmental and social sustainability. This will involve growing our food through a community effort and permaculture design. We will also focus on reducing waste by continuing to compost, recycle and re-use materials, and utilize resources from our natural environment. We will conserve our most precious resource, water, by collecting rain water and gray water and cycling it through our ecosystem.
At Roots, our goal is not only to create a sustainable living space for ourselves, but to model sustainable living for the community and create a space where the community can come together to be together and develop creatively. We desire for our ecovillage to be a community space that will be welcoming for people from diverse backgrounds and of various identities, including immigrants, queer/trans people, disabled people, people of color, low-income people, non-english speakers, and other marginalized communities. At our home, we will take the knowledge we have cultivated in creating our space to host skill shares and teach our community about sustainable living, permaculture, personal security, and how to create a sustainable living community, among various topics. Furthermore, we aim to host space for members of the community to cultivate their own gardens in order to further the ability of those without their own space to grow and consume their own food.
Our Mission Statement
Our mission is to be eco-friendly, self sustainable, to grow gardens and give back to the community through skill shares and workshops, to reduce our carbon footprint and be a beacon of hope in a crumbling civilization, to create and utilize alternative sources of energy, to be inclusive (but not of assholes), to be queer, non-hierarchical, and consensus-based, and to be a place for alternative family and /community structures and people who don’t fit in, and a sanctuary for the marginalized, to host shows and events that help the community, and to become a model of a self sustainability to be replicated on a large scale,
How You Can Help
After visiting and considering many properties, we have decided to move to a new space in North Austin which we will be renting from a community member who shares our goal of combating gentrification in Austin. Our goal is to buy this property after six months, for which we need to raise money for a down payment of $30,000. As our current situation has shown, it is extremely important for us to have ownership of the land we are operating on in order to achieve our goal of long-term sustainability. Owning our own land will allow us to have the control of resources and long-term stability necessary to motivate members to invest in our community. At this space, we will also have room to build new eco-friendly structures, such as tiny homes and earth-bag building, which will allow us to expand our residential membership.
The easiest way to support our efforts is to donate to our community fund which we will use to make a down payment on property for our ecovillage and community center. Everything helps and we appreciate your support.
Roots is an environmentally-focused housing cooperative in Austin, Texas. Our focus is on environmental sustainability and community building. We are governed through consensus process and highly value nonviolent communication. Roots was founded in 2012 by 10 activists out of the Occupy movement and promotes awareness of societally generated oppression with the goal of creating a new standard for non-hierarchical relationships.
Now, we are being threatened with eviction from our home by our absentee landlord who wants to sell the property to greedy corporate investors gentrifying our historic South Austin neighborhood. Instead of pouring of energy and resources into fighting for this space which we know will eventually be sold by our landlord, we have decided to relocate to a new space in Northeast Austin where we will work to develop an ecovillage.
Creating an Excovillage
An ecovillage is an intentional, traditional or urban community that is consciously designed through locally owned, participatory processes with the goal of sustainability in mind. Ecovillages are living laboratories pioneering beautiful alternatives and innovative solutions. They are rural or urban settlements with vibrant social structures, vastly diverse, yet united in their actions towards low-impact, high-quality lifestyles. Ecovillages have the potential to model environmentally and socially sustainable ways of living.
Now at Roots, we endeavor to create an ecovillage in order to achieve our goal of environmental and social sustainability. This will involve growing our food through a community effort and permaculture design. We will also focus on reducing waste by continuing to compost, recycle and re-use materials, and utilize resources from our natural environment. We will conserve our most precious resource, water, by collecting rain water and gray water and cycling it through our ecosystem.
At Roots, our goal is not only to create a sustainable living space for ourselves, but to model sustainable living for the community and create a space where the community can come together to be together and develop creatively. We desire for our ecovillage to be a community space that will be welcoming for people from diverse backgrounds and of various identities, including immigrants, queer/trans people, disabled people, people of color, low-income people, non-english speakers, and other marginalized communities. At our home, we will take the knowledge we have cultivated in creating our space to host skill shares and teach our community about sustainable living, permaculture, personal security, and how to create a sustainable living community, among various topics. Furthermore, we aim to host space for members of the community to cultivate their own gardens in order to further the ability of those without their own space to grow and consume their own food.
Our Mission Statement
Our mission is to be eco-friendly, self sustainable, to grow gardens and give back to the community through skill shares and workshops, to reduce our carbon footprint and be a beacon of hope in a crumbling civilization, to create and utilize alternative sources of energy, to be inclusive (but not of assholes), to be queer, non-hierarchical, and consensus-based, and to be a place for alternative family and /community structures and people who don’t fit in, and a sanctuary for the marginalized, to host shows and events that help the community, and to become a model of a self sustainability to be replicated on a large scale,
How You Can Help
After visiting and considering many properties, we have decided to move to a new space in North Austin which we will be renting from a community member who shares our goal of combating gentrification in Austin. Our goal is to buy this property after six months, for which we need to raise money for a down payment of $30,000. As our current situation has shown, it is extremely important for us to have ownership of the land we are operating on in order to achieve our goal of long-term sustainability. Owning our own land will allow us to have the control of resources and long-term stability necessary to motivate members to invest in our community. At this space, we will also have room to build new eco-friendly structures, such as tiny homes and earth-bag building, which will allow us to expand our residential membership.
The easiest way to support our efforts is to donate to our community fund which we will use to make a down payment on property for our ecovillage and community center. Everything helps and we appreciate your support.
Organizer
Monica Elaine Bhatia
Organizer
Austin, TX