In 2018, we began a partnership with Settled, an organization addressing long-term homelessness by creating tiny home communities called Sacred Settlements.
And now, cue the champagne, because Settled has officially opened the first Sacred Settlement!
This first settlement is a cluster of tiny homes hosted by Mosaic Christian Community in St. Paul, with intentional neighbors from Mosaic living in one third of the homes. While each resident has their own house, the community shares facilities and amenities such as a kitchen, laundry, gardens and workshops.
To celebrate the grand opening of this first Sacred Settlement, Settled threw a big party for three hundred people.
Anne Franz, Settled co-founder said, “It felt like a wedding seeing all these people and knowing what it took! So many people—including Woodland Hills—were a part of making this happen. We wanted to honor the huge effort it took to get this off the ground, and we also wanted to honor the faith of the six churches that stepped into this without any guarantees and worked together across cities and denominations.”
Woodland, along with the five other churches that have partnered with Settled, received a painting of one of the tiny homes. Greg Boyd, Woodland’s senior pastor, said about the celebration: “This beautiful vision for how the church can work together to serve the homeless is now becoming reality. The whole evening I had a sense that this was the birth of a vision that is destined to catch on! Lord, let it be so!”
The evening celebrated not only the people and churches involved, but the faithfulness of God. Anne shared, “This happened because God wanted it to happen. It felt impossible, but he did it. Don’t try to do something like this unless you do it by faith!”
Janice Rohling, Woodland’s executive pastor, added: “It’s been a challenge in faith as we faced many obstacles, but a tremendous blessing to see the Lord bring this together using our gifts and relationships!”
All the new residents will be moved in by the end of the month—moved in not only to physical houses, but into true homes.
Woodland will continue to support Settled, offering our space in our building for continued tiny home construction as they move on to creating the next Sacred Settlements. Thank you to everyone at Woodland Hills who has contributed time, talents, and finances toward this partnership!
You can learn more about Settled and how to support them at their website here. You can read other updates about our partnership over the last several years here.
Hello. I am a mental health professional working with a single mom and her son. Her son is a young man (12) who has suffered trauma having lost his father to a fatal shooting. She is in need of sustainable healthy living accommodations for her and her son, ideally that would also be able to house their small dog. I would like to be able to give her some resources to help her find a tiny house, or some other suitable housing as soon as possible. Her son attends school in the Edina/Hopkins area, so ideally it would be somewhere close to that area. Thanks so much for any help or reference you could provide.
Hi Fred,
To find out about the tiny homes, you would need to contact Settled directly (settled.org/connect). For other housing assistance, contact Coordinated Access to Housing and Shelter at 651-215-2262. Hope that helps!
—Emily from Communications Team