Doing What He Loves - A Bit of Soul Making For Himself and Others

Gregory Kloehn didn’t set out to build tiny houses for the homeless, he simply longed to have a big art studio to do his sculptures and other art work, so when his grandmother left him a nice little inheritance, although not a huge one, he looked around for a place to create that studio.  What he found was a condemned building in a seedy part of Oakland, California, his home town, filled with squatters and lots of homeless people populating the rest of the neighborhood.  He bought the building and started the arduous task of converting it to condos and his beloved art studio.

Along the way he got married to a wonderful woman and had two kids and as he said, “Life snowballed.”  He made friends with many of the homeless and one day as he watched a city worker come along and sweep up and throw a homeless woman’s personal belongings into a dumpster while telling her she had to “move along” that she was encroaching on someone’s property, his soul made a call to him and he got an idea.  See, often that's how the soul does it - it simply takes the ordinary that happens to you and others and sends a message that inspires you to do something that you may never have thought of before. Of course it can be a big call, what I call a reinvention call in my book, Second Act Soul Calls, or it can be something simple that just feels right for you to do in that moment.  For Greg, it occurred to him in that moment that he could build this woman a “ tiny home” she could wheel down the street.  Then,any time that city worker showed up and told her to move along, well, she could do that 'cause her house had wheels.      

Greg knew that the sidewalks and ally ways of Oakland and San Francisco, just across the bridge, were filled every morning with cast off items people didn’t want but which were still in good shape.  He thought to himself that he could collect these cast off things and build a tiny home for this woman.  He told a friend, “I can do this for no money and in one day.”  So off he went in his van early the next morning looking for free treasure.  Of course it took a little longer – one week - and cost a little more - about $100, but hey, as he said, “Not bad for an idea that just came along and hit me as something I wanted to do.” 

That was in 2011 and now he has built over 14 of these tiny homes and has been featured on the Rachel Ray show, Inside Edition and countless newspapers and online sources.  Along the way Kloehn graduated to dumpsters and shipping crates - they are larger and afford the homeless person a better and more usable home.  Of course, they cost a bit more but are sturdier and dryer.  Kloehn, now has workshop at his Oakland studio where volunteers work to build even more of these tiny homes.  He even has a book coming out soon called. Homeless Architecture - see his website at http://www.gregorykloehn.com/  for information on the release of his book and go to his other website at http://homelesshomesproject.org/ if you want to volunteer your time or your money for this wonderful project.

I’d say Greg is on a roll and so are most of his tiny homes.  When I asked him if he thought this was a soul call, he said, “Well, I don’t know about that, but what I do know is I sure do like doing this, it’s fun and it helps people, what can be better than that?”  Well, for me that is the true definition of a soul call and for those of you who volunteer either your time or money, you will be doing a bit of soul making of your own.

Blessings, Lorraine