Please join us in welcoming two new staff: Program Director, Erika Walker, and Graduate Intern, Maggie Simonds!
Erika Walker
Maggie Simonds
Erika joined Pee Wee Homes in September 2021 bringing over 11 years of project and program management experience across international development, higher education, racial justice, public health, reproductive justice, refugee resettlement and nonprofit management. She has an MPA from the UNC School of Government. Having called Carrboro and Chapel Hill home for 8 years, she is excited to return to the community where she was born and build deeper connections with her neighbors. Erika enjoys gardening, hiking, singing and running, but mostly having good food and good laughs with the people she loves. She and her partner have a goofy 1-year-old and a goofier adopted rottweiler mix.
Maggie is an MPH student at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health in the Nutrition and Dietetics concentration. She joined us in November 2021 and will support Pee Wee Homes to create a meaningful community for residents, neighbors, and others in Chapel Hill. Maggie is originally from Massachusetts and graduated from Northeastern University with a BS in Health Science. She moved to North Carolina from Portland, Maine where she worked as a FoodCorps service member teaching elementary-age students cooking and food justice-based lessons while helping to build a school garden. Outside of class, Maggie is passionate about cooking, running, and skiing. In the future, she hopes to continue community-based work and use her degree to work in school food.
We need your help to build three new affordable tiny homes on Hill Street in Carrboro. These homes will provide much needed private, permanent and dignified housing to our community members who have experienced homelessness and housing insecurity. The Carrboro Town Council is meeting on September 28 at 7:00pm to discuss and hear public comments on our proposal to rezone the lot to allow construction of these extremely affordable homes. We are asking YOU, our beloved supporters, to speak up and let Council know that we are a welcoming community – that all of us deserve safe, affordable housing.
You can find out more about the project by reading this community letter of support. You can also show your support by:
Construction is well underway on the three Pee Wee Homes on the Episcopal Church of the Advocate property off Homestead Rd in Chapel Hill. Volunteers are needed from September-November.
September volunteer shifts are ready for signup: Help install siding -or-
If you’d like to provide snacks for the crew – fruit, home-baked treats, etc. just drop by the site during one of the construction shifts
Expensive housing contributes to cycles of poverty in every region of our state, industry observers say. But a group of Chapel Hill advocates believe tiny homes could be a big solution for the housing crisis.
Pee Wee Homes Collaborative has a vision of an entire Chapel Hill neighborhood occupied by tiny houses.
“It’s a concept that provides affordable housing to people that would otherwise be homeless,” said Lisa Fischbeck, chairwoman of the Pee Wee Homes Collaborative.
Fischbeck said the city has a unique housing crisis because students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill rent the more affordable homes, which leaves other city residents struggling to find housing in the price ranges.
“They often are the people who have worked hard in this community for years, but then they can’t afford to live here,” Fischbeck said.
“You’ve got people who’ve got low income, people on fixed income, older people, homeless people, people that’s handicapped, they need a place to go. Most of them want to get off the street. That’s what I’d like to see, somewhere they can go and call their own,” Lee said.
It’s Live! We’re still keeping the word quiet around town, but if you’re looking for a way to donate to this project just Click Here: Tinyurl.com/kickstartpeewee or on the image below!
