#1
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#2
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#3
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Homeless people lol
#4
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imo any genuinely viable center of this type needs some kind of independent income stream outside of the grant system, food production is a good start but is tough to do in urban areas depending on where you are and what your lot is like.
#5
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#6
Mike Nelson here.
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i was on the board of directors for a project like this. basically one average-income guy and some small donations funded a center for projects oriented towards sustainable development (ecological and social).

the project was just a big loft that had a small but industrial kitchen. we'd have a few dozen people in there some nights for dinner or music shows or all sorts of things. it operated a cooperative office space and meeting room. it recovered food from grocery stores and made it into meals for low-income people.
#7
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#8
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a bunch of mountains covered by forests with rivers and some lakes
#9
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#10
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a bunch of shovels / tractors in a shed so people can work together to dig the mass graves
#11
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discipline posted:
Well of course it would need funding outside of the grant system but I was hoping that the community itself would eventually be invested enough to make donations, whether with money or in kind. We could probably sell crafts or art or something. Who knows? This is a good place to suggest alternatives though, can you think of any?



i think its a much harder problem in urban areas because there's less you can do due to zoning restrictions and so on, but i think there's a lot of practical stuff you could do with not much space. one thing that almost no one knows how to do anymore is to sharpen tools, for instance- people throw out perfectly good steel implements all the time because they're dull and they don't know how to sharpen them or they don't care to and it drives me crazy. just teaching a couple of people to sharpen saws and knives and stuff could help keep money in the community particularly for tradespeople, cooks, etc. another easy thing to teach people is bicycle mechanics, there are thousands of abandoned bikes in most urban areas you can use as teaching tools and as components for building saleable ones, etc. thats the kind of thing i'd lean towards myself in a city

#12
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Tsargon posted:
a bunch of mountains covered by forests with rivers and some lakes



how romantic

#13
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another thing that could work would be salvage. just go to a wrecking yard and grab as many truck alternators as you can find, teach people to carve prop blades out of railway ties or whatever lumber you can find, and teach them how to build small turbines to decrease their electricity bills and maybe get the center partially off-grid so your monthly outlays are lower
#14
Mike Nelson here.
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discipline posted:
anyone would be welcome to free breakfast so long as they followed some basic rules like not showing up trashed

if you operate a public space it invites a constant stream of people who are drunk as hell, schizophrenic, looking to molest and all other fun stuff. that's the reason why many old people who work at public spaces sound like cops.

*puts on hoodie and walks away*

#15
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my ideal community center would consist of people i already like and not hippies and young wooks
#16
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#17
Mike Nelson here.
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discipline posted:
there would be a lot of programs for children (maybe even some after-school stuff) and the elderly (who would be welcome in the library or on the back porch for tea whenever)

congrats you just noted the two groups of people who just shit themselves all day. add in wddps and you're whole week will be trying to get feces out of increasingly uncomfortable crevices.

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#20
Mike Nelson here.
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don't talk to elected officials. they are parasites and they have no money.
#21
Mike Nelson here.
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also you basically need to run it like a dictatorship otherwise you'll wake up one day and the whole building will be a front for biden 2016.
#22
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every time i've seen something like this that has worked the focus was on the money making venture. i lived in a hostel for a while that took people in and served as a sort of community center & boarding house for weirdos. but the thing was it couldn thave existed without the money coming in from the hostel
#23
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getfiscal posted:
also you basically need to run it like a dictatorship otherwise you'll wake up one day and the whole building will be a front for biden 2016.

yea. fascist coop i.e. la casa italy.

#24
California
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anything is better than here
#25
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rhizzone reality show, i call top bunk
#26
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discipline posted:
So I was thinking the practical timeline for this would be like, find a location, speak with locals about what they would want in a community center, speak with city elected officials about it and see if there is any funding available, get a board together with some interested parties, maybe get some cool sketches or mock ups done, and then start a kickstarter project + general fundraising, then make a 501(c), buy the property in a trust after working out zoning stuff, then start building! promote the center, get it to support other local events, and then sit back and watch the money pour in



your plan is to buy bare land and build on it?

#27
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you could squat in foreclosed homes
#28
California
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i'll bring my gamecube, all my games, and some chips. can someone bring $80,000 worth of training as a medical doctor
#29
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#30
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why think so small? i'd recommend really getting things going by purchasing a boat. a rhizzone boat if you will. no no, perhaps an island. a rhizzone island. yes. a rhizzone island of our own where we make the rules.
#31
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is this along the lines of what you're talking about?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_center
#32
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discipline posted:

shennong posted:
your plan is to buy bare land and build on it?

No, my plan is to get a big ol house with a nice plot like they got around the parts where I'm from. I mean build it as in you'd have to get a library together and outfit the house, build in a more 5% way not so much a carpenter way



good call, old houses are usually built better anyway. i lol every time i see some stick frame piece of shit going for a million bucks

#33
Mike Nelson here.
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there is a lot of money flowing around in the US from foundations and shit because rich liberals give to things that are "socially innovative" and contribute to ecological sustainability or whatever. the whole thing is a huge industry though so it has evolved its own sort of logic. like you need evidence of "adding value" and "measurable objectives" and ongoing performance review and so on. it's called the "non-profit-industrial complex" for a reason, though.

like if you say "maybe we'll have radicals that are traveling come over and stay" or something, okay, just imagine the foundation's questions. do you have a hotel license, how many guests will you have each week, what market research have you done on the radical guest market, why are existing guest houses not adequate, why not get a business loan, etc.
#34
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i'm not sure if i'd feel very comfortable sharing the same house as impper tbh
#35
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~

discipline posted:
No, my plan is to get a big ol house with a nice plot like they got around the parts where I'm from. I mean build it as in you'd have to get a library together and outfit the house, build in a more 5% way not so much a carpenter way

better start buying lottery tickets

#36
Mike Nelson here.
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i guess one way you could swing it is to tap into religious money. you could call it the jacksonville islamic center or something and get all that mad mullah money.
#37
California
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we're all thinking it... A lot of sexy hookups would happen between posters. Making eyes @ eachoth during marxist lectures
#38
Kurdt
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getfiscal posted:
also you basically need to run it like a dictatorship otherwise you'll wake up one day and the whole building will be a front for biden 2016.


buy my trot timeshare youth hostel

#39
Kurdt
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why dont we just all move to new hampshire
#40
California
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i think depending on church scrilla would be a surefire way to ruin the community space. theyd definitely have a problem with something. like how many schools stopped letting boy scouts have meetings there because they exclude gays