Tiny community takes root in Midland

Jan. 21—MIDLAND — When John Mark Echols left his native Midland, like many people, he thought he would never return. But going through a tornado in Tuscaloosa, Ala., when he was a senior in college brought him back and ultimately led him to form The Field's Edge, a Midland nonprofit that has built a permanent, supportive tiny home community for the chronically homeless.

Echols earned a bachelor's in business and commerce from the University of Alabama.

Chronically homeless means they have been homeless for more than a year in Midland, Echols said. Often, they have been on the street for 10 to 20 years. The homeless in Midland are usually men; the average age is 55 and they are unaccompanied — they have no children with them and they're not married.

On his return to Midland, Echols said he hadn't figured out his plans yet, so he wound up going into the oil and gas business.

"I realized about that time that I was just really lonely. I had no connections here in town anymore. Everybody was still kind of in college or gone. I was just at a really low point in my life. I was at a swimming pool. A man came up to me and invited me to church. Eventually, I went pretty hesitantly and ended up hearing the gospel believing in Jesus and that just changed my life. I met my wife in that same Sunday school class that I attended," Echols said.

"Her company was involved with Church Under the Bridge, which was a street church here. We got invited to serve there ... and I had no idea that we even had homeless people in Midland at that point in my life. I grew up on the north side. I went to Trinity School. I was oblivious to poverty altogether. ... It just opened my eyes and I realized that we have people here that were homeless," he added.

'And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am the Lord your God.'

Leviticus 23:22

"As a new Christian, I knew that these people were my neighbors, and I wanted to love them, but I didn't know how, or what to do. We just kept going to Church Under the Bridge and serving on the weekends and building those relationships. After a couple of years, (I) got involved with their leadership and ended up on the Midland Homeless Coalition. That's where we heard about Community First (in Austin)," Echols said.

Community First! is a development of Mobile Loaves and Fishes.

He added that another local organization told them about Community First! so they went to see it for a couple of days. The village is not just focused on providing a home for somebody, but providing community, support and friendship "around people that are lifted off the street."

Factors like mental health issues, job loss, health problems and substance abuse also can trigger homelessness, but the root, Echols said, is a traumatic event with no support system.

"Our mission is not just to house people, but to really surround them with a supportive community," Echols said.

Echols said he came back and reported on Community First! and thought Field's Edge would be a project on the side.

"But it turns out that it was me that was supposed to do it. A few months later my wife and I just had a baby. We just built a house and we both felt called to sell our house and moved to Austin for an internship there, a Community First! village. We lived there for four months in an RV with our 18-month-old. We found out we were having another baby while we were there, and we had no jobs and nowhere to live. We were just living on faith. After four months in Austin, we came back to Midland. That would have been April of 2017; from that point, we started looking for land and trying to ... tell people about our vision and gather people who wanted to help us and start to try to make things happen," Echols said.

They spent a couple of years looking for land and sharing their calling with anyone who would listen.

"At the time, I was working for Breaking Bread Soup Kitchen driving their breakfast truck ... I was building relationships with the homeless during that time. Once we finally found our land, that gave us the ability to start raising money, start working on design, start actually making plans and we entered into capital campaign. We spent about a year doing that, broke ground toward the end of 2020. We just finished up the first phase right before Christmas and moved people in," Echols said.

Each home they build is a single-occupant house and there are nine in a pod.

"There's a bath/kitchen/laundry facility, so your home is essentially a bedroom with a sink in it and a refrigerator and a microwave and a coffee pot. But it doesn't have a full restroom or kitchen," Echols said.

They built their first 10 homes and have room for up to 100 on 23.5 acres. They have moved seven residents there so far. Echols, his wife, Briana, and four children, also live there.

He said they are planning to move in two more this year and are working on plans to expand this year.

"There's a common building that all that takes place in. Then there's one house that we call a missional home in every pod that is meant for somebody to live there to be a supportive person to facilitate community in the neighborhood itself. So there are nine tiny homes for people who are formerly homeless and then a missional home and a bathhouse in every pod. There are plans to (have) 10 of those total," he added.

Echols said he never dreamed he would take a project like this on. He thought he would graduate from college, choose a career, advance in his field and build a nice life for his family that he could pass on to his children.

But Community First! changed the course of his life.

The last homeless count in Midland in 2021, in conjunction with the Texas Homeless Network, showed 223 homeless people and Echols said they are about to count again on Jan. 26.

To find people, Echols said they do quite a bit street outreach.

"We have a program ... called Gleanup and what that is it's a low-barrier workforce program that employs people that are currently homeless to pick up litter around the city. They don't have to have any ID or any residence to participate in that program. They get paid to do that and they also get assistance with obtaining vital documents, or any type of casework that they need to get up and out of their situation. That program feeds into our housing program, but then also, we partner pretty closely with other organizations that do street outreach — Salvation Army, Breaking Bread — and we take referrals from them as well," Echols said.

Field's Edge has six employees. His wife is kind of the Village Mom, he said. She farms vegetables and cares for the animals.

"Right now we have chickens and llamas and we're getting to dairy goats today (Jan. 12). The goats are to use the milk for products like soap, lip balm, things like that, that our neighbors can work in and earn a dignified income. That's part of the responsibility for people that live out here once they qualify as chronically homeless. In order to stay here, you have two main rules which are to obey the law and to pay your rent," Echols said.

"As long as you do those two things, it's permanent housing. We anticipate that most people that come to live here will spend the rest of their lives with us. In order to help people earn that income to pay their rent, we have different opportunities out here. We're working toward starting up some micro enterprises and discovering what our neighbors' abilities and gifts and desires are so that we can kind of help them earn that income and have a dignified life," he added.