Vita Nova Village builds tiny-home community to tackle homelessness

A bed for the night does not fix a broken life, but you cannot fix the life without the bed.

That reality drives the small neighborhood taking shape a few blocks off 20th street in Joplin.

Vita Nova Village is building a gated enclave of 16 tiny homes and a central community hall to help men and women pull themselves off the street and into steady jobs.

Rather than offering a simple revolving-door bunk, the program walks alongside each previously-homeless resident with customized job schooling, life-skills coaching, and real accountability.

Rhonda Thompson of Vita Nova Village joined the KZRG Morning Newswatch to explain how the community works.

"Restoring life had to start with having a home," Thompson said. "You can't work on yourself when you're living on the streets. You have to have a safe place to sleep at night. That's where it begins. But if the core cause of the homelessness isn’t worked on, you’re just going to end up homeless again."

The Street Trap

Life on the pavement traps people in a cruel loop. Even if you get a job interview, you need clean clothes. 

Just wearing clean clothes isn’t enough. You also need a shower, a closet, and a home address.

Thompson pointed directly to Joplin’s shortage of affordable housing as the main trigger pushing people onto the street. 

Once someone falls out of the market, climbing back in without a safety net proves nearly impossible.

Vita Nova Village sits down with prospective residents before handing over any keys. Mentors go through an applicant’s job history, personal battles, and future plans to craft an individualized path back into the workforce.

"A huge part is accountability," Thompson said. "They need someone to follow them and say, 'Hey, you're not making progress on your goals. You need to start working on this, or you can't be in this program.' The goal is to be self-sufficient before they transition out."

Dirt, Delays, and Sister Corps

Getting to the construction phase of Vita Nova Village took months of heavy equipment work.

Crews spent months hauling out old ground and trucking clean dirt back onto the site.

Walls are now going up. A team from the YouthBuild organization has weatherized the village’s first tiny home. On Oct. 4, volunteers from Sister Corps will arrive in town to frame and finish a second house from the foundation up.

Answering Neighborhood Worries

Any transitional housing build draws questions from nearby property owners, and Vita Nova Village faced its share of skepticism.

Thompson addressed safety and property-value worries by pointing up Interstate 44 to Springfield’s Eden Village, which fielded the same doubts before opening its gates.

"A year after they went in, their crime rates went down in that area and the housing prices went up," Thompson said. "The individuals that they previously worried about coming and taking a lawnmower out of their garage are going to be in their own home, working on themselves, and doing better."

Tradespeople Needed on Site

Volunteer teams and retired hands have shouldered early framing, but Thompson says the building project needs technical muscle to stay on track.

"First is plumbers, and second is electricians," Thompson said. "They are very needed."

Tradespeople, donors, and volunteers can reach Thompson directly:

• Phone: (417) 622-2850

• Email: [email protected]

• Online: vitanovavillage.org or search "Vita Nova Village" on Facebook.