termite and vine mission statement v 2.0
version 1.0
T E R M I T E & V I N E
1825 DUELS ST
N E W O R L E A N S
L O U I S I A N A
ARTIST'S and MUSICIAN'S
HOMESTEADER'S COLLECTIVE CO-OPERATIVE ASSOCIATION
draft version 2.0
23-11-007
Inhouse copy only
not for public release
Details of Termite's Mission
Termite and Vine Homesteader's Collective
Overview
Termite and Vine House is a collective homestead project where traveling artists, musicians and performers have the opportunity to do work trade to help rehabilitate our 24-room house into permanent communal living space and workshop space. When completed we will have 10 residential rooms available to our members, a large tool room and workshop with equipment for working on buildings and bikes and industrial arts, studio space with library, publishing, textile and art resources, a small bicycle recycling shop, open project space, guest accommodations for traveling artists to crash while they visit New Orleans, and a large backyard garden to hang out in.
Mission
Volunteers are invited to come visit our house and work trade in exchange for crash space while they visit New Orleans to participate in our vibrant and unique creative community. Becoming a Member of the Termite and Vine Collective means that you can have your hours of work helping to renovate our building count towards credit to future rent of private rooms while you live in New Orleans. Termite encourages its members to Time Share private rooms so that they are put to use and that our creative friends have access to affordable housing. Termite is committed to Ultra low cost housing and Rooms are available to our members at the exchange rate of One Hour work trade = One day of Rent or $50 donation per month or $500 donation per year. All monies collected from donations goes towards renovating our building, settling our back taxes to secure owner ship, paying utilities, adding to our workshop, and eventually acquiring more buildings.
Project Statement
Termite and Vine is a collective homesteading project in New Orleans. We are in the process of renovating a 24-room house that has been sitting empty and neglected for over 20 years in to permanent time shared living space for our family. Our members are musicians, artists, and performers whose constant travel around the country makes it difficult to maintain a permanent address. Our collective promotes home renovation skill-sharing, recycling of building materials, and gives our members the opportunity to volunteer labor in return for earning credit towards future "rent". Our goal is to rehabilitate our building and create workshop space and ultra-low cost collective time share housing.
We are on track to passing our building inspection some time in early 2008 and after that we have the opportunity to own title of our house and negotiate how to share ownership. members of our family will have permenant residential space in termite in exchange for no more than $2 or one hour of work for every one day of controlling one room. members can work or donate money in exchange for space, and we encourage our members to share space with each other as most of us are traveling artists who are on the road half the year.
Termite is committed to skill sharing, spreading knowledge and serving as an example of how to responsibly operate a homestead project, we welcome peoples abilities and work regardless of skill level, encourage ideas and experiments in living and art space, and are a committed laboratory for championing low budget renovations and creatively recycling building materials.
Termite is a registered Louisiana non profit organization whose mission is to help traveling artists rehabilitate blighted properties to own them, to be an open experimental construction skill share and think tank, and to spread awareness of homesteading and recycling building materials and creative construction.
Termite Homesteader's Collective is closed to guests and non-members while we prepare to pass our residential building inspection. Over the next few months we will be busy making repairs and getting our house up to code, as well as assembling our workshop space, getting our utilities hooked up, and making permanent living space for our members.
For more information on our project or to donate or volunteer please contact:
Amber Lostetta Vlenoski at 504-621-1503
Rebuilding
1825 Duels suffered over a quarter-century of abandonment and neglect before we started working on it. When we moved in in November 2005 there was no water or electricity, no toilets or sinks or baths, the floor was caving in in 4 rooms, joists were missing, there were giant holes in the roof big enough to put your head through, over 20 missing windows and the doors all smashed or falling off, and there was a termite nest on the ground floor over 7 feet high, 12 feet long and a foot wide that had eaten away a significant structural component of the house. In the past 2 years we've added doors and windows, rebuilt walls, replaced joists, installed plumbing and electrical fixtures, and begun to replace the floor, the most profound effect though has been that filling Termite with our collection of friends and eclectic artists has given her a happy inspiring personality, and laid the foundation for us to build not just a house but a home for the little family we've grown to be.
In spring of 2008 we will be applying for our residential occupancy inspection and we have lots to do before then. Over the next few months we will be replacing floors, having the electricity turned on properly by the electrical company, building a 20 foot high ceilinged living room, improving our workshop space, and putting finishing touches on the private personal living spaces. There's a ton of work to do and we're lucky right now to have a core group of committed individuals who are loyal to the not-so-long-term vision of making this our permanent welcoming home.
History
1825 Duels st. was built in 1927 and has had about half a dozen owners since then including us. Before our house was built everything north of our street was just bare clay patches and swamp land. Our street was laid around 1850 and the neighborhood was sparse housing for a mixed bag of slaves quarters and different immigrants. Maps of the city in 1834 show our block as nothing but swamp on the south end of a small plantation. Most of 7 ward was a single plantation before then that was gradually subdivided up over the nineteenth century. The original plantation was outlined in the late 1700s and New Orleans itself was founded in 1742 by a soldier named Bienville under orders from the French government to build a city to defend the Mississippi from the British. Before that our neighborhood was swamp land that only existed because the Mississippi discharged clay here for a million years as it washed silt down 2000 miles of river to form Louisiana.
Termite & Vine was opened by Lily Bloodgore, November 5th 2005. At that time our house had been empty and abandoned since 1978 and had fallen in to serious disrepair with most of the windows smashed, plumbing and electrical decayed to uselessness and so much termite damage that the floors were caving in and major structural elements were missing. 1825 had been owned along with a few neighboring properties by an Italian family who lived in the neighborhood from the mid thirties until the late seventies when they went bankrupt and lost their houses to the city. For the next 2 decades it was frequently empty or squatted by various people or occasionally a crack house. In 2004 a small business man filed a claim on the building through city hall but for fitted his claim after hurricane Katrina destroyed his home and business in 2005. He passed his claim on to Lily Bloodgore in fall of 2005 and 1825 became a temporary shelter for post hurricane/flood Disaster relief volunteers from a variety of different organizations, including Common Ground, who'd burnt out, or found them selves no longer needed in the capacities they'd volunteered for. By winter 2006 the household at 1825 had switched from volunteer crew to a gaggle of traveling circus performers and musicians who include a number of prominent performers who tour constantly around the country, and can be seen usually in fall and winter in New Orleans, playing at a variety of bars and watering holes and often busking on the sidewalks of the Old French Quarter. Seeing a need for stable housing for a large number of seasonal artists, and backed by interest of many involved to have a permanent place to call home, we banded together, contacted the former owners of our house, filed paperwork with the help of the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority to secure proper legal ownership, and started renovating the heck out of the place with our bare hands and a small pile of rusty flood tools. At first most of our building supplies were obtained by hiring ourselves out to do construction and demolition work and we'd bring all the scraps and leftovers home. Toady we are still committed to recycling building materials from the many construction sites around the city and also receive occasional donations from dedicated recycling projects including Greenproject and Habitat Re-Store.
The Fair Bindle Economy of the North American
Squatocratic Order
Termite and Vine operates on the voluntary code of standards laid forth by the North Amerikan Squatistocracy, and is committed to the New economy of the Underground Nation of Filth. We have adopted the squatocracy's new currency standard, "the bindle", which is a means of exchange with promise of safe lodging as the standard by which the currency is valued. "bindle" is a hobo word that refers to a tramps bedroll, or to ones belongings bundled in a kerchief tied to the end of a stick.
One bindle = one hour of work = not more than $2 USD = one day of lodging in a secure private room
this standard means that no one should work more than an hour a day or have to pay more than $2 a day for safe secure lodgings.
Termite is a Louisiana non profit corporation and all members receive contracts from the corporation explaining this pay/rent structure. all members are expected to supervise themselves and are trusted to report their own hours and contribution to the project. a clause in the contract explains that though one bindle is equivalent to one hour of work or $2USD, one hour of work is worth more than $2usd. In the squatocratic code of standards an hour of work is worth $10. however our contracted members are paid in Bindles instead of USD$ as Bindles are the exchange rate for room. $2 is the exchange rate for those who would rather contribute money than labor, all members are expected to contribute 30 Bindles per month.
in the event that termite should ever be sold or stolen by a developer, then we have legal recourse to guarantee that everyones labor shall be re compensated at the rate of $10 p hour of labor.
Squatting, homesteading, and travel culture
homesteading
Termite and Vine house was acquired by our homesteaders collective through the squatters rights laws of Louisiana, with help from the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, the common ground legal clinic, the north American Order of the Squatistocracy, and the V. family.
in 1978 the V. family hit hard financial times and 8 of their properties were adjudicated to the city for non payment of taxes. in the next few decades several of the houses sat empty and uncared for and fell in to decay.
we took over our house in November 2005 and slowly built our claim, renovating the property as we could, filing a squatters rights claim in march 2007 (La RS 9;5633) , and incorporating as a non profit homesteader's advocacy in November 2007. There are dozens of programs and laws in Louisiana that make it easy for individuals who have low income to acquire and own abandoned property. In summer of 2007 we contacted the V. family to tell them our intentions and they wished us their blessing to own 1825 duels and eventually acquire their families other empty properties which have been kept sunk under a mounting tax burden for the last few decades.
our collective strives to serve as an advocate for homesteading and we are building resources to teach and help other groups own building that are sitting abandoned in the city. We are assembling a package of materials and resources both in print form and online and microcosm publishing has expressed interest in commissioning publications to distro.
Squatting
Squatting means a wide variety of things. squatting means occupying any unused space for shelter and housing. the type technique and style of occupation is as varied as the kinds of homes and lives that inhabit them. often squatting is eroniously perceived as an illegal activity perpetrated by the desperate homeless. in fact many "squat" situations are legal and in some cases eventually lead to the "squatters" getting legal ownership of some property. the practice Squatting includes a diverse spectrum of solutions to houselessness ranging from urban camping, to political occupations of neglected space, to rent strikes, to shanty towns.
homesteading is moving in to (squatting) an abandoned neglected property to create a securable private space, make repairs and build a home in it, and defend possession of it including but not necessarily taking legal and financial efforts to acquire right and title to the space. our collective has defended our space for over two years, we have all legal rights to our property as guaranteed by state law and we are in the process of meeting the requirements to quiet title and own our property as a defensible defined asset.
Our project owes a debt to other homesteader projects including c-Squat and umbrella house in NYC, Hellarity in Oakland, and numerous other projects in Pittsburgh, St.Louis, Philadelphia and those pioneers in 70's New York and Ampsterdam who paved the way of the contemporary homesteaders movement, those who've inspired us to commit to our goals and often been sources of support advice and encouragement.
travel culture
Our collective is made up of artists and musicians who move in travel culture. modern north American travel culture is a direct descendant of the iconic tramps who flourished in the early 20th century when the industrial revolution played chaos on a young nations economy. Travel culture is frequently misunderstood and a source of consternation to the outsider, as many people find it confusing that so many people should be motivated to try to live life constantly traveling around the country with sporadic housing and intermittent employment. Termite and Vine is lucky enough to have documentary photographer Mike "the Polaroid kidd" Brodie as a friend and family member. His work, hailed as "Nan Goldin on a train", documents the unique culture of the traveler kids and information on his gallery shows can be found at ridindirtyface.com.
the Members of our collective are Artists and musicians who are devoted to their crafts. Traveler kids move around the country through circuits of underground festivals and gatherings all year. in between times when travelers congregate in big celebratory groups they move around and stay in squats and crash houses, work part time jobs in construction and restaurants, and play music and sell arts and crafts for money. the music and art from travel culture is a fusion of folk and olde tyme influences from the rich history of North American tramping, and modern punk and pop cultural influences.
those outside travel culture are often vary confused about people who choose to live a life style that is unstable and frequently linked to poverty, uncertainty and slipping into the underground. Those who commit to living in travel culture are not disadvantaged or hard done by or unfortunate. travelers sacrifice a lot of easy comforts to more fully chase our art and live lives that are in harmony with our artistic vision.
it is because of the travel culture's mandate to live life as art that it is important to make projects like the termite and vine homesteaders collective co-operative association. Our homestead has no political agenda except for pragmatic folk anarchy. our goal is to build the kind of home and community that most fully enables us to live life as we envision it should be lived, one full of fun, family and art.
Rethinking the House
Termite and Vine is the flagship project of Rethinking the House.
Rethinking The House is a long term think tank and design laboratory organized by Lostetta Vlenoski for doing experiments in deconstructing and reinventing manifestations of "house" and "home".
Rethinking the House is a multimedia multidisciplinary constantly mutating oeuvre with the central guiding manifesto to be to constantly question and analyze the meanings and means of house, home, living, social aspects of home, internal personal mechanics of home, the physical structure and permenance of the house as related to its environment, the ways in which the home and the occupant modify each other, and to make the act of living as modified by the conditions of ones surrounding in to a constant willful artistic process.
Rethinking the house is a free form jam, think tank, skill share experiment, and deconstructed construction project with the goal of remodeling, rebuilding, colonizing and homesteading the very idea of what house and home actually are. It's a long-term project with no specific membership roles that endeavours to grow exponentially and permeate everything it touches. Termite and Vine homestead, and Termite and Vine property maintenance are umbrellaed under the grand RTH manifesto. That manifest further includes experiments in materials and techniques for building, experiments in design for living space with particular fascination for how the living space and the being that lives in it shape one another considering the variables of time and morphability. RTH also is interested in experiments with recycled material, micro-construction projects and successfully completed a the construction of a tiny 9x12 mini-house made with a budget of $20 in spring of 2007. Regrettably it was torn down by the land owner, but more micro-construction projects and think tanks are planned for the near future including the possibility of constructing an experimental shantytown and cucumber farm {project Cucumbervania} in remote Tennessee by summer 2012.
Future plans for Rethinking the House include experiments in living in different environments, creative construction projects, endurance style performance experiments in living, more homesteading activism, and an experimental town to be constructed by people with a variety of skill levels from entirely recycled and non traditional materials.
Termite & Vine Property Maintenance Company
Termite & Vine started getting repaired with leftover materials from commissioning construction and demolition work. Many of Termite's first members were people who had come to New Orleans to do disaster relief and after dropping out of the volunteer circuit their first employment was working gutting flooded homes. Hopefully this winter we will be improving our workshop and obtaining a truck so that Termite can again start commissioning work to benefit both the renovation of our own home and provide new skill learning and income for our members. We are in the process of applying for incorporated status, and Lily B. is preparing to get her license in property management and housing inspection.
Other New Projects From Our Collective
Homesteaders Resources
The worst part about administering the 1825 Duels Homesteaders Collective is how often we have to turn people away. We have been fortunate enough to attract a strong base of talented dedicated members and though we're the size of a barn we aren't finished renovating and we only have limited liveable space. Interest in our project has been tremendous though and we've been talking with various parties about starting a new homesteading project. Obtaining an abandoned property, legalizing your possession, and renovating a condemned building back to code are serious undertakings. Our collective has plans to open a new house in the future but right now our resources are fully consumed by working on our own house. We will however support anyone who seriously intends to start their own homesteaders co-op.
Researching Property and Filing Claim
Louisiana and the city of New Orleans actually have many programs to help people get legal ownership of abandoned and neglected properties. Termite and Vine owe a huge debt to NORA the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (blightbusters.com), the Commonground Legal Collective (commongroundrelief.org), and several national homesteaders advocacy organizations. There are half a dozen programs and numerous state laws that are in place to put abandoned property into the hands of people who want to rehabilitate it and make homes. To any individual who demonstrates a serious interest in homesteading we can provide advice and assistance in navigating the research and document filing required to get started.
Renovation Skill Share
Currently our renovation skill share is limited to working on our own house. In the future though we hope to host regular workshops on home repair that will include construction, plumbing, and electrical work. The focus will be on teaching in an "anything goes" technique that encourages creative problem solving and accepts people of all skill levels. We are also committed to recycling and reusing building materials and employing creative hacks to circumvent the cost and skill caps inherent in most renovation.
Termite Press
Termite Press is working on its first bound volume of useful books for the homesteader. Going to press right now are a reprint copy of the discontinued 90-page New Orleans Redevelopment Authority Guide to Acquiring Blighted and Adjudicated Property, a 20-page collection of Louisiana State laws that apply to homesteaders and non-profit organizations acquiring abandoned properties, and a reprint of the Louisiana Minimal Residential Building Code which is the set of standards used to declare your property habitable or condemned. All these documents will be made available shortly for research at the Iron Rail alternative bookstore and library on Marigny street. We are working right now on a mini-handbook on finding, selecting, homesteading, and legalizing an abandoned property in New Orleans that will be available around New Year's. These publications will enable our future homesteaders' workshops and will also be available for sale to cover print cost from our homestead and possibly the Iron Rail.
Bad Idea Factory
Bad idea Factory is Termites inhouse Industrial Arts Research Laboratory facilitated by board member Jasha 9o'clock. All B.I.F. projects are currently classified information.
Friends and peers of Termite and Vine
North American Squatistocracy
Apparatus CSG
The House on Stilts
The Rice Factory
Black Forest Fanciers Society For Preservation of the Sock Monster Forest
Polaroid kidd
The Royal Ek Hotel
Miss Rockaway Armada
Hellarity RIP
C-Squat
Umbrella House
Batcave RIP
The Shoe Store
Beelen West Virginia
Homesitters Property Management
Slab City
Dignity Village
Ida Tennessee
Cracking the Movement
Survival Without Rent
Squat the Planet
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