The Other Ones Foundation (TOOF) has provided the unhoused population of Austin, TX, with resources and services since 2018 in order to help people build traction and eventually find permament housing. In 2020, the Esperanza community was founded on a state-sanctioned encampment in East Austin, providing a physical center to TOOF’s operations. Led by bold strategists, TOOF transformed a community of tents into a proper neighborhood, building over 200 single-unit housing structures with the help of the global organization Better Shelter, as well as flooding the community with a myriad of resources to help folks stay on the path to housing.

Patchwork Piñata collaborated with Better Shelter and TOOF to create a short documentary, highlighting how Better Shelter’s transitional housing structures—previously reserved for refugee crises internationally—were being used for the first time in the United States to combat homelessness. This short documentary met TOOF just before it broke ground on a community renovation, constructing “tiny house-esque” structures, implementing hygiene stations with plumbing, and paving streets.