While COVID 19 stresses the importance of health and saftey we feel its resulting economic impact also highlights an important issue near and dear to us – affordable housing. As a social benefit company, we care about all the communities we are in and the effort made to provide affordable housing to those without means.
A Social Impact Startup
As a company we care about people, the planet and profit. And we know that’s not that weird. Austin, our hometown, is an expensive place to live. As is Houston, NOLA, Portland, and Detroit. And increasingly the amazing, creative, artistic folks that live in our homes can’t afford them. We want to fight that battle and change the notion of what affordable housing looks like. So each tour we do we give a portion of all ticket proceeds towards affordable housing nonprofits in the cities we are in with giving over $17,000 thus far. We think it would be weird NOT to give back to our community.
We also helped produce a short documentary focusing on the issue of affordable housing in Austin.
Struggling for Weird: A Documentary on Affordable Housing
This award-winning video (Faces of Austin 2018 Jury Prize) covers the work that the Weird Homes Tour does around affordable housing. The city of Austin, TX has been known for it’s wild, whimsical and weird artists for the last thirty years. However from 2006 to 2016, Austin home values increased an average 65.5% according to a study of federal housing data by the American City Business Journal. So although we love and value our artists, where can they actually live in Austin? This short film highlights the growing conflict between our love of artists and the booming growth of Austin, TX and how we can all make a difference
