Emergency Housing as an Engine of Economic Development
With limited resources, our partners began construction of a refugee camp to provide shelter for migrants who continue to arrive in Tijuana in waves. With the help of skilled migrants, they began assembling their own emergency housing.
We seek not only to increase the housing capacity of the non-profit but to produce longer term solutions for families, embedded in a set of social programs co-developed through our UC SAN DIEGO-ALACRÁN Community Station, and an infrastructure of productivity, through economic incubators, fabrication shops, a nursery and an industrial kitchen.
The UC SAN DIEGO-ALACRÁN Community Station is the socioeconomic support infrastructure for the Santuario Frontera housing project. The housing “scaffolds” are built first with Mecalux maquiladora-made frames, and the Community Station provides spaces of fabrication, training and small-scale economic development to incrementally infill the interiors through phased occupancy.
The UC SAN DIEGO-ALACRÁN Community Station seeds an evolving sanctuary neighborhood. Because of existing environmental damage at the site, the neighborhood is organized by an ecological layer comprised of biofiltration systems, gabion wall-terracing and swales, which in turn organize accessibility and pedestrian circulation. Orchards, a farm, economic incubators and spaces for health, education and social service are programmed and managed collaboratively by the university and the community.
