Homelessness is one of the monsters that haunts our society. Thousands of people are trying to address the challenge but fail to come up with a solution.  Valley View Senior Housing, built in 2019 in Napa County, CA, is a VERY affordable community of 70 cottages. This groundbreaking homeless project was organized by American Canyon’s city government, for older homeless people and homeless veterans of the area. This solution-oriented book shares the inspiring story of a compassionate & humane project. Imagine if every city could do one community like this and we can begin to make headway to solve the homeless problem. Every city can do this! And from this we can grow to do even more. Durrett and his team at The Cohousing Company have designed more than 50 cohousing communities in the United States and around the world, including Muir Commons in Davis, California, the first cohousing community in North America. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, Architecture, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and many other publications. Charles Durrett has received numerous awards, which include the World Habitat Award presented by the United Nations, the Silver Achievement Award for Active Adult Community by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) 50+ Housing Council, the Silver Energy Value Housing Award by NAHB, the Mixed Use/Mixed Income Development Award presented jointly by the American Institute of Architects and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and a recipient of the Global Over 50’s Housing/Healthcare award. He was also recently declared as a “visionary of the Sierras” by the Sierra Business Council, and the International Property Awards. “We all know what an urban tent city looks like and have seen people living under a freeway overpass, or a shopping cart filled with someone’s entire earthly possessions. This book, A Solution to Homelessness in Your Town: Valley View Senior Housing, Napa County, California, details how a relatively small town created housing for 100 homeless seniors, many of them American veterans. Collective agencies with dedicated workers and volunteers share and find resources to pull together and build an attractive cottage community. The challenging site was scarred by terracing from an abandoned project which inspired the switchback pathway on the hillside. True to the architect’s roots in cohousing, each small cottage has a front and back yard emphasizing the sense of place in the community instead of a 3-4 story box-like structure. Each home has a small footprint with a big impact on the lives of these formerly homeless adults. Homelessness is a problem with a solution and this book delineates step by step how every town can prepare, launch, sail, land, and settle a new place for people without a place, especially important now. No more excuses, no more not-in-my backyard, no more that’s so sad. Finally, there’s a book with the how-to answers.” – Janet Palmer, Housing Enthusiast, Resident of Quimper Village “Finally, a book that any city, county, or state official can look at and say “Well, if this brand-new town, American Canyon, can build housing for 100 homeless veterans and seniors, so can we.” Charles Durrett’s A Solution to Homelessness in Your Town beautifully describes the nuts and bolts of going from initial vision, to ground-breaking, to move-in. Anyone looking for an effective way to address the problem of homelessness will find this book to be a valuable resource for realizing that the problem of homelessness can be affordably, effectively, and beautifully addressed. Like many other “well-housed” folks I tended to think of homelessness as a formidable social problem that defied any practical solution. In this case, I couldn’t have been more happily wrong. In partnership with city officials and the non-profit Satellite Affordable Housing Associates (SAHA) Durrett’s visionary project became not only a functional, but a beautiful haven for the homeless. From the beginning, The Cohousing Company architects didn’t merely seek to put a roof over people’s heads but to re-create the sense of living in a small village where neighbors become friends who can rely on each other to help meet their basic needs. A large and welcoming clubhouse with a common kitchen, dining room, and adjoining terrace serve as the focal points of village life where residents can meet to talk, work, and play together, and occasionally share common meals, but most importantly to figure out the next step necessary to a better life and to support each other in moving toward that life. Too often municipalities seek to address the problem of housing the homeless without realizing that these future residents can be a wonderful resource for each other and the community at-large if a felt-sense of living in community is intentionally built into the overall design of t