Affordable Housing Day

A few days ago we spent two nights in Medora, ND. Medora is just outside Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and the ride into town was beautiful. It was also the second day that we had ridden on the interstate (I-94). About 9 miles from the end, we stopped at the Painted Canyon Visitor Center. We had some amazing views and a chance to get more stickers for our bikes. After our stop the rest of the ride took less than 30 minutes, but it was one of the best 30 minutes of the trip. It was all downhill from there to Medora, and the landscape was amazing.

We stayed 2 days in Medora, and had an Affordable Housing day there. Our first AH day was planned by the leaders in Rochester, NY. On that one we went biking with the community and had a short discussion about our history with affordable housing. During that time we also set up the book group. This time, several members of the group planned the activities.

We started with an activity to reflect on the trip so far. One person would read our a statement like, “I feel that I have been helpful on build sites” or “I feel that this trip will effect my future life decisions.” Everyone would then line up somewhere along a spectrum from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

The first activity was a good way to get started thinking about the trip, but it didn’t get us thinking critically about the issues of affordable housing. The next activity went a little more in depth. We played an online game called “spent” that asked us to make decisions assuming that we were recently homeless and had only $1000. Some questions asked us to consider what jobs would be best, while others considered possible options when your car breaks down or your child wants to join an athletic team. As a group we would consider the options, have a short discussion, and vote on a decision.

This game was more of a challenge for our group, and a lot of people went away feeling unsatisfied with the game and the discussion we had. There was some tension during the conversation since there is such a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds on the trip and people had different options based on their unique experiences. In several ride groups later in the week we have also discussed how the game neglects other resources like time, energy, and access to support systems. However, we thought that it also brought up a lot of good issues and provided us with a chance for much more in depth discussion in our smaller ride groups.

Finally, we watched a documentary called “The Homestretch.” If you haven’t seen it, we would all highly recommend it. The movie followed three teenagers as they struggled with homelessness in Chicago. We thought it offered an important perspective, examining the extreme challenges and innovative solutions that the students came up with. The documentary gave us a personal connection with homelessness, as we saw people our age shifting from place to place and living on the streets.

Animals

We have seen many animals throughout the trip but we were excited to see a lot more in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The first animals we saw on our way into Medora were prairie dogs. There were entire cities of prairie dogs along the side of the road running around and barking at us. We would see many more prairie dogs throughout the next few days and they were very fun to watch and listen to.

Going into the park the next day after our affordable housing meeting we saw a ton of bison. We saw a lone bison on the way in and when we stopped to watch it another visitor told us where we could go to see a whole herd. Further into the park we did get to see an entire herd of bison and watched them for quite a while before dinner. There were two big groups out in the field and we enjoyed watching smaller groups of just a couple bison cross between the larger groups.

In the evening we rode our bikes out of the park, back to Medora, after watching the sunset in the park. The sun was down and it was starting to get pretty dark which made it even more startling to come around a bend and find a bison in the middle of the road. Luckily it moved off fairly quickly and we were able to continue with our ride. Soon after our encounter with the bison we spotted some deer and some wild horses in a field off the road. Just as we were leaving the park we thought we saw another deer but quickly realized it was an elk when it started running along beside the road next to us. We were very excited to see all these animals but decided that we would rather see them from slightly further away rather than encountering them on the road on our bikes.