WELCOME TO OPEN HOUSE

A SHOP THAT SELLS NOTHING BUT STORIES

We’re a public talking shop on housing and homelessness. We like drinking tea, making new friends and talking to strangers about housing. We’re trying to get as many people as possible, especially those without a permanent home, involved in the decisions that are being made about how we house people in Oxford.

Open House is a Makespace Oxford initiative led by Transition by Design and Aspire. We are volunteer run and open for a year so come and get involved.

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Why we built Open House

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Transition by Design, the architecture and design cooperative behind Open House have written about the ideas behind Open House. In this Medium post they ask weather by creating a space that is actively welcoming to people without a permanent home and including them in the conversations that are being had about housing in the city, can we encourage a movement to create a fairer housing system that has a lived experience of homelessness in its
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We’re looking for great ideas that could use £1000

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Do you have an idea for building relationships and connecting people with place that could do with a £1000 cash injection? As part of this year’s Marmalade, Transition by Design and Lankelly Chase are running a live experiment in participatory grant making. Both Transition by Design and Lankelly Chase believe that more often then not, it’s communities who know best what they need. We’re experimenting with how to hand over control of funding to the
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Coming up @ Open house

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Ten weeks, thirty-four volunteers, twenty-two events and several thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles in, we are delighted to say that Open House is open and thriving. Our public living room is open Wednesday to Saturday 10-5 and is welcoming people from all sorts of backgrounds and experiences from across Oxford to drink tea, make new friends and talk to strangers about housing. On top of this, our ‘Housing Matters’ series of talks have welcomed an incredible range of thinkers, doers and
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Winter Holidays @ Open House

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Thanks to an incredible group of volunteers, we’re delighted to say that we can keep our usual opening hours over the Christmas break. Open House will be open Wednesday to Saturday, 10am – 5pm throughout December and into January. If you need a bit of a break at any point, come and join us. We’re a home away from home, a free space, open to everyone and anyone. We’ve got tea, biscuits, puzzles, board games,
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We’ve been open a week, what’s been going on?

Open House Oxford
We opened our doors to the public last Friday and we’ve had quite a week. Before we even opened, we’d managed to sneak in two events; Queer Caff is an afternoon social space for young LGBTQIA+ people who are worried about their housing or facing homelessness. Along with Topaz LGBTQIA+ youth group, Zayna Ratty and the Young Women’s Music Project we were shocked to learn that 1 in 4 homeless youth identify as non-heterosexual. In
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Would you like to volunteer at Open House?

Open House Oxford
We’re on the hunt for friendly, kind and reliable people to volunteer as hosts for Open House. As a host, your role is to look after our public living room and make everyone feel welcome and at home. We’re a public space that you don’t need to spend money to be in, a bizarrely simple concept that most people need a bit of help getting their heads around. As a host you’ll help people understand
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How can you get involved in Open House?

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Tell a friend about us – We are a tiny team with a big to-do list. Please pass on to anyone you think might benefit from Open House. In particular we hope to be a welcoming space to anyone who might be having a tough time at home. Run an event or activity – If you’ve got an idea that will start a conversation on housing and homelessness or encourage others to get involved, we’d
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