Tiny houses have been all the rage as of late. While much of the focus has been on well-to-do yuppie types wanting to downsize their lifestyle and jump on the latest housing trend, there are much more functional and important uses for tiny homes.
There is a group out of Missouri who is making use of the tiny home concept to do something incredibly important. House homeless veterans.
Veterans Community project has put this idea into action and have gone forward to build an entire village of tiny houses! These are all made to provide homes for homeless veterans. This model could, and should, be mirrored in other areas of the country as it is incredibly effective at tackling this problem of homeless vets head on.
Indeed this is a very righteous way to focus tiny homes on people who truly need them, instead of promoting the trendy, yuppie movement of the whole tiny house living.
It is absolutely sickening that there are military men and women who give their lives to this country to serve, yet end up on the streets without any shelter whatsoever. Truly, a national disgrace. Meanwhile on television you see building and re-decorating shows, all focusing on people with money, as opposed to the military men and women who gave so much and really need, and deserve, housing. Truly, disgusting.
The Missouri organization Veterans Community Project is dealing with the veteran housing issue head on, and it was actually started by three veterans who have experience with veteran services, seeing the gaps which indeed exist, and the trials and tribulations of vets coming back home after serving.
It’s about a four acre site where 50 tiny houses will serve at least that many homeless vets. Along with tiny homes, peer counseling and job training will be provided. This is vital to help reintegrate veterans back into the greater community.
Here’s what the goal of the VCP is:
“The goal would be to get veterans straight off the streets and hand them the keys to their full furnished tiny house (stocked with food), without the veteran having to go through the hassles of waiting for gas, electric, deposits, inspections, and voucher processes. We would then stabilize them to educate and support them on reintegrating into society all while treating and addressing their housing barriers as we move them into permanent housing.”
Awesome. None of the endless red tape which provide headache on top of headache for vets. An all-in-one system where vets can start directly working towards living back in society in a healthful and productive manner.
Volunteers are building the houses which are 240 square feet. Businesses and private individuals are donating to fund this amazing cause.
Here’s how devoted these individuals are:
“We do this on weekends, holidays, evenings, whenever we can,” said Chris Lawrence. Chris is providing some of the lumber which is used to build the tiny houses and helps run something called 2x4s For Home.
“We’re just trying to help make a difference. Little by little, one board at a time.”
Construction has already started in 2015 and they hope to be ready for residents by the winter of 2017.
“Going from extreme isolation to extreme socialization can be very overwhelming and cause unwanted outcomes. We believe that handing the veteran the keys to their own home and letting them socialize at their own pace is key to a successful outcome.”
Indeed the current system has been a major fail for our vets. Many on both sides of the political spectrum believe that the US Veteran’s Administration has indeed been failing. Veterans serve us with their lives, and in turn the help they get is not as good as it should be, and in some cases extremely poor. Very sad state of affairs.
It is incredibly exciting at how these tiny houses are truly making a major difference and hopefully this trend spreads throughout the country!
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Κυριακή, Δεκεμβρίου 04, 2016 |
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