Another tangible step forward in the tiny home project for veterans experiencing homelessness took place Thursday morning with 4 modular homes arriving in Kingston.
Eventually a total of 20 modular homes will form the veterans village project spearheaded by the not for profit Homes for Heroes based out of Calgary.
“Each one completely finished for the user, it’ll have bathroom, kitchen, living room-bedroom and all the amenities,” said Mark Hutchings the Kingston Home for Heroes chair.
There will also be three other buildings that will serve as a resource centre for residents.
“They get designed for them a wrap around support program that’s going to make use of their abilities and talents. they’ll be given any counselling or medical treatment that they need that’ll all happen by professionals in this city,” said Hutchings.
The overall budget for the Kingston project is $8.5M. Hutchings says helping keep the project on budget is a number of businesses providing services in kind.
“The Brick is providing the furniture, Canarm is providing the electrical light fixtures, we’ve got all the steel stanchions for sign posts are being done by Pure Inginuity,” said Hutchings. ” I can go an and on about this, but when you approach people and say this is for your town, this is to help house the homeless, everybody gets it.”
The Kingston Real Estate Association has pitched in as well, organizing a number of fundraisers over the last three years generating over $400k in donations.
“Working in the housing industry and to work with capable military people and you just don’t think that they would run into a problem, some of them loose their way and they just need a hand up, so this is an easy way to give back,” said Gail Power with the real estate association.
It’s expected the veterans village construction should be complete and ready for occupancy by the years end.