TOPEKA, Kan. – YouthBuild KCK Program Director Spark Bookhart and his students have helped build tiny homes before.
It was something he wasn’t jumping at the chance to do again.
That all changed when he heard the story of the Bassuk Center and Homeworks USA in Lawrence, Kansas, from project director Frankie Foster Davis. Homeworks is a pilot project of the Bassuk Center.
“When she told me the whole story, that changed things a bit,” Bookhart said. “It really aligned with our mission and what we do in our program. She was in pre-development at that point.
“Four years later, she got the project going last summer.”
The project was to do the framing work on affordable rental housing for youth aging out of foster care. A group of YouthBuild students from Columbia and Kansas City, Kansas, joined forces April 9 to do the work on two of the homes.
“It’s a very critical need,” Bookhart said about the housing project. “We have young people that come through our program that are very close or just beyond foster care support, and those young people have serious challenges, and housing is often one of them.”
These tiny homes are between 256 and 384 square feet, depending on needs, such as Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility. The Tiny House Society has a breakdown of building requirements for tiny homes, state-by-state.
The joint venture was seen as Tiger Country and Jayhawk Nation coming together, Columbia YouthBuild Director Jerrell Morton said.
Work is still needed.
The Bassuk Center and Homeworks has until May 10 to get the framing completed on 10 of the 15 planned tiny homes. This is when the building permit expires, and even though Homeworks has sought an extension from the Lawrence government, it has not been granted.
“We have been besieged by weather issues,” Foster Davis said. “Recently, it’s been the weather and we had some COVID delays. So yes, we still could use some volunteers.”
Morton is trying to gather local individuals and contractors to help the YouthBuild students for the next visit to Lawrence. He hopes to get back out to Lawrence before the end of April. It depends on how many volunteers sign up.
YouthBuild participants are still learning, so it takes longer for them to build something compared to other contractors, he added.
“If we can gather up enough support from Columbia to go up and knock that out in a couple of days, that would be amazing,” Morton said.
The tiny home village is in a rural part of Lawrence. This was done on purpose, Foster Davis said.
“We believe nature helps some of the things that are necessary, such as a healthy lifestyle and overcoming issues (future residents) may have experienced in the foster care system,” she said.
YouthBuild is a nationwide network of people learning the same construction skills, and it has been exciting to collaborate on this project, Bookhart said. YouthBuild students are individuals between the ages of 16 to 24 who are learning the construction trade — whether it be residential or highway and road maintenance — and earning their high school equivalency at the same time.
“We collectivized our impact,” Bookhart said. “We have been down to Columbia to help Job Point work on some things, and they are always willing to return the favor.”
For many in the Columbia group that went April 9, it was their first trip outside of Boone County, Morton said.
“They were excited for that part, and the more they got to meet (Foster Davis) and her mission with this project, they fell in love with it,” he said. “It has become a high priority for our program here to make sure it doesn’t get shut down.”
The Kansas City, Kansas, YouthBuild program is overseen by the United Way of Greater Kansas City, while Columbia’s program is through Job Point. YouthBuild is a partnership with the national service program AmeriCorps and is funded partially through the U.S. Department of Labor.
The YouthBuild teams were doing just the framing of the tiny homes in preparation for other construction trades to come in, such as electricians, plumbing and HVAC.
A traditional assumption about the construction field is that it most often employs men. That isn’t the case for YouthBuild — at least in Kansas City, Kansas. There, the gender makeup of participants is more 50-50, Bookhart said.
“I have been working in this space for nearly a decade, and it is not surprising (young women) are excited about doing this type of work,” he said. “They just need a shot and somebody to usher them through the process. They can be as serious as anyone.”
Homeworks will seek input from the youth that will occupy the first 10 homes on any changes or improvements for the final five.
“We said, ‘What constitutes community,’ and we said, ’10,'” Foster Davis said. “We are going to let the 10 people in the original housing provide feedback so we can tweak the design. It’s a pilot project so we want to get everything user-friendly.”
Three styles of homes are planned, including the ADA accessible units. Of the 10 currently under construction, three are ADA accessible.
The Kansas City, Kansas, team also did some work last year on central community gazebos that have solar paneling, which helps provide power to the tiny homes, cutting down on bills for the eventual occupants.
“Each pod is five homes around a common gazebo,” Bookhart said.
Each home will also have its own array of solar panels, Foster Davis added.
“We have net metering on the homes and we hope that through education and developing good habits, young people will be able to have zero net metering,” she said. “That would mean they are able to just pay the distribution on their electric bill.”
These tiny homes are more than transitional housing. That type of housing typically is occupied anywhere between 18 months to three years. For the Homeworks village, occupants will be able to stay in these homes for up to eight years.
“You are able to stay in rent from us through the ages of 18 to 26,” Foster Davis said. “You can enter at any age during that time period. It’s not in the traditional sense of transitional.”
A person can come from one transitional home to the Homeworks village, she added.
Supports are in place for the occupants of the homes, including a social worker. Homeworks wants its future residents to thrive.
“Our goal is to stick with them and to help identify what is available to them in terms of health, wellness, employment, education and entrepreneurship,” Foster Davis said. “Being so close to Lawrence, we have a lot of opportunities for young people right here, but we also have access to Johnson County and Wyandotte County.”
