After a few early glitches, a local youth employment program is ready to be part of a local housing solution.
A tiny home sitting at a warehouse on North Augusta Road is the first product of the We Are The Change (WATC) program destined to house a local resident.
The good news comes after an earlier attempt to build a tiny home for a local in need ran into bureaucratic snags.
“We have ironed out some of the kinks … and now it’s onward and upward,” Heather Rowat, the WATC co-ordinator, said Thursday at a media event.
WATC, which is run out of the Employment and Education Centre in Brockville, aims to teach skilled trades to vulnerable or “barriered” youth, said Rowat.
Ten young people completed the construction of the tiny home in December with the help of a contractor and various tradespeople. Officials are now awaiting the spring thaw to complete the transfer of the home to its new site in Elizabethtown-Kitley Township.
This roughly 315-square-foot tiny home is being donated to the local nonprofit organization Community Involvement Legacy Homes.
“It’s nice to have that home become local,” said Rowat.
In 2021, the program built a tiny house that was to have been moved to Athens, where it would have replaced the tumble-down mobile home of an elderly widow.
But that project hit a roadblock when the home failed to conform to Athens Township’s building inspection requirements, to the chagrin of both WATC and Athens Mayor Herb Scott.
In all, said Rowat, who came on board after that situation, WATC has produced three tiny homes, all of which were donated to non-profit groups for use outside the local area.
With the kinks now ironed out, WATC plans to build two more of the small houses for the local area.
The region, like the rest of the province, continues to struggle with a housing affordability crisis, and tiny homes have been advanced as one of many potential solutions, including in Brockville.
Michael Stanley, the executive director of Community Involvement Legacy Homes, said his organization is committed to building inclusive communities.
“We’re really excited about a local solution to what is a pretty significant need,” he said.
The tiny home will be a secondary suite to an existing residential property further up North Augusta Road, said Stanley.
While the organization deals with people who have intellectual disabilities, this tiny home is not slated for an individual with such challenges, noted Stanley.
He noted someone with an intellectual disability lives in the property’s primary family home.
“This is going to offer a secondary suite to a typical member of the community,” said Stanley, adding the organization’s goal is for people of various backgrounds to “be neighbours with one another.”
“We all are better when we’re together,” said Stanley.
Meanwhile, the WATC program is meeting its goal of training young people for the labour-hungry skilled trades, said Rowat.
“There’s been so many successes, and that’s another part of the story here,” she said.
Two of the participants who built this home are now in electrical apprenticeships, while others are in the mechanics field and some participants have graduated from high school to pursue the trades, said Rowat.
WATC is now accepting resumes for the two next builds, one in the spring and another in the fall, she added. The group hopes to continue with future builds if the federal funding remains available.
The program serves young people between the ages of 15 and 30. More information on WATC is available online at eecentre.com/we-are-the-change.
(An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that some program participants were in electrical engineering and mechanical engineering.)
Rzajac@postmedia.com
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