Submitted by Community Youth Services
Community Youth Services (CYS) has announced the sale of three 77 square foot “tiny homes” built by students in its YouthBuild program in Thurston County. The local non-profit is asking for $10,000 for each of the tiny houses, all built in 2011. YouthBuild, in partnership with New Market Skills Center in Tumwater, helps young people ages 16 to 20 earn their high school diploma or GED while providing training and work experience in the construction trades.
The homes, originally designed for transitional housing for the homeless and built with sustainability techniques, were a project that gave students green-building construction training while serving the community. YouthBuild’s construction instructors Matt Newton and Tim Stender oversaw the project.
“Our youth put a lot of muscle into these and crafted them to the highest standards under our program’s oversight,” says Newton. “We worked with green builders and homeless advocates to show how a small sleeping unit can be built in a sustainable way. There are a lot of ways these homes can be used.”
Each structure was custom built on a double axle utility trailer, is within legal limits for road travel and weighs about 6,000 pounds. The homes all have room to sleep two, a porch, windows, a skylight, electrical outlets and a heater. Each house can be hooked up to a generator or extension cord plugged into a 110v outlet.
Proceeds from the sale of the tiny houses will provide extended benefits for the YouthBuild students, assisting with basic needs like transportation, food, utilities, work readiness and secondary education expenses. It will also provide resources between grant cycles or where the grant use is limited, such as helping YouthBuild students with much-needed medical or child care.
“These are valuable properties with a number of potential uses and the money goes to an effective community program,” says Chad Landsiedel, a Realtor with Keller Williams South Sound Realty who is assisting in promotion of the sale. “From homeless transitional housing to a mobile hunting or fishing cabin, we believe the tiny houses have a perfect use at an affordable cost.”
Community Youth Services has been helping South Sound’s most vulnerable youth for over 40 years. YouthBuild is one of twenty programs at CYS that are all integrated to better serve homeless, runaway, abused and at-risk youth. CYS serves over 4,000 youth and families each year, primarily in Thurston, Pierce, Lewis, Mason, Kitsap and Grays Harbor counties, working to end homelessness, prevent delinquency and school failure, break the cycle of child abuse and neglect and promote mental health.
For information on how to purchase the tiny houses please contact Lynsi Polanco at lpolanco@communityyouthservices.org or call her at (360) 918-7822.
