New homes for veterans going up in High Point

HIGH POINT, N.C. (WGHP) — A nonprofit is grabbing its hammers and is hard at work in High Point on Smith Street.

Tiny House Community Development is working to complete a tiny house community for veterans facing homelessness.

"Noisy, busy, satisfying," said Donald Ames, a Navy veteran.

Ames said the sounds at the construction site are a joyful noise.

He is one of the helping hands working to build Tiny House Community Development's second veteran community in High Point.

"This is important to the community. It gives veterans a sense of belonging to the community," Ames said.

The nonprofit also has a veteran's community in Greensboro. Ames lives in one of the nonprofit's communities.

Watching the walls go up in High Point, he's glad to pay it forward to another veteran in need.

Ames isn't the only one volunteering his time. On Wednesday, 23 volunteers from the Home Depot Foundation lent a hand.

"It's nice to be able to give back to the people who gave so much for us ... For us to be able to give them that same thing back and to give them a roof over their head and to be able to allow them to, in turn, get a good night's sleep means a lot," Home Depot Operations Assistant Manager Christina Neal said.

They are working on two homes right now. Once complete, the site will have nine buildings, including a community office to connect veterans with services.

"We'll have two three-bedroom houses as well that are basically respite care. In other words, if they're actually in the hospital or the VA hospital and they need an extra recovery place, they can come here for a period of time to recover while until they get permanent housing," Tiny House Community Development Executive Director Scott Jones said.

The project has been in the works for about five years but faced a number of delays.

"Fundraising has been a challenge. We know that the way the economy has been, a lot of people that generally can donate haven't been able to do that, and we didn't want to start a project not knowing that we could at least get the initial houses finished," Jones said.

They are motivated to get the job done.

"We're hoping to have all the walls standing up and dried in, hopefully, before Christmas but at least by January. So over the winter months, we can work on the inside finishing them," Jones said.