South Carolina Church to Construct Tiny House Village for Homeless Women
A South Carolina church has set out to build a tiny house village that is to be used to provide shelter for local homeless women.
The project, led by First Baptist Spartanburg, involves the construction of 20 tiny houses plus a commons building. The church plans on holding a meeting with local government boards next year as they hope to start construction in 2021.
In an interview with The Christian Post, Steve Wise, who serves as the missions minister at First Baptist, shared how this project came to be.
Wise explained that the church was seeking to expand their homeless ministry and had received requests from local groups.
Wise explained that the church has been “very much aware of the problems our homeless face and the problems in the city of meeting homeless needs for a while.”
“Together with what we already knew about homelessness, conversations that were going on in our city with a homeless task force and others, that’s how we came to make that decision,” he added.
The tiny house village will be located on property owned by First Baptist in the Northside of Spartanburg. The location is also near to their ministry for the less fortunate known as “The Bridge.”
The expected cost for each individual housing unit will be $30,000. Additionally, the commons building will cost around $200,000, as it will be used for community gatherings for the homeless.
“The tiny houses are not designed for cooking and eating,” Wise noted. “They will [be] very simple, but we want mealtimes to be a community time.
“There will be some meetings with everybody that we’ll be having weekly and there’ll be some special trainings and they’ll be one-on-one mentoring and coaching that happens and that building will provide some of the space for that.”
Some people have already planned to pay for the construction, while the church will depend on volunteer labor to help offset the financial cost of creating the village.
Wise feels optimistic that the construction plans will be approved after it is presented before the local zoning commission and a design review board.
“First and foremost, God cares about everyone,” he asserted. “He certainly cares about our homeless friends. We really think God can do something amazing here and can bring about solutions.”
Similarly, The Christian Post reported that Faith Lutheran Church of Forest Lake, Minnesota had received approval in February to build a tiny house village for the homeless known as the “sacred settlement.”
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Artush
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer. Visit his blog Blessed Are The Forgiven.
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