BOCES Students Build Tiny Houses for Homeless Veterans
Rumshock Veterans Foundation bought Port Jervis property and now has funding for tiny houses for homeless veterans. BOCES students have begun building them.
BOCES carpentry instructor Corey Moore recently had a veteran in his night class who told him about volunteering for a Veteran’s Day event. When she mentioned hearing about Rumshock Veterans Foundation plans to build tiny houses for homeless vets on a Port Jervis site, Moore perked up.
“We haven’t had a good project in several years,” he said, referring to community building projects where his high school students could develop carpentry skills.
He recalled supervising students building the Goshen Humane Society shelter in the early 2000s and repairing the roof of a historical schoolhouse, so the building could be insured. They had also built parts of Habitat for Humanity homes.
“We haven’t had a big space for those projects at school, but now a pole barn is being built, and we’ll inherit three bays,” said Moore.
He googled Rumshock Foundation to find out more about them. Then he called Rumshock founder William Whetsel and offered to have his students build the ten 20’ x 20’ tiny houses planned for a site on East Main St. in Port Jervis. Which is why when Whetsel is asked how BOCES became involved with the project, he says, “A guy called me up.”
Then, over spring break, while Moore was working on a Goshen roof, he was taking a break, pulled over at the end of Maple Ave., when Jim Rohner, of Neversink Lumber in Port Jervis called about providing flooring material for the tiny houses—moments after Moore saw a bald eagle fly over him. He couldn’t help seeing that as a good omen, he said.
Also auspicious was the gathering at VFW 151 in Port Jervis, a few days before, that Moore attended. Congressman Pat Ryan handed Whetsel a $1 million check, garnered from Congressional appropriations for Rumshock, particularly welcome after Rumshock had run out of money. The $400,000 state grant and other money from fundraisers that Whetsel had applied to the .75 acre Port Jervis property had been used to clear structures there and remove asbestos. Now Rumshock has money for the tiny houses and other projects planned for Victory Village, including hydroponic vegetable gardening, e-waste recycling and alternative energy sources.
BOCES students will frame the walls, floors and ceilings of the 20’x 20’ houses in two parts that can be carried on trailers to Port Jervis, Moore said. He expects to have the first done by June. After delivery, people who will live in the houses will work on them, as sheetrock, plumbing and electric wiring will be needed. Unions and materials suppliers have expressed interest in helping.
“They’re like stick built RVs, but not on wheels. They’re set on foundations,” Moore said.
He would like to do more community building projects, for instance a domestic violence shelter, he said, especially if sponsors would buy materials.
“Building houses is different from the usual. It has meaning behind it,” said Moore, as students often build a project to learn the process, then dismantle it to leave space for other projects.
He pointed out that BOCES is an acronym for Board of Cooperative Educational Services. Orange-Ulster BOCES draws students from 17 school districts in Orange and Ulster counties and Marlboro in Sullivan County for career and technology education as well as adult and special education. Moore has 24 juniors in his afternoon carpentry class and 16 seniors in his morning class, each two and a half hours. One senior is from Port Jervis.
As vice president of his union, Orange Ulster BOCES Teachers Association, he can see that “trades are struggling,” he said. “Many of my students now run their own businesses, and they’re booked.”
He talked to a former student about taking on a job that Moore had been asked about, and the student said he could put the job on his list, but a restaurant and house addition were next for him.
“We’ve had 100 students visit the carpentry program, thinking of applying for next year, and about 60 are likely to apply,” Moore said. “Some students tell me that if not for BOCES, they wouldn’t come to school. We have room for 24. Most classes have waiting lists.”
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I am a plumber and would be willing to help out. Email me thank you