![Rebecca Tallman, executive director for the Veterans Community Project of St. Louis, gives a tour of the community’s homes under construction on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023, in the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood. “It feels surreal right now,” Tallman, who is also an Air Force veteran, said roughly a month ahead of the community’s first veteran moving in. “We’ve come a long way in such a short time. [It’s] exciting knowing that we’re going to hep my fellow brothers and sisters in arms.”](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/bbb4cc7/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x2068+0+0/resize/840x580!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F9d%2Fe3%2Fb1f2fbc243ffa2e26becd13c1832%2F090623-bm-vet-homes-1.JPG)
Twenty tiny homes built for homeless veterans are set to open in the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood in the next 30 days.
“It feels very surreal but exciting, and we’re anxious to get there,” said Rebecca Tallman, executive director of the Veterans Community Project of St. Louis.
Originally scheduled to open last summer, a yearlong delay in getting an essential electrical box for the organization’s on-site outreach center set back the entire project’s construction. The newly built center, designed to help veterans transition to permanent housing, opened just three weeks ago for staff.
With the construction lag now behind the group, Tallman said she’s hopeful 10 single units and 10 family units will be fully furnished soon. At first, the group will start off housing five veterans.
“The staff has been very ready,” she said.
The St. Louis campus’ opening follows the organization’s housing its first veterans in Longmont, Colorado, last week and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, later this week.
The full complex in north St. Louis will eventually have 50 tiny homes used for transitional housing. Tallman said that she hopes the next set of 16 will start construction next spring. The last 14 would then follow along with a community center.
Exactly when the last set of tiny homes and community center are finished depends on funding, she said. In all, the project will cost $12 million, and Tallman said the nonprofit group is about halfway there.
On average, Veterans Community Project, a Kansas City-based organization, tracked that veterans stay in its tiny homes a little more than 400 days before moving onto permanent housing. The success rate of the group transitioning those vets to something permanent stands at 85%, Tallman said.
The organization designed the 240-square-feet units for individuals and 320-square-feet units for families of five to be “trauma-informed,” she said.
For example, that means the beds face the doors, walls are soundproof and there are only windows in the front of the units in order to reduce triggers for veterans suffering post-traumatic stress.
Everything in the units will belong to the veterans once they move into the tiny home. That includes the bedding, TV, kitchenware, tables and refrigerator.
For Tallman, an Air Force member for 20 years and now a veteran herself, she said she gets what those experiencing homelessness in the St. Louis region may feel like.
“That transition was very difficult for me,” she said. “I had my own mental health struggles. I didn't know how to be a part of just your civilian, society and the community.”
Some veterans avoid seeking assistance from homeless shelters because they might not trust those giving help or may not know how to ask for it.
“There's lots of services out there, but it can just be overwhelming to figure out which services are the right services,” Tallman said.
In addition to the homes, Veterans Community Project supplies those living in their homes with food and helps connect them with organizations to ease that transition at the outreach center. All veterans, regardless if they live in tiny homes or not, can get help there, Tallman said.
At last count, there were at least 1,000 veterans experiencing homelessness between Missouri and Illinois, Tallman said. However, she said, that figure is likely higher.
“Just knowing that there's individuals facing those barriers and those difficulties, we want to do everything we can to not have that be the case,” Tallman said.
