Kalamazoo tiny houses to host those turned away by landlords
KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — Three tiny houses in Kalamazoo will provide homes for people often turned away by landlords because of substance use disorder or criminal conviction in their past.
Helping Other People Exceed thru Navigation works to support those “detoured in life” and offer them routes to housing, employment and self-sufficiency. Thursday afternoon, organizers broke ground on three “Tiny Houses of HOPE.”
The houses are being built on the corner of W North Street and N Westnedge Avenue. They’re meant to be affordable, safe and permanent housing.
“I was dealing with a lot of clients that had money, they had great jobs. They had no credit because they never had the opportunity to build any credit. And they were paying rent to like KPEP (Kalamazoo Probation Enhancement Program) and sleeping on people’s couches because people refused to rent to them,” said Gwendolyn Hooker, founder and CEO of HOPE thru Navigation. “And I’m like, you know what? It’s my job as an organization that serves people with criminal backgrounds (and) substance use disorder history to figure out a way to provide housing.”
The group also owns the land across the street and is actively raising funds to build more tiny homes.
To learn more, visit HOPE thru Navigation’s website.
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