Re-Entry Alliance Pensacola and its community partners broke ground on 14 tiny homes for the homeless Oct 6.
The project, dubbed the Pallet Shelter Village, will be located at 1551 W. Moreno St. and will provide “safe, dignified, and transitional living spaces for individuals on their journey to stability,” a news release from REAP said.
Vince Whibbs, the executive director of REAP, said their goal is to have the units ready for occupancy by the Monday before Thanksgiving, roughly seven weeks after the groundbreaking ceremony.
Last year, the city of Pensacola allocated $1.1 million to buy shelters from Pallet PBC, a public benefit corporation based in Everett, Washington, that specializes in building “pallet shelters” for homeless relief and disaster response. The funds are coming out of the city’s share of the American Rescue Plan Act.
Pallet PBC builds small, one-room, movable temporary buildings that range from 70 square feet to 120 square feet. The buildings range from $17,970 to $23,595 apiece, plus a $1,200 shipping cost for most variations.
In June, the city selected REAP to host 14 of the units on its property and Offentsive Corp., a nonprofit dedicated to reducing overdoses, human trafficking and homelessness, to host 13 more.
The shelters will be leased to the two non-profits, and the city will retain ownership of them, so if anything changes with the sites in the future, the shelters will go back to the city to be reused by another organization.
REAP’s pallet shelters will be built at the former site of a homeless encampment established after the residents of a tent city that formed beneath Interstate 110 during the COVID-19 pandemic were forced to relocate.
Whibbs said the Pallet Shelter Village will include a restroom trailer with toilets, sinks and showers, including separate facilities for men and women. REAP staff will also provide case management to residents.
He estimated REAP will begin accepting applications for the units within the next couple of weeks.
During a rainy groundbreaking ceremony Oct. 6, Mayor D.C. Reeves said when the project is completed it will provide people who are on the street “the dignity to be under a roof in weather like this.”
Reeves and Whibbs said the project was possible thanks to collaboration among the REAP team, city staff, Opening Doors—the region’s lead homelessness prevention agency—Escambia County and other partners.
“We can dream big about large community visions, a large, low-barrier shelter and increasing capacity, but what can we do today? And that was really the genesis of the conversation about pallet shelters,” Reeves said. “What can we do quickly, not something that might take three or five years and millions and millions of dollars? What can we do (right now)?”
Whibbs said the project was 10 years in the making and that along with governments and nonprofits, private citizens and local businesses had also stepped up to support the initiative in a “true community effort.”
“All of us are cooperating with each other to meet this tremendous need that we have, to solve the needs of the homeless people,” Whibbs said.
For more information visit https://www.reapreentry.org/ or call 850-332-6677.
News Journal reporter Jim Little contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Work begins on ‘village’ of 14 pallet shelters for the homeless in Pensacola
Reporting by Kevin Robinson, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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