KINGSTON – City-owned vacant lots on Cedar and Franklin streets in Kingston will no longer remain so.
An open house was conducted Thursday at the Everette Hodge Center detailing how those lots will be used as plots for four tiny homes to be built through a city partnership with Family of Woodstock.
“The target population for the tiny homes are homeless families or families that are about to be evicted,” said Michael Berg, of the Family of Woodstock.
“This is like rapid rehousing to get people an opportunity to be able to build up enough equity and financial income to be able to afford the rents that are going to be occurring in two years.
Families that need a tiny house can rent them for up to two years, and they will pay $900-a-month rent before they can stabilize their income in order to get ready for higher housing costs once they leave their tiny house.
“They need to get stable and then have an opportunity, with two years of support, to be able to live in this community,” said Berg. “It is substantially less than the (rental) market. But if we only go with public assistance rental, it’s too big a leap for people to successfully make that jump, we believe.”
The open house offered a glimpse at the preliminary design of the homes, which will be able 400 sq. feet in size.
“They include two bedrooms, kitchen, a living space and there is also an outdoor courtyard and play area for the kids,” said Bartek Starodaj, who represented Kingston at the open house.
Construction of the homes, built with a metal skeleton and wood siding, could begin late this spring or early summer and be finished sometime this summer.
