Shovels are finally hitting dirt as workers begin construction at the tiny home project on Fourth Avenue.
More than a dozen North Island College carpentry students started building the bases yesterday, and will begin construction of the pods once the panels start arriving today.
Port Alberni Friendship Centre executive director Cyndi Stevens is in charge of the project, and says they should be able to start housing people after Christmas.
“We had hoped mid-December but it’s not looking like that at this point,” she said. “If we did mid-December we would only be able to house maybe 9 people. We’ll definitely have people to staff it by then but it will probably be January before we can get people in here.”
The bathroom and shower building was put in place earlier this week, and the electrical room arrived yesterday.
Stevens said they hope to have the first 2 pods in place this week and three more completed next week, and they hope to have the 30 pods in place by January
She said they hope to start moving people over from the illegal trailer encampment at the end of December, with all 15 RV renters in their new places in January.
NIC Lead instructor Morgan Brown said the students will begin their level 1 apprenticeship building the first of the 30 tiny homes and support structures.
“In our scope we’ve got 18 individual pods to do and the office building,” he said.
Most of the students are in the Nuu-chah-nulth Employment Training Program, and project coordinator Cyndi Stevens said they will be looking to hire carpenters to complete the project after Christmas and into the New Year.
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