HOPE Academy finishes ‘Tiny House’ project

TYLER –There may have been a few set backs along the way, but male juvenile offenders, in the Juvenile Services Vocational Program, have the building of a ‘tiny house.’ Ross Worley, Director of Juvenile Services for Smith County told KTBB on Tuesday, “It kind of took us a little time because we have kids coming and kids going, but, one our big parts of our classes is construction…It was an opportunity to teach the kids all of the mechanics and the process of building a home. So, you learn how to put windows in, doors in, how to do floors, how to do walls, how to do sheet rock and all of those things.”

This was a project with the HOPE Academy, a residential program started back in 2015. The completed tiny house cost about $11,000 total, but Juvenile Services received about $5,000 of that in donations. Worley continued, “Some of these kids have never picked up and swung a hammer before. So to go through the process of putting up a wall…How you put it up, why you put it up and the building process of doing that.” David Peters, who retired from owning a construction business before going to work for the Smith County Juvenile Services Department, spearheaded the building campaign. Since the start of the H.O.P.E. Academy, there have been a total of 77 residents. Six kids are currently in the program, which can typically house 12.