Instead of building a shed like they usually do, students in Todd Faulhaber’s introduction to construction class at Madison La Follette High School this semester are going a little farther to learn basic building techniques. They're also learning about homelessness by building a tiny house for Occupy Madison’s OM Build project.
Power screw drivers were whirring full speed one morning last week as students framed walls they’ll eventually mount on the base they have already completed. Faulhaber was all over the place, checking angles and strength of connections of wall studs in the framing.
“It’s a little higher stakes, because someone’s going to be living there,” he said. Faulhaber previously had the students do online research and write papers on the tiny house movement in Madison.
Occupy Madison is building the 96-square-foot houses for homeless people as part of a new movement in that has caught on in a number of states. The nonprofit group is seeking a zoning change to allow placement of nine tiny houses around an east-side auto repair shop that members intend to buy and use as a workshop for the project. It's a first-of-its-kind and controversial proposal.
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Faulhaber said he heard about the tiny houses last fall, and last month visited the group’s current rented workshop on the far east side.
“It was an instant connection," he said. "I thought, ‘we can totally do this.'"
Students like the project too.
Sophomore Patrick Fowler said he’s always been interested in construction, and likes the connection to math.
“There’s a lot of geometry in this: angles, length, area, perimeter,” he said. He gets a kick out of how a project that started from a drawing on paper is taking shape in the students’ hands. “I know it’s going to change somebody’s life."
“It’s great I love it. It makes me want to come to class,” senior Connor Wallom said about project. “I’m really enjoying it and it’s a good thing for the community also. We’re the only high school in Wisconsin doing it."
While the class in past years has sold the shed it built to pay for materials, the tiny house will be given to the person who lives in it, so the class is raising money to recoup the cost of materials.
Senior Peter Hanson started a Facebook page, a Twitter feed and a webpage to sell T-shirts and solicit donations.
"The biggest thing is the donations, that’s what’s making this happen,” Wallom said. “Yesterday I went up to five teachers and told them about it. They came down and checked it out, and said 'I'll buy a t-shirt.'"
While OM Build puts the cost of each tiny house at $3,000, Faulhaber is hoping to bring the cost down by using as many recycled materials as possible. So far that has included the window, for example, and might also include boards from old LaFollette stadium bleachers to be used as floor boards inside.
As of Thursday, t-shirt sales had brought in $690, and other donations bring the amount raised so far to $1,400. The fundraising is scheduled to end in 18 days.
“It’s great because it’s coming from the community,” Hanson said.
Bruce Wallbaum, one of the organizers of OM Build, said he loves working with the La Follette class on the house that will be named for the school.
The OM Build model requires people receiving the houses to put in sweat equity and Wallbaum said that even if the house is complete by the end of the semester, there are plenty of other tasks related to the project that people perform to earn hours.
“The recipient will still be required to log 500 hours towards the stewardship of this home,” he said.
