The Tiny Homes Project started in 2017 after former assistant principal of Summer Creek Allen Segura saw a Facebook post on tiny homes in Kansas City. He contacted architecture teacher Missi Taylor, who used to work at Summer Creek, to see if she was interested. She immediately said yes.

Taylor took a trip with students to Community First, a village in Austin. She wanted to remodel the program there with one goal in mind: Build a house each year for a homeless veteran. 

Because students are building a house for a veteran, Taylor wants to make sure that students understand that craftsmanship and neatness matters. Although material is paid for by another organization, Taylor makes sure students still know they have to pay attention and work hard on what they are doing. 

“They think it’s OK to mess up and just grab another piece of wood because they think it’s free,” Taylor said. “I always say, ‘Would you want to live in a house that is built poorly?’” 

Over time, challenges have arisen while building the homes. From first-year struggles in 2018 to the COVID years, Taylor has learned how to overcome issues to meet the goal of building one tiny home a year. 

“With the first one, it was just so hard,” Taylor said. “I’d never done it. But once I’m given a deadline, I always meet them.” 

Last year, senior construction manager Austin Whittington and the team dealt with struggles that set them back a few weeks. But he expects these problems can and will be avoided this year. 

“We have to make sure we measure multiple times before we cut,” Whittington said. “Making sure that we don’t get ahead of ourselves and don’t try to rush things.” 

The Tiny Homes team regularly travels to Langetree Retreat and Eco Center in Liberty to work on maintenance at the site where all the houses are placed. 

The team is currently working on its ninth home as a whole new group of kids become involved. With all the hardships that Taylor and the students face in the program, she spends many hours on Tiny Homes and it is something very important to her. 

After working with former captains Chase Bennett and Major Dalby, senior Ronan Flaherty was selected as a captain and plans to go to Texas A&M. He believes the Tiny Homes program is something very important and should be taken seriously.

“We’re building a home for a homeless veteran, somebody who’s served our country before,” Flaherty said. “You realize the good deed that you’ve done and I like seeing the veteran get to actually see their home that they’re going to be living in for the foreseeable future.”