Fayetteville Tech Community College teaches mother and daughter

Tiny home village houses homeless people in Los Angeles

A tiny housing estate in Los Angeles offers some homeless residents a place of refuge and relaxation from the street life. (March 11)

AP

Like many mothers, Cynthia Hadden has great ambitions to give her family the best she can. That led her to the idea of ​​founding a small flat-sharing community.

“I thought, ‘I want a tiny house, that would be cool,'” said the mother of four. “I was like, ‘My kids could have their own room, but it would be a house and all of their junk would be in their house, not my house.'”

With that idea in mind, Hadden, a native of Chicago, didn’t know how to start and just kept searching for videos online. Then their idea was expanded.

“I decided to help the homeless at the same time,” she said. “Well, now I want to build tiny houses, but a village, so to speak, so they can all work together.”

“Service is everything”: Drive-through event for food donations will benefit the FTCC food pantry

Her dreams of a small shared apartment led Hadden to Project Cumberland Grow, a professional training and placement program at Fayetteville Technical Community College. She found the program through someone in a nail technology program she had previously attended. She previously said she couldn’t get funding for the program, but one of the coaches in the program saw her drive.

Hadden said Marvin Price Jr., the successful coach for the program, noted how much she wanted to be part of the 11-week program and said her expenses would be covered.

“He said, ‘We’ll pay for it if you’re passionate about it,'” she said. “I thought, ‘I just want to do something good for our community,’ I just wanted to do something good. So he said, ‘Okay, I just wanted to know that you had the passion for it and didn’t go to waste the money.’ “

The program is a little under a year old and began after it was funded by the Golden LEAF Foundation, a nonprofit that works to improve North Carolina’s economic opportunity.

“We focus on individuals who typically face barriers to employment because of their background or criminal record,” said Marvin Price, Jr., success coach for the program. “We also focus on or help people with long-term unemployment. They may have applied for jobs, but it hasn’t worked for them for a while, so we offer them opportunities too.”

Hadden didn’t go through the program alone; She was accompanied by her 72-year-old mother Geraldine Williams, who has experience in construction.

“That was the best part,” said Hadden. “We were the only two women in class so we often felt out of place because of the guys. They had their little chats or whatever and me and my mom, we just sit there like ‘OK’, we will just have our own conversation. ”

The two said they learned a lot from participating in the program.

“I loved every minute,” said Williams. “I wanted to know more about how your houses are put together, the pipes, the whole system.”

Hadden wasn’t the only one happy to have her mother in class, Price said.

“A lot of our instructors were really inspired by their ability to focus, do well on tests, the test scores were really, really good,” he said. “She actually worked with all of the trades that we offer. She was definitely an inspiration.”

Williams encourages other people her age to keep studying and moving.

“I took it from a teenager, she told me, ‘The earth is always moving, even if you can’t feel it moving, it is always moving and everything around it is moving. Once it stops, everything dies ‘”, she said. “I said, ‘Oh my god, I can’t sit on my back here and do nothing. I have to get up and try to move around, find out something every day.'”

Williams added that everyone her age should find something to do for three weeks, take a break, and then find something else.

“Just get up and enjoy,” she said.

The other two and four completed the program on June 23rd. Both received the program’s certifications in OSHA (Standard Safety), Basic Electrical, Plumbing, and HVAC.

The next cohort in the program began on July 6th. For more information about the program, visit the FTCC website or call Price at 910-678-9799.

Hadden and Williams moved from Chicago to Fayetteville about 13 years ago, attracted by Hadden’s sister who already lived here and the absence of snow.

They plan to continue taking classes and studying as much as possible as they prepare to create a small shared apartment for their family and the underprivileged. Hadden said the community would be based in Harnett County.

Staff writer Akira Kyles can be reached at akyles@gannett.com.

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