Kalamazoo Valley Habitat for Humanity has built the first legally permitted tiny house in the city of Kalamazoo with the help of the students in the morning Medical Assistant class from Ross Medical Education Center in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Kalamazoo Valley Habitat for Humanity builds, rehabilitates, and repairs homes in Kalamazoo County and provides affordable housing to qualified homebuyers. The organization designed a 230 square foot house at the request of new homeowner, Ben Brown. Brown is an environmentalist who has sought to live as simply and as affordably as possible. The tiny house movement has seen a great increase in popularity since the Great Recession of 2008 and has become a viable option for people who want to save money and live more simply.
Tiny house owner and first-time home buyer, Ben Brown, was grateful for the helping hands of the Medical Assistant students. The entire class got a chance to put in some “sweat equity” and learned how to do insulation installation, yard work, and other home maintenance repairs and tasks. They learned the value of teamwork and became a closer family as a result. Their instructor, Carmen Earl, was proud of the noticeable amount of care and team effort the students were displaying for each other and for the task at hand. “The students all worked really hard as a team to help make Ben Brown’s housing dreams come true,” shared Medical Assistant Instructor Carmen Earl.
Helping someone else realize their dreams enabled these students to believe they could achieve their own dreams. They returned to class with a fresh perspective on life and success. Ross Medical in Kalamazoo values the experiences it brings to its students and continues to explore new ways to engage its students with the Kalamazoo community. They look forward to branching out even more in this new year, looking for different opportunities to support and improve the lives of organizations and individuals in the area.