Volunteers helped build shelter for homeless people on Lake Moses. | Pixabay
Volunteers helped build shelter for homeless people on Lake Moses. | Pixabay
Volunteers with the Raymond Rotary Club are pitching in under the direction of Sgt. Jim Bennett, with the Blood Tribe Police Service, to build bunks houses that will take homeless people at Moses Lake off the streets and give a roof overhead.
“Each one of these homes is going to house four people, we have five homes, so that will be 20 people that will be out of the elements,” Bennett told the Global News.
Since last year, Bennett had been planning the project to replace tents the homeless at Moses Lake had been living in at the Blood Reserve in Alberta.
On June 13, the volunteers assembled in Raymond to begin building the homes, each an eight-by-twelve-foot structure capable of housing four bunks, with a front door and one window for each occupant.
In the past, tents and sleeping bags had been donated to the Lake Moses homeless, but Bennett told the Global News he wanted something more permanent and durable. The idea was suggested by a local couple.
Rotary Club provided $10,000 for the building materials, $7,500 from a district grant and $2,500 from the club, President Steve Leavitt told the Global News.
Long-time Rotarian Doug Streibel created the architectural design for the bungalows.
“I spent three days building the prototype last week. Yesterday I cut out most of the material and laid it out so that all this help could come and put it together — and it’s working,” Streibel told the Global News.
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