JEFF-VANDER-LOU – A plan to build a “village” of tiny houses for homeless veterans got a boost Wednesday with a grant of $2.2 million from the Missouri Veterans Commission.
The money is coming from the Missouri Veterans Care and Health Fund, set up as part of the state’s new medical marijuana law. ) The Veterans Community Project first approached the state’s veterans commission in 2019 about the plan, and it won a place in the budget.
The nonprofit, founded and run by combat veterans, is based in Kansas City and is funded largely by private donations. A village of the tiny homes is already operating there.
The four-acre site for the tiny village, along Aldine Avenue west of N. Grand Boulevard, was dedicated in October. The houses will be on about a block and a half of Aldine just west of the John Cochran Veterans Administration hospital at 915 N. Grand. The project’s footprint lies in three of the city’s wards: Ward 19, Alderwoman Marlene Davis; Ward 18, Alderman Jesse Todd; and a sliver in Ward 4, Alderwoman Dwinderlin Evans.

St. Louis has already begun another such a village of tiny houses, at 900 N. Jefferson Avenue, near downtown. That project is for any otherwise homeless person, not necessarily veterans.