Choices for Youth's new program builds affordable housing and skills for the builders

A new social enterprise has completed construction of an affordable housing project dedicated to young families, but the project isn't just building safe homes for young people it's also building the lives of the people who constructed it.

James Hoskins, who mentored other young people on Impact Construction, teaching them how to use tools properly and safely, used to struggle with addiction. He says the organization behind the project, Choices for Youth a non-profit agency focusing on housing and support for youth has turned his life around.

Six or seven years ago, Hoskins told CBC News while standing in one of the newly completed rentals, he was addicted to substances.

"I was fortunate enough to get a job here and I've been clean ever since," he said.

Hoskins is now studying to be a child- and youth-care worker for people with addictionsand says he's getting all 80s and 90s in school.

"I found my passion for helping others," said Hoskins.

"I was learning more about myself. I'm learning more about the company. And it's to the point now where I I feel like I owe this company and I want to give back to it."

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April Evanswanted to learn about the building's electrical system, and she helpedwireit under the tutelage of a contractor.

"I got sweaty and dirty and [did] everything that he told me to do, and I [did] a really, really good job," Evans said.

The experienceinspired Evans to enrol in school to become an electrician.

"I'm the only female in my class and I am getting 80s and 90s," she said.

"So it's pretty great."

Evans wishes she had found Choices for Youth and Impact Construction sooner.

"It would have been amazing to be able to know that there was this kind of support for people that are in trouble," she said.

"But either way, I found this place and it's the biggest, best experience I ever had in my life."

Sheldon Pollett, Choices for Youth's executive director, says the project has employed 38 young people. Hesays many of them have gone on to enrol in school or find jobs after working on the project, just like Evans and Hoskins.

He says, in addition to helping youth, the project is saving the provincial government money.

"It's generated over 8,000 hours of employment for young people, amounting to over $100,000 of earned income for young people, which translates also into over $60,000 in savings for the provincial government from the income support system," he said.

Young families who are participants in Choices for Youth'sMomma Moments program a support program for young parents and pregnant women will be selected to move into one of the five new affordable apartments, on the corner of Pennywell Road and Cashin Avenue in St. John's, before Christmas.

"It's amazing. It's beautiful. And I can't wait to see people living in it," said Evans.

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