This Program Houses Homeless Vets for Free. The Catch Is the Hard Part.

Sixth location breaks ground in Milwaukee

Bryan Meyer came home from the Marines and ended up in legal trouble.

Mark Solomon, Brandonn Mixon, and Vincent Morales all served in combat and came back to Kansas City feeling lost.

They kept running into homeless veterans who couldn’t get help from existing programs, so in 2016 they started using their own money for hotel rooms.

By 2018, they had built 13 tiny homes on five acres they bought for $500 from the Kansas City Land Bank.

On October 13, 2025, they broke ground on their sixth village in Milwaukee, and the model that started with four frustrated veterans is now operating in six states with an 85 percent success rate.

Four Veterans Got Tired of Watching People Fall Through Cracks

Bryan Meyer served five years as a Marine with multiple tours in the Middle East. When he got back to Kansas City, he struggled to adjust and ended up in court.

A judge helped him find counseling, and that’s where he met other veterans facing the same problems. Mark Solomon, Brandonn Mixon, and Vincent Morales had all deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

They started meeting up in Kansas City around 2016, and they kept seeing the same thing. Veterans were sleeping on streets because shelters turned them away for past infractions or addiction issues.

The VA had strict eligibility rules that left people out.

The four of them started paying for hotel rooms out of pocket, but they knew that wasn’t a real solution.

They Planned an Apartment Complex but Built Tiny Homes Instead

The original plan was to buy an apartment building and offer transitional housing with case management. Then they started looking at the numbers and realized tiny homes would work better.

They could build a community that felt like base housing, which most veterans remembered as a stable time in their lives. The homes would be small but dignified, with everything a person needs.

In 2017, they bought five acres from the Kansas City Land Bank for $500. The lot was empty, surrounded by apartments and a storage facility.

The deal with the city required full code compliance and connection to public utilities. That meant installing a sewer line, which cost a million dollars and delayed the project a full year.

The First 13 Homes Opened in Kansas City in 2018

The Kansas City village welcomed its first residents in January 2018.

Each home measured 240 square feet, built on a concrete foundation with full plumbing and electricity.

Inside was a bed, a small kitchen, a bathroom, new furniture, new appliances, dishes, bedding, and a fully stocked refrigerator.

The homes were painted different colors: deep blue, dark maroon, slate gray, mustard yellow. An American flag hung outside most of them.

The layout was arranged like barracks, which veterans recognized immediately.

Vincent Morales, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, explained it this way: if you had 240 square feet to yourself with air conditioning and running water while deployed, you were doing something right.

For combat veterans, these tiny homes felt like a second home.

Veterans Get Everything From Furniture to Job Training

When a veteran moves into a village, they pay zero rent.

They get a case manager who works with them at the Village Center, a building at the heart of each community. The center has offices, classrooms, and a fellowship hall.

Case managers use something called the H. O. M. E. S. Index to figure out what each person needs most: health services, financial help, education, job training, or social support. Some veterans need mental health counseling.

Some need help with addiction. Others just need a safe place to sleep while they save money and find work.

The program doesn’t have a time limit.

Veterans can stay as long as they keep working with their case manager and making progress toward independence.

Most People Stay About 11 Months Before Moving On

The average stay at a Veterans Community Project village is 335 days, just under 11 months. Some people leave sooner, others take longer.

Nobody gets kicked out for taking too long as long as they keep working toward their goals. When a veteran moves to permanent housing, they take everything with them.

The furniture, the appliances, the dishes, the bedding, all of it. That’s by design.

Bryan Meyer, now the CEO, says it sets people up for success instead of sending them to an empty apartment with nothing.

The program measures success by one thing: did the veteran transition to sustainable permanent housing? So far, 85 percent of people who complete the program do exactly that.

The 85 Percent Success Rate Beats Most Programs by a Mile

Most homeless programs struggle to get people into permanent housing.

Veterans Community Project hits 85 percent, and they do it by combining housing with serious support services. The tiny homes give people immediate stability and dignity.

The case management addresses the underlying problems that caused homelessness in the first place. The community of other veterans creates a support network that civilian programs can’t replicate.

Dave Myers, an Army veteran who came to the Kansas City village after prison and addiction, now works full time on the operations team. He knows the residents because he lived what they’re living.

He’s part of why the model works.

Milwaukee Becomes the Sixth Village in Six States

On October 13, 2025, about 600 people gathered at 60th Street and Green Tree Road in Milwaukee for a groundbreaking ceremony. Governor Tony Evers spoke.

State Senator Patrick Testin spoke. Bryan Meyer and Mark Solomon were there.

The site is seven acres on Milwaukee’s northwest side, and it will hold 40 tiny homes when construction finishes in 2026. Thirty homes will be for individuals, ten for families, and two will meet ADA requirements.

The other five villages are in Kansas City with 49 homes, St. Louis with 50, Longmont Colorado with 26, Sioux Falls South Dakota with 25, and Glendale Arizona with 50. When Milwaukee finishes, that’s 240 homes total across six states.

Wisconsin Put $2.5 Million Into the Budget

The Milwaukee project costs $11. 7 million.

Senator Patrick Testin, a Republican from Stevens Point, championed the project and got $2. 5 million included in the 2025-2027 state budget.

He credits consultant Buddy Julius with introducing him to the concept and showing him the demonstration house that Veterans Community Project set up during Summerfest.

Testin said veterans often struggle to navigate VA programs when they come home, and the wraparound services Veterans Community Project provides get people back on their feet.

Governor Evers, a Democrat, supported the funding and showed up for the groundbreaking. More than 300 veterans experience homelessness in Wisconsin, and about 32,000 face it nationwide on any given night.

Milwaukee Tool and the Brewers Filled the Rest

As of the groundbreaking, the Milwaukee project had raised about $5 million of the $11. 7 million needed.

Milwaukee Tool contributed $250,000 and donated thousands of dollars in tools. The company also helped arrange the land purchase.

Bill Malzewski, a quality engineering manager at Milwaukee Tool, chairs the capital campaign. He started looking at land with the city six years ago, and his father served in Vietnam.

The Milwaukee Brewers Community Foundation donated money. So did Generac, We Energies, Phillip Morris International, Delta Defense, West Bend Insurance, U. S. Venture, and Molson Coors.

The 2024 RNC Host Committee also contributed.

Malzewski says community members complete 75 percent of the work on these projects through volunteering.

29 Veterans Moved to Permanent Homes in 2025 Alone

In 2025, 29 veterans graduated from Veterans Community Project villages into their own permanent housing. Hundreds more are working with case managers right now across the six locations.

One Iraq veteran named Chris came to the Kansas City village completely homeless, cut off from his family, with no custody rights to see his kids.

He stayed in a tiny home, worked with counselors, and built relationships with other veterans in the village. He earned a college degree and now manages part of Veterans Community Project’s construction business.

He sees his kids again. He bought his own house.

Bryan Meyer and his three co-founders started this in 2016 because they were tired of watching veterans sleep on streets. Now they’re building villages in six states, and they’re not planning to stop.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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