Milledgeville tiny home village would support homeless veterans

Mighty Hero Homes’ push for an 84-home tiny house village in Milledgeville now hinges on zoning, because nothing can break ground on the former Central State Hospital campus until the city signs off on the land-use changes.

The proposal would place 84 one- and two-bedroom homes and a community center on 20 acres the group said it secured on May 12, 2026. Organizers said that if the project clears approval, construction could start in October or November, with the first phase expected to cost at least $18 million.

The plan is aimed at homeless veterans, not as an emergency shelter but as a longer-term place to live while residents keep rebuilding their lives. Mighty Hero Homes says the location matters: the site sits near the Georgia War Veterans Home, a state-run, VA-certified skilled nursing facility on about 17 acres with an onsite VA community clinic serving Baldwin and surrounding counties. The former Central State Hospital campus also carries a heavy history, having once functioned as a self-contained community and, during the Civil War era, housed veterans without homes.

The housing model lines up with HUD-VASH, the federal program that pairs housing vouchers with VA case management and supportive services for homeless veterans. Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones backed the effort in a May 4 letter, saying Mighty Hero Homes was seeking 84 project-based HUD-VASH vouchers, a move he said could help unlock about $20 million in private and institutional funding for the Milledgeville base.

The timing is not accidental. Nationally, veteran homelessness has edged down but remains a real problem: the VA, HUD and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness counted 32,882 veterans experiencing homelessness in January 2024, a 7.5% drop from 2023 and the lowest level on record since tracking began in 2009. In Georgia, a Senate study committee report cited 620 homeless veterans identified in the state the previous year, and WSB-TV reported in November 2024 that the number had fallen nearly 8% year over year.

Mighty Hero Homes scheduled a community town hall for June 4, 2026, to unveil the 84-home plan, part of a broader mission led by CEO Drew Walston to build permanent, affordable “Home Bases” for veterans. Walston’s pitch is straightforward: veterans who arrive there should already be moving through recovery and need a stable footing, not just a bed for the night. If Milledgeville approves the land-use change, the project could become a working template for other Georgia communities trying to turn veteran homelessness from a statistic into a place to live.