Several roads around Evanston Township High School were closed to traffic and parking Monday morning for what’s become a special annual tradition – the moving of a two-story home built by students in the school’s “Geometry in Construction” course. The class gives students a chance to learn the principles of geometry hands-on through the process of constructing a house, which they accomplish alongside their teachers in rain, snow and sunshine in the ETHS parking lot throughout each academic year.
The program started a decade ago, and it also serves a real purpose in the community. Once complete, each home is moved from the school to a vacant lot nearby, where it becomes part of a land trust run by local nonprofit Community Partners for Affordable Housing. That means the house will be sold at a subsidized price affordable for middle-income families, and property value increases are capped so that future sales are affordable as well.
One Geometry in Construction house went for $190,000 a little over a year ago. It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and front and back porches.
Monday’s move of the most recently completed house involved a big rig truck carrying it east from ETHS down Lake Street, south on Dodge Avenue, west on Dempster Street and north on McDaniel Avenue to its destination. Professional contractors will now outfit the home with electrical wiring and connect it to water and plumbing lines.
Anyone interested in buying the new home should attend a Community Partners for Affordable Housing land trust homeownership information session, which you can register for here. You can also check out more of the scene from Monday’s move in the gallery below. (Photos by Joerg Metzner.)
Photos: ETHS moves another two-story home built by students is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.