Marine veteran receives new home, addresses need to help veterans return to civilian life
When 33-year-old Marine veteran Kenyata Johnson returned from combat over a year ago, he was plagued by a severe ankle injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Beginning in 2003, the Tennessee native served in multiple deployments all over the globe, including Okinawa, Kosovo, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Philippines, so returning to civilian life did not come easy. But thanks to Home Builders Care, the newly launched charitable arm of the Home Builders Association of Lexington (HBAL), the Marine will not have to worry about a permanent home for his family after all he has been through and with all of the help he is doing to give back to other veterans.
“He is definitely a success story all the way around,” said Todd Johnson, HBAL executive vice president, about Kenyata Johnson. “This is a young man who served our country and was in combat during his deployments and came back and had some issues where he was having trouble transitioning back into civilian life.
“He is making great progress through the VA programs and has picked himself up by his bootstraps,” Todd Johnson continued.
Kenyata Johnson is back in school and working through the VA to help other war veterans who are now in the same shoes he was in returning from active duty.
Home Builders Care hopes Kenyata Johnson’s new home will allow him to continue his work with the VA and make the continual transition into civilian life more seamless while providing his twin daughters a safe, comfortable place to live.
“Whenever we started out with this project, we had gone out through a lot of veterans associations and put out the word that we were looking for vets in need,” Todd Johnson said. “He was very thankful, very humble, very gracious. He’s very appreciative of our help. We just think he’s doing a tremendous job raising his daughters and getting his life together.”
The home is the first of many for Home Builders Care. The foundation was announced on Veterans Day 2011 and on Veterans Day 2012, Kenyata Johnson and his daughters cut the ribbon at their new home in Equestrian View.
“The Home Builders Association has been involved in charitable outreach in the community for the last several years, and we wanted to make it a more formal commitment on the association’s behalf,” Todd Johnson said. “So we moved forward with a 501c3 and made it official, so we can make more of an impact and have more fundraising opportunities.
“We’ve been in this community since 1963 as the Home Builders Association, and we’ve always been involved in the community,” he added. “For the last 10 or 15 years, we’ve been really focused on helping the community — making living conditions better, improving facilities. We are building communities for Lexington, and we want to give back any way we can.”
For the Kenyata Johnson home, many builders, contractors, suppliers and volunteers contributed time, money and resources to make the build happen. The 59-year-old HBAL also has pitched in money for the foundation to make homes like this happen on a more regular basis.
For Kenyata Johnson, the home will help him focus on pursuing his degree in vocational counseling and achieving his goal to work for the VA in helping to counsel returning veterans on their next steps toward college or a career.
“That journey in itself has been a handful,” he said of his own experience.
Kenyata Johnson said he thought he would jump back into the workforce with his military experience, but “it panned out that some of those experiences didn’t convert to credentials.”
This is something many veterans struggle with, he noted. Re-entering civilian life is not easy, and many veterans have to “start back at ground zero.”
“They can go and serve in the combat environment, but then they come back and can’t get work,” he said. “When I think about vets who have experienced that hardship and they are now coming back to no job and no stable livelihood — I think it’s very unfortunate. The credential aspect of things should be taken very seriously. A lot of the specific jobs in the military don’t directly convert to civilian jobs, but there is a great amount of leadership in [military experience].”
For him, he said, the greatest difficulty was coming back and getting his feet under him. The home is a huge help and is custom designed to meet his needs with his bad ankle.
“This opportunity has created a lifelong path of success,” Kenyata Johnson added. “It has really been a blessing ... It opens up an opportunity for me to be fully focused on my opportunities to give back.”
Stability for himself and his family, he said, is what the Home Builders Care program is helping to provide, and it is an area that is still lacking for many veterans.
“That is something I didn’t have in terms of an opportunity coming back from active duty,” he said, adding that veterans need a strong sense of support to regain their productivity in the workplace, school path or family life.
HBAL raises the bar for energy-efficient building
HBA of Lexington (HBAL) represents more than 700 companies that are part of the residential construction industry. Those companies employ nearly 7,000 workers locally. While much of the association’s focus is on regulatory issues and housing affordability, over the years the HBA has gained a solid reputation for education and professionalism among its membership.
Membership is not a right for any builder who wants to join. Some of the hurdles and standards for membership include required references from clients, banks and other businesses with whom the applying builder works on a regular basis (suppliers and vendors). To maintain membership as a Professional Builder Member of the HBA, the builder is required to earn eight hours of continuing education annually, and must maintain workers compensation and general liability insurance, must provide written contracts and warranties with their clients. Additionally, they must maintain a clean record with their clients.
The HBAL also ensures that its builders are kept updated on industry trends and new code requirements and know the leading-edge techniques and processes that make new homes better. Energy efficiency is a standout example of an area in which the association has been a front-runner. More than five years ago, the association began a campaign of relationship building and education with officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Kentucky Department of Energy Development and Independence (DEDI), Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET), utility providers and the Kentucky Housing Corporation (KHC), together with builders, to encourage more energy-efficient home building in central Kentucky. The HBAL and several of its builder members have since been recognized by EPA, the Kentucky Housing Corp. and local utility companies for the progress made in this area.
In March 2013, HBAL will celebrate its fifth anniversary of its Midwest Residential Energy Conference, which draws hundreds to Lexington each year to keep on the forefront of emerging knowledge, technology and techniques in and around building energy-efficient homes. Next year will also mark the first year to be an official RESNET Regional Conference. The Midwest Residential Energy Conference will be the first regional conference of its type in partnership with RESNET.
Additionally, the Home Builders Association of Lexington has partnered with RESNET to become the first HBA in the United States to promote the Energy Smart Builder Program to 100 percent of its builder members. This is a landmark partnership that increases the association’s ability to educate all residential industry professionals about the benefits of energy efficiency to their companies and the clients they serve.
Builders who sign on as Energy Smart Builders make a commitment to build 100 percent of their homes to be rated and verified with the RESNET HERS Index Label. HERS stands for Home Energy Rating System, which is part of the RESENT verification to ensure a home’s energy efficiency. In other words, it’s like an MPG sticker for a home in terms of energy use.