Rochester "Earth House" to Help Haitians

Rochester, NY - Right now, the structure looks more like a giant beehive than a place to enjoy morning coffee, but when it's finished, this eco-friendly house will save money, and help Rochester's youth learn and grow. Students from the Freedom School are being trained to build these homes. 

"We're going to be traveling to Haiti," says Larry Cotton, who is helping to build the earth house. "We're going there to help build some for the people that lost their house... to help out."

According to Sister Marsha Allen from the Peace Center for Youth & Family Advancement,  "The mayor of Cabaret, Haiti has given us 10 acres to build a surround care and green technology center. We plan to build, on this trip, an eco dome, and five 12-foot emergency shelters with kitchens and bathrooms."

Ultimately, 5,000 people will live on the site.

Ninety percent of the building materials used to construct the earth house come from the ground. The structures are essentially made of sandbags and dirt, but based on what's inside, you'd never know it.

Brother Ron Jurgensen, construction manager for the project says, "An entry niche, as we call it, goes into a main dome area, which is like the living area. Then off of that, a sleeping niche, a full kitchen, a full bath, and what we call an energy tower."

Teams will be heading to Haiti next month to put up some of these structures, but these structures may pop up in Rochester, too.

"We're trying to track with the city's green strategy, and this is about as green as you can get," says Allen. "All the earth you see - this building structure - we dug it out 4 feet to be below the frostline, so we didn't even have to ship in earth to build it."