Housing project for female veterans and their children

Home Depot volunteers Gary Crew, Emily Simpson and Christine Vincent help build the garden on an old U.S. Navy housing village in San Pedro that will become the nation’s first permanent housing complex exclusively for female veterans.   (Christina House / For The Times)

Volunteer Corey Jensen helps build a gazebo for Blue Butterfly Village, which will offer 74 townhomes for female veterans.  (Christina House / For The Times)

Volunteers of America is spending $15 million to convert the nine acres the U.S. Navy gave the nonprofit service group for free in 1997, as part of its base reuse project after the Long Beach shipyards shut down.  (Christina House / For The Times)

Although emergency shelters and temporary housing for homeless women are becoming more common, most long-term supportive housing for veterans is still geared toward men, according to Robert Pratt, president of Volunteers of America Greater Los Angeles.  (Christina House / For The Times)

“These women are not damaged, they’re not ill,” Robert Pratt says of the female veterans who will soon live in San Pedro’s Blue Butterfly Village. “They’ve just had traumatic experiences. They need a place of their own.”  (Christina House / For The Times)