Staff photo / Ed Runyan Axess Family Services Assistant Director of Veterans Services Brandi Parker shows an area of veterans housing made with shipping containers at Veteran’s Haven at West Warren Avenue and Hillman Street on Youngstown’s South Side Thursday.

YOUNGSTOWN — Axess Family Services Inc. Veteran’s Haven project at the intersection of West Warren Avenue and Hillman Street on the South Side is starting to take shape.

The project may be best known for using steel shipping containers to create the frame for each of 14 veteran living units in the facility. The structure also has a common area in the center where veteran services and amenities will be provided, such as Axess offices for case managers, a programs office, a Veterans’ Affairs liaison office, creative arts therapies, lounge, laundry and a kitchen.

The common area is being built with traditional construction methods, not shipping containers.

Axess, of Ravenna, was formerly known as Family and Community Services before it merged with AxessPointe, said Brandi Parker, assistant director of veterans services for Axess, during a tour Thursday.

The organization already operates six transitional veteran housing facilities. They are in Canton, Lorain County and Akron. Youngstown will be the seventh Axess location. The Youngstown facility is the only one that is using shipping containers, Parker said.

“Each shipping container is a bedroom and a (full) bathroom for our veterans,” Parker said.

All construction is expected to be complete by the end of the summer. She said the facility is expected to open for veterans to move in in October.

Axess has also purchased the land on each of the three other corners of the intersection with plans to build single-family units for veterans there also. There is no timeline for when that construction will take place.

Officials have said previously that Veteran’s Haven’s goal is to serve homeless and at-risk veterans, providing housing, support services and resources for rehabilitation and independence.

Parker said previously that using shipping containers is greener, faster and less expensive but looks like a traditional home built out of wood and lumber once finished.