Once homeless, female veteran builds homes for others

Once homeless, veteran builds homes for others
WTOP News
By Thomas Warren
June 3, 2013

WASHINGTON - It's just before noon on an overcast and humid Sunday on the National Mall. Regina Best is down on her right knee, a screwdriver firm in her right hand, the nose held steady by her left. As she's done countless times in the past couple of hours, she gives a strong squeeze of the trigger to drill another screw into the frame of what soon will become a home for a family without one.

But, for Best, it's really how she's spent many a Sunday the past two years: building homes so others have a roof over their heads. Up until a month ago, she did so while not having a home for herself.

Life for Best, 40, started to unravel in 2011. By November, she lost her job as an assistant caterer.

"And then I was just in a really horrible relationship, and I ended up homeless," Best says.

Best was born in 1973 on March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County in Southern California, although it was known as March Air Force Base when she came into the world.

She is a former staff sergeant in the Air Force, working as a chef during four years of active duty and serving three years as a reservist. She left the military in 2003.
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