SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — A group that provides shelter and services for those in need in central New York says a homeless man spent nearly a decade living in a well-built shack he constructed near a Syracuse highway.

Officials at the Syracuse Rescue Mission took a reporter from The Post-Standard (http://bit.ly/2m22opJ ) to a wooded area near Interstate 81 where a man in his 50s had lived for nine years.

Mission officials say the man used discarded materials to build a two-room shack with a foundation, two doors, a window and a tar paper-covered roof. Inside there's a bed built on a frame, a makeshift table, a shelf and hooks for hanging clothes.

Mission officials became aware of the man's situation in October. They eventually convicted him to move into an apartment provided by Catholic Charities.

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Information from: The Post-Standard, http://www.syracuse.com

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