AOG, your idea has already been tried. I quote from a website about Weeting Castle/Weeting Hall, in Norfolk:
"Weeting Hall, Norfolk. Demolished 1954. During the 1930's Weeting Hall was remodelled as an instructional centre by the government, taking in young, long-term unemployed men from areas of high unemployment during the Depression and giving them a three-month crash course in heavy manual work, with mixed results."
http://www.edp24.co.u...eting_castle_1_214152
My late uncle went to Weeting Hall in the 1930's, from Leeds, and he sent photos home that showed wooden huts (barracks) used as living accommodation in the grounds of the Hall. The "residents" were marched, army-style, from place to place, with their mugs, enamel, held behind them in the left hand. All that's left of the place now is the Hall's coach house. I don't know what effect, if any, it had on my uncle, because this happened before I was born.