Homelessness is a dire issue in Los Angeles, where an estimated 50,000 people take to the streets each night to sleep in makeshift housing. Now, a group of 11 senior architecture students at the University of Southern California has come together to create an affordable solution that can help ease L.A.’s expanding “tent city.”
(Brandon Friend-Solis)
The “Homes for Hope” project is part of The Homeless Studio, a project that the non-profit MADWORKSHOP (Martin Architecture and Design Workshop) developed in partnership with USC. The participants in “Homes for Hope” designed the prototype for a single-unit occupancy housing unit, which at $25,000 a pop, can be cheaply built.
It’s also easily transportable and can be set up or broken down as needed, Fast Company reports. Although voters have approved a $1.2 billion bond to build 10,000 apartment units for the chronically homeless throughout the next 10 years, Los Angeles’ strict zoning laws make it the hardest place to build in in the country—and the situation is already dire.
The project aims to work with the city’s bureaucracy rather than against it, and notes that it isn’t permanent—in fact, the genius is “in its temporariness,” according to Anne Dobson, director of communications at an area nonprofit that’s working to build housing for the homeless.
“What I love about it is it’s almost genius in its temporariness,” Dobson told Fast Company. “They can be set up as they’re needed, and then disassembled and set up elsewhere.”
The CEO of the nonprofit Hope of the Valley agrees.
“I’m not saying this is the panacea, but this is a solution that will work and it could be implemented quickly and at much lower cost,” Ken Craft told Fast Company. “If it is implemented on a grander scale, it could put a huge dent in reducing homelessness in Los Angeles.”
(Brandon Friend-Solis)
—RealClearLife Staff
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