As our nation crumbles around us we could do worse than pursue further research and development on such dwellings. A whole lot of restrictive lace curtain laws regarding how people live and survive are going to be abandoned as more and more Americans enter the brave new Third World.

I can understand wanting to give them a sturdy shelter, but $400 a pop? Seems like getting more people shelter for less might be a better option.

After we give everyone one of these, we’ve solved the problem.

When someone who is neither psychotic nor substance-abusing falls on hard times and loses their home, studies have shown that the average time that they will remain homeless is one (1) day.

Sure, buy some tents as a stopgap. But realize that it is a stopgap, and no substitute for providing mental health care to those who need it. And also realize that those need inpatient mental health care the most are unlikely to voluntarily seek treatment.

So my four bedroom Cape Cod should be worth somewhere between half a million and a million dollars…

I agree with #10 that there won’t be universal agreement among the homeless that this is not as good as a shelter bed.

The vast majority of homeless persons are so because of a mental health issue, to include substance abuse.

Organizations distributing shelters like this are merely introducing a new commodity to this very basic level of the economy. It doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t help, either.

#36 makes a good point, as well. If we can’t afford to address the root problem, there are better ways to make the streets survivable. While these portable shelters are a charming design problem for well-meaning industrial designers, tarps, fleece blankets, waterproof stuff sacks, and possibly mosquito nets would be more effective in every respect.

The Hexayurt refugee shelter which, for homeless populations, could be made in a folding edition out of, say, corrugated plastic for about $20 a pop and then given away to people who need overnight shelter.

You can get a pretty good idea of what that kind of shelter would look like from this unit made of old political campaign signs!

After dealing with shelters for a little while, it’s no surprise that people end up sleeping outside, where at least they have some semblance of freedom, independence and self-respect. However sleeping outside is dangerous, especially in regions where it gets cold. In northern US cities, people freeze to death every year, huddled outside warm empty buildings.

This idea seems like penny ante compared to the increasingly popular and effective strategy of providing actual transitional housing instead of shelter. But if it can save the lives of people who (quite justifiably) reject sleeping in a shelter, it’s probably worthwhile.

Prolly mucked up the grammar there.

If a city gives these wheeled shelters to the homeless, they have to also give them designated sites scattered around the city to set up in. Sites with showers, toilets, covered cooking areas, some government presence and security.

#55 Interesting idea. I bet there’s a lot of organizations that don’t even know about those blankets and/or where to get them. I didn’t know there was such a thing till you mentioned it and I googled it. Those could be a really helpful thing that would be affordable.

That’s going to change. The ranks of the homeless will grow to include people whose only disorder is homelessness.

Think the Joads.

I don’t want the LA Times to die! You want to talk about an indispensible teaching tool? The newspaper is a freakin godsend in the classroom. A very cheap, plentiful source of information, available in many places where classrooms full of laptops may not be. I used the San Jose Mercury News every day in my classroom.

Sitting down to read the paper is one of these quintessentially democratic experiences that shouldn’t be so blithely thrown in the dustbin of time.

I say, long live the LA Times, the Mercury News, and innumerable others across the country that provide relevant and meaningful news to the broadest demographics possible. I mean, I guess there is TV, but seriously, the “newspaper” really shouldn’t have to die now, should it?

These shelters are lovely in theory. The combination of “Guilt Alms” and perpetuating a cycle play nicely into changing nothing. Changing building codes to allow single person Micro Houses for example might be a better start. Here’s why. A flimsy portashelter depreciates any investment in it very quickly. Make single person dwellings in hospitable climates. Which can uplift that unwillingly homeless single person into a modestly but dignified housed person. With incentives to eventually move up in the world if they choose to. And when they move out someone else moves in. The rest is details.