HELP Home

The 8 foot by 12 foot HELP Home is a mix between a small house, a ship’s cabin, and a travel trailer.  It has a fold-up front porch and is fully equipped with a living space containing a folding dining table and chairs, a sofa that converts to a full-size bed, and a drop-down twin-size bunk bed.  A kitchenette with sink, stove, refrigerator, and storage as well as a private bathroom with a pass-thru shower and toilet complete the interior.  A single HELP Home sleeps up to three people, while an alternate double HELP Home sleeps up to six.

However, there is more to consider in emergency housing than merely temporary shelter.  It is critical that in the rush to put a roof over peoples' heads other problems are not created in the process.  This, unfortunately, is what happens too often with the standard temporary-housing solutions offered today.

The HELP Home minimizes these problems in three important ways.  First, due to its relatively small size and efficient use of space and materials, a HELP Home drastically reduces the time and money required to manufacture and distribute it.  This savings allows more material and labor to be focused on rebuilding permanent housing in the stricken area.  The HELP Home’s compact size also means that six homes can be placed on a single truck trailer, resulting in extreme savings in transportation costs and fuel consumption.

Second, the HELP Home was designed to be placed directly on an individual’s damaged home site.  If you have room to park a car, you have room for a HELP Home.  Newly-created trailer parks such as FEMA City, which was assembled after Hurricane Charley hit Florida in 2004, are often “a socioeconomic time bomb just waiting to blow up,” said Bob Hebert, director of recovery for Charlotte County, where most FEMA City residents used to live.  “You throw together all these very different people under already tremendous stress, and bad things will happen.” [“FEMA’s City of Anxiety in Florida”, Marc Kaufman, Washington Post, 09/17/05]  Maintaining a neighborhood’s existing social fabric, as well as allowing greater security while permanent housing is rebuilt, is a key feature to the HELP Home.

Third, lifespan issues are carefully considered.  The HELP Home is designed to respond to varying existing conditions, such as access to or lack of running water, sewer, and electricity.  It can operate self-sufficiently, using a gravity-fed water system, composting toilet, and solar power, and then switch to the area’s infrastructure once it is available.  After permanent housing has been re-established, the HELP Home can be easily moved to another disaster location; stored in less space than a standard trailer; or placed in a back yard and used as a guest room, studio, or play house.  Alternatively, the interior furnishings can be dismantled and installed in the permanent home leaving the shell of the HELP Home to be used as a simple storage shed.