As inflation rages as corporations make record profits while politicians make no efforts to curb high prices or skyrocketing rents caused by price gouging, homelessness is on the rise.
Homelessness was believed to have grown about 20 percent between 2021 and 2022 in Austin, Texas.
This left many to take to local parks and public spaces to camp out for shelter under tents and tarps.
City voters subsequently opted to reinstate a law preventing public camping.
Anyone caught lying down or camping on public property in Austin, Texas will be charged with a misdemeanor and fined up to $500.
The City has also put forth hundreds of millions of dollars to create more housing for the homeless.
A viable solution has come from a partnership between a local construction tech company, ICON, and Mobile Loaves and Fishes.
ICON has built 400-square-foot 3-D-printed homes that are durable and can be built in less than 27 hours with few workers.
Logan Architecture designed each home, and each one has a full-kitchen kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room, and a large porch.
“Typically the way that we house the homeless is with an inferior housing product that has very high maintenance costs, [and] is hard to take care of,” Jason Ballard, co-founder and CEO of ICON, said.
But that’s not the case with these ICON homes.
The cost to build one of these 3-D homes is about $4,000.
They are all built with durability and aren’t too shabby looking either!
“Just walking up the steps, it’s [like] ‘Oh my goodness this is beautiful’,” Alan Graham, CEO for Mobile Loaves & Fishes, said. “We’re talking about [helping] the most despised, outcast, lost, and forgotten. [Putting] the most vulnerable humans that live in our community, into a place that they can call home.”
The homes are being included in Mobile Loaves & Fishes’ Community First! Village.
Community First! Village is a 51-acre master-planned community for the chronically homeless.
Residents must have had to experience chronic homelessness, have a disability, and are required to pay rent for these 3-D homes.
ICON has also built a visitors center for the Community First!
Village, which has crisp white walls and lots of plants to give the 3-D printed unit life.
Alan Graham, the Founder and CEO of Mobile Loaves & Fishes says that Community First!
Village was the perfect place to experiment with ICON’s 3D housing concept.
ICON hopes to make affordable and dignified housing available to everyone with its 3D printing techniques.
They see 3D home building as the future of residential construction. Community First!
Village is looking to house 40 percent of Austin’s homeless population.
“Vulnerable populations like the homeless are never among the first to access leading-edge anything,” said Graham. “But here in Austin, Texas, they’re among the first in line who will be living in some of the most unique homes ever built—and we think that’s a beautiful thing.”
ICON has also worked with a group called New Story to build homes for impoverished families in Tabasco, Mexico.
Since the homes reside in a seismic zone, they were built on solid foundations that exceed safety requirements so they can “last for generations.”
Learn more about ICON’s 3D home in the video below.
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