While being homeless anywhere is a difficulty, it’s especially awful in areas of the world where the weather is extreme and the government is less-than-friendly to transient people.
In places where finding shelter is difficult, millions of people die each year from being exposed to the elements, which is why solutions to this problem are being developed and introduced. One company that’s dedicated to housing people that are living in poverty is billionBricks, a non-profit that believes that “buildings for the poor should not be poorly designed and built.”
The non-profit is based in Singapore and is compiled of a team of designers, architects, and building industry officials that are passionate about developing more suitable housing for those who already own homes and, now, those who are without a home altogether.
The tent is called WeatherHYDE and is described by the organization as follows:
“A life saving fully insulated, lightweight emergency kit that provides maximum privacy and protects the homeless and vulnerable from extreme weather. The only reversible tent that protects in both winter and summer, it is woman-friendly and enables a single person, tool-less installation within 15 minutes and does not need any anchoring.”
Originally called winterHYDE, the idea for the tent came when riots broke out in Muzaffarnagar, India and caused 43,000 to leave their homes and be without shelter in 2013.
Now called WeatherHYDE, it was first sketched out in 2014 and was meant to be a solution for those living in homes that offer no protection from the elements or those displaced by disaster, but has since transformed into so much more. A six month pilot program in New Delhi was just conducted to test the tent’s viability and receive suggestions, and Prasoon Kumar, the founder and CEO of the company, told Mashable:
“I saw (the tent) as an emergency shelter for winter, but this couple I saw moved a bed inside. They said it was the first home they’ve had in years.”
Since witnessing this, the organization is now working with other non-profits and governments to reach out to more homeless people and offer their product to them. The tent will cost about $200 and billionBricks hopes that the non-profits and institutions will fund the purchasing and distribution of the tents in their country. If not, they plan to develop a financing plan so that those in need can pay for the tent over time.
As far as how the tent operates, it’s sent as just a fabric, which is triple-layered, weatherproof, and reversible, to keep production and shipping costs down. For the actual structure, PVC pipes are needed to construct the tent, which the recipients of the tent can purchase separately and inexpensively to then put the tent together.
The fabric is reversible to protect people in both winter and summer. In the winter, the reflective side is faced inward in order to keep body heat trapped inside and in the summer it is faced outward to reflect the sun and keep heat out. Some suggestions made to the company in the recent pilot program were to add built-in lighting and make bigger tents for bigger families, both of which the company is now taking into consideration.
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