The Everett, Washington-based company “Pallet” is making $7,500 prefab tiny homes that can be setup in 1 hour to help solve the homelessness crisis.

Washington-based Pallet is building prefab tiny homes to provide shelter for people who are unhoused. Its smallest $7,500 64-square-foot unit “Pallet 64” is now being used in villages across the US.

Over the last several years, tiny home “villages” that shelter people until they can find long-term housing have been popping up across the US with the help of government funding and nonprofits. The Washington-based company “Pallet” is the brain and arm-power behind the mass production of these little prefabricated homes. The company currently prefabricates a 64-square-foot and 100-square-foot tiny home, bathroom, and office in its large factory space in Everett, Washington.

When completed, the units are flat-packed and shipped to the village’s site. After an hour of assembly, Pallet’s tiny homes are ready to greet their first occupants. Inside, there are nine-foot ceilings, windows, plenty of built-in storage units, electrical outlets, and a desk that can convert into another bed. There are also necessities like lights, a locking door, and insulated walls.

The smallest $7,500 “Pallet 64” is prevalent at many of these tiny home villages, which are often operated and paid for by both nonprofits and governments.

If you’re already housed, you might not think much about your locking front door. But for people who are transitioning from life on the streets to living in a secure shelter, these simple locks provide a crucial but previously nonexistent form of security. “Having a locking door can sometimes become the difference between accepting help getting off the street and making a step towards permanent supportive housing,” Rowan Vansleve, CFO of Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission, told Insider in 2021.

Nonprofit “Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission” has also been using Pallet’s shelters to create colorful multimillion-dollar tiny home villages throughout Los Angeles (see below). The Pallet-based villages also provide occupants with meals, bathrooms, showers, and social services like substance abuse treatment. This holistic care, combined with a private — albeit tiny — home, then gives the previously unsheltered residents a chance to move toward permanent and stable housing solutions. Since then, Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission has opened five more locations across Los Angeles, housing over 1,000 Los Angeles residents.

The tiny homes can last over 10 years. And once a site’s contract has expired, the homes can be forklifted onto a flatbed truck or disassembled in under an hour to be moved to a new site.

Pallet isn’t the only solution to our ongoing housing and homelessness crisis. The traditional congregate shelter system is currently more prevalent in the US. But these structures can’t be built overnight or assembled in an hour like Pallet’s can. And according to Amy King, Pallet’s CEO, a majority of people who are unhoused don’t feel “comfortable” in these congregate shelters because of COVID-19, trauma responses, and how triggering living in shared spaces can be.

By building personal tiny homes, Pallet says it’s creating a more “dignified” option for people who may otherwise reject help in a congregate setting. The company’s model of decency and safe personal shelters has been a success in cities across the US. There are about 100 Pallet shelters housing over 2,000 people in states like Texas, Colorado, Hawaii, and New Jersey.

Josh Kerns, Pallet’s public relations manager, told Insider in an email that occupancy is “generally pretty close to 100% (anecdotally). Cities trying out this new model [are] getting much higher acceptance rates amongst individuals that are traditionally service adverse and don’t want help [in a congregate setting],” King told Insider.

reprinted from Business Insider
Text and photos by Brittany Chang