By Valerie Franklin (Contributor) – Email
Print Edition: November 13, 2013
Small wooden shelters on wheels are being built by an Abbotsford resident to give homeless people warm, dry places to sleep.
Jeff Gruban, an active member of the Fraser Valley Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists group, is the creative force behind the project. He hopes the shelters will help protect homeless people from the elements as winter weather sets in.
“The current situation is that people are sleeping in nylon tents, which get wet,” he said. “These shelters will keep them warm and dry. They’re also more insulated, so their body heat can keep them warm.”
Gruban was inspired by the work of former Nevada City mayor Reinette Senum, who organized her community to build mobile housing units after a Nevada homeless shelter closed and left 40 people with nowhere to go.
He built a prototype in his home workshop and brought the idea to pastor Ward Draper, the executive director of 5 and 2 Ministries, who is well-connected with the local homeless population. The two have put aside their philosophical differences to help improve the lives of homeless people in Abbotsford.
“We’re calling it the DREAM Project,” says Draper. “It stands for dignity, respect, equality, action, and meaning.”
Draper and Gruban’s partnership illustrates the DREAM Project’s vision statement:
“To bring together individuals and groups from all areas of our community to work together to improve the lives of our most vulnerable and marginalized neighbours.”
The mobile sleeping units are designed to be small enough to pull by hand, but large enough for an adult to sleep in. Measuring two metres long, one metre high, and one metre wide, each one is about the length and width of a single-size mattress. They feature locking doors which allow their owners to keep themselves and their personal belongings safe, as well as sliding windows.
Each unit costs less than $200 and takes about six hours for a single person to build. They’re intended to be a form of transitional housing rather than a long-term arrangement.
“If they can last someone through a winter, that’s $200 well spent,” says Gruban.
It’s hoped that the DREAM shelters will help keep provincial medical costs down by preventing pneumonia and other illnesses caused by exposure to the elements, as well as simply improving homeless people’s quality of life.
However, not everyone is on board with the idea of these shelters. Calvin, a local homeless man, is worried that they could present a fire hazard.
“They’re made of chipboard,” he says. “I don’t think I’d use one. Maybe if it was made from something else.”
Homeless people have occasionally been killed or injured when fires they light for warmth grow out of control. Last week, a small community in Nova Scotia was horrified when a man burned to death in the covered bus stop he had been using as a shelter. In the week before Christmas 2008, a homeless woman from Abbotsford died in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside when a lit candle accidentally started a fire in her shopping cart.
However, these incidents are rare, and as Gruban points out, the DREAM shelters may be safer than the alternative.
“It’s way less combustible than a tent,” says Gruban. “It’s definitely an improvement on their situation.”
Calvin agrees that the shelters are a good idea.
“You can push it around on wheels. There’s enough space for two of you to sit down and chat,” he says.
So far the DREAM shelters have been a hit with everyone who has been given one, and Gruban reports that many more people are requesting them. With the help of Draper, the shelters are being distributed one at a time as they’re built.
“I’m relying on the 5 and 2 for that part,” says Gruban. “They know the homeless people around here, they know everyone by name. They know who needs them most.”
