100 million people are homeless, almost a billion people live in shanty housing and about half of this shanty housing is owner built. There is a pressing need for simple shelter kits that local people with basic skills can build themselves. Our designs are for shelter kits, not pre-assembled living spaces. This lowers manufacturing costs and makes them easy to transport. Most importantly they can
be built by local people with basic skills. This means they can be used to get people working immediately, creating jobs as well as shelter. Our kits can be customized to suit any climate or location, and they are easily expanded to suit a variety of needs, from homes to schools to hospital wards. They are also durable enough to be reused, recycled or dismantled when no longer needed. Gimme Shelter intends to sell shelter kits to humanitarian organizations, developers, communities and individuals. Gimme Shelter kits can be stockpiled in shipping containers or custom ordered for a particular project and location. I am an architecture professor and I have been building and designing homes in Maine for the last twenty years. I have established relationships with local manufacturers so that we can create kits from start to finish in Maine. Maine is an ideal manufacturing location as 90% of the materials in the kits are wood based products. My co-director, Tom Needham, is a civil engineer who has worked on humanitarian aid projects throughout the world for the last twenty years. The idea for Gimme Shelter was born after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Tom was working there building temporary shelters and realized the pressing need for a simple durable shelter kit that local people could build themselves. This is a business about economic development, both here in Maine and for communities around the world. In 5 years, we intend to have delivered five thousand kits, which will create at least 50 new manufacturing jobs in Maine. This is a business model that can be rapidly scaled and expanded. We built the first prototype last year and our proof of concept has been built, engineered and priced for sale in coastal Maine. We plan on having the shelters in key locations around the world for beta testing by summer of 2016. We are currently looking for funding and support to build and ship our test shelters. Our coastal Maine tiny house kit is available for purchase.
