These small homeless shelters can be built in 20 minutes. Sacramento may buy dozens of them
Workers from a Seattle-area company built two shelters outside Sacramento City Hall Tuesday in an attempt to persuade city leaders to buy the products as a new solution for the city’s rising homeless population.
It appears to have worked.
“I want to see 150 of these before winter,” Mayor Darrell Steinberg said, referring to the company’s current inventory at its Everett, Wash., warehouse.
The shelters, which can be built in about 20 minutes without tools, would be a new homeless solution for the city. City leaders have so far been focused on opening large shelters that fit more than 100 people each. The city in August approved about $20 million to open and operate two more shelters, but the first one can’t open until February.
The Pallet shelters can be erected much faster and do not need paved sites with utilities, representatives from the company said.
Councilman Jeff Harris said he has two potential sites in his district – which includes East Sacramento, part of north Sacramento and South Natomas – for the Pallet shelters, but said he is not ready to disclose those locations. Councilman Allen Warren, who has proposed a 700-bed campus for homeless and low-income residents at Edgewater Road and Lampassas Avenue in north Sacramento, said the Pallet structures could be incorporated into that plan, if the City Council approves the project.
City officials watched with interest as workers from Pallet methodically carried white aluminum walls and snapped them into a gray base on the sidewalk in the breezeway outside City Hall.
The company constructs 64-square-foot lockable shelters that can fit up to four people in two sets of bunk beds, while the larger 100-square-foot option can fit up to six people in three sets of bunk beds, said Patrick Diller of Pallet.
What do the shelters cost?
The shelters, depending on size and add-ons, would cost the city between $4,000 and $8,000 each, Diller said. If the city were to house 100 people in the large Pallet shelters, with four people in each, it would cost $200,000. That’s compared to $3.8 million to $4.9 million – the most recent estimate for the city to construct two large 100-bed Sprung tent-like structures in North Oak Park and Meadowview.
The figures to purchase the Pallet shelters do not include bathroom and shower trailers that would likely be brought in, as well as on-site medical, mental health and rehousing services that would be provided. If the city wanted to include space heaters and air conditioners in the units, it would also have to provide a generator or utility hookups, said Amy King, Pallet CEO.
The company, which was founded about three years ago, has sold its “safe and dignified shelter systems” to the city of Dallas, as well as Lynwood and Tacoma, Wash., Diller said. It’s also sold them to the Bahamas and other locations for disaster relief.
“A lot of people don’t want to be in a large communal living situation,” said Councilman Steve Hansen, who invited the company to do the demonstration. “This gives four people who want to have some space an opportunity to do that.”
The units can also accommodate pets, King said.
Hansen, Harris and Steinberg said they want to see if the city could place a couple dozen Pallet shelters on the site it’s paving at X Street and Alhambra Boulevard in North Oak Park. The city plans to open a 100-bed semi-permanent tent-like Sprung structure on the site, but not until spring. If there isn’t room for both, the Pallet shelters could later be moved.
The council is expected to vote to authorize staff to order the Sprung tents for that site and the Meadowview site next to the Pannell Community Center in December, said Amy Williams, a city spokeswoman.
The city has allocated all the money it currently has available for homelessness initiatives into opening the large shelters with services, but Steinberg expects the city to receive about $37 million in state and private funds in the next six months, and is open to other types of sheltering options, he has said.
The City Council is expected to vote on the Pallet shelters sometime before Dec. 3, Williams said. It will be part of a discussion on Councilwoman Angelique Ashby’s proposed “five point plan” which includes scattered-site homes, cabins, a safe parking lot, a tent city, and other potential homeless solutions.
This story was originally published November 13, 2019 at 4:50 PM.
