A few days ago a neighbor, Gladys, stopped by for one of her frequent visits with my mother who is homebound and bedridden due to MS. Gladys & her husband are retired and childless and spend a good deal of their time doing volunteer charity work, primarily through their church. Gladys updated my mom on their most recent activity involving supplying winter coats for a church in St. Louis. During her update, Gladys mentioned that she had just seen a feature on a local TV news program about a shopping cart for the homeless that turned into a tent. I was fascinated by this concept and after Gladys left, I went to my computer to try and find a video of the report, which I never did, but I did find out quite a bit of information about EDAR: Everyone Deserves A Roof.
I searched Daily Kos and couldn't find EDAR diaried before, but back on Dec. 10th the LA Times introduced their readers to EDAR.
An EDAR is a shopping cart that turns into a tent. The idea was conceived by Peter Samuelson:
The EDAR is the brainchild of Peter Samuelson, a philanthropist and film producer whose credits include "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Arlington Road."
Samuelson became concerned with the plight of the homeless 3 years ago:
Three years ago, on his twice-weekly bike rides to the beach from his Holmby Hills house, Samuelson realized that he was seeing more homeless people. For three weeks, he interviewed dozens of them -- men, women and children.
"Where do you spend the night?" he asked one woman. She led him by the hand into the bushes and showed him a large cardboard Sub-Zero box.
"That was my epiphany moment," Samuelson said. "I've got the refrigerator. She's got the box. What is wrong with this picture?"
Samuelson was compelled to help, but how?
His first instinct was to build shelters, but then he did the math. Building a bed in a facility runs $50,000 to $100,000. The cost to house all of the county's street denizens would run into the billions. Besides, many of them resist services. So he thought: What is there that's better than a damp box on a rainy night even if it's not as good as a bed?
I can attest to some homeless people resisting services. When I was living in San Diego in 1994/95, through bizarre circumstances, I became friends with a homeless person for the first time. Although there was always a bed available for him at a nearby homeless shelter, he preferred to sleep under a bush in Balboa Park or in the corner of an open air covered apartment parking garage. If he stayed at the shelter, he feared having what little possessions that he kept in his pockets being stolen and he disliked being preached at by the missionaries who ran the shelter.
(eventually, I was able to persuade my friend get off the streets and return and reconnect with his family in Alabama.)
Samuelson thought outside of the box and acted:
The idea of a mobile, single-person shelter popped to mind.
Samuelson sponsored a contest at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena to design his "widget."
Eric Lindeman and Jason Zasa took the honors, with a mobile shopping cart-like apparatus. The cart features bins to hold cans, bottles and other recyclables collected by day. It folds out to create a sleeping platform, topped by a canvas cover with zippers and windows.
Samuelson's out of the box thinking and perseverance creates results:
Three months ago, Samuelson decided to distribute 60 EDARs for testing. With the help of churches, missions and shelters, he and his assistants identified chronically homeless people who could benefit from an EDAR in the short term and might be willing to develop a lasting relationship with service providers.
I also found a video that the LA times created about EDAR on you tube.
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If you are interested in more information, would like to contribute or are aware of a church, mission or shelter that may have a desire to distribute EDARs, you can visit their website here.
EDARs by no means will solve the homeless problem and some communities may fear being overrun by a herd of shopping cart tents on their streets, but for some segment of the homeless population I belive that an EDAR could be a true blessing. For some reason, I have always feared being homeless and have contemplated about what I would do. I definitely would not be comfortable in a shelter, but being a "nester", I do belive that I could make the best of a very bad situation if I had an EDAR.