Disaster-Proofing The World

Whole Earth,  Summer, 2001  by Carol Cooper

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Global Emergency Housing

Did some unseasonable Greenhouse event hurricanes, floods, or forest fires--just level your woodframe family home? Just call Joe Grandi at Global Emergency Housing, and he can ship you sturdy modular relief housing (replete with windows, a steel door, carpeting, appliances, electric wiring, and PVC indoor plumbing) that he can help you assemble within a week.

Grandi's temporary reusable shelters can be purchased in advance by forward-thinking city fathers, and quickly deployed to meet recurring urban catastrophes. They have an average cost per unit of $9,000 (less if Grandi uses factory labor outside of the expensive Eastern Seaboard). Volume construction and fewer "frills" can further reduce the price of any large-scale crisis-housing installation.

Built around steel framing rather than wood, the walls of each temporary unit are created by combining concrete and wood chips into a special composite material proven resistant to fire, termites, rodents, freeze, and thaw. A typical sheet of this "Virock" siding is thick enough to stop a bullet, no small consideration in a global refugee environment.

Working at maximum capacity, Grandi's factory is capable of turning out over three hundred reusable units per month, and can ship them anywhere in the world within forty-five days. Units ship ready to assemble, and Grandi is prepared to send advisory construction personnel to any site.

Currently, Grandi's permanent relief units come in six different models, which can include multiple bedrooms, plus separate kitchen, dining, and living-room spaces. Ordinarily, Grandi outfits his permanent units with electric "radiant" heating, but says that his designs could be adapted for partial solar. To date, Global Emergency Housing has established contacts with FEMA, the International Red Cross, the National Coalition for the Homeless, the World Homeless Union, the American Insurance Association, and several UN disaster relief agencies. Still, Grandi says that institutional and international politics frequently prevent him from shipping his units to the planet's real trouble spots. In the future, though, "real trouble spots" may range from African refugee camps to a flood-ravaged Mississippi basin.

All emergency homes are constructed to meet international building codes.

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Global Emergency Housing,
Global Placemakers
c/o Joseph Grandi
20 Gibson Place, Suite 210
Freehold, NJ 07728
732/625-3007

globaleh.cjb.net

COPYRIGHT 2001 New Whole Earth LLC
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