This comes to us from Open Minds.
Affordable housing and homelessness continue to top discussions of issues in supporting consumers. According to the recent report, Bending The Cost Curve Solutions To Expand The Supply Of Affordable Rentals, demand for affordable rental housing throughout the United States continues to outpace the supply, with roughly 6.9 million “affordable” rentals in the U.S. and over 11 million low-income renters. This is part of the explanation for why, during a given month, there are over 600,000 homeless Americans (see The State of Homelessness In America 2014). Homelessness in America did decline 3.7% between 2012 and 2013, and the number of individuals who are chronically homeless declined by 7.3% during the same period. Predictably, 30% of people who are chronically homeless have mental health conditions and 50% have a co-occurring addictive disorder (see Current Statistics On The Prevalence And Characteristics Of People Experiencing Homelessness In The United States).
None of these stats are surprising. But what was surprising was a recent (but unsuccessful) Kickstarter campaign (see 3D Printed Homes… House Building Using A 3D Printer!) to raise money to fund the construction of homes for the homeless using 3-D printing technology. The sponsor of the campaign is Fabian Jean-Baptiste, founder of CNSTRCTN International in London, and a self-proclaimed 3D Print Homes industry advocate.
I do have some trouble wrapping my head around the concept. I just never thought about “printing” a home for someone. Essentially, using 3-D printing technology, a home can be built in one day, for $10,000, by building up walls with layers of fast-drying concrete. The reasons for the low cost and speed is its ability to cut down on labor and materials (see Can 3-D Printed Homes Help Solve Homelessness?).
This advancement in technology is amazing, adding housing to the list of dozens of “printable” items (see Top 50 Awesome 3D Printed Products). In addition to housing, some of the other “printed products” on the horizon for health care include any number of already available medical devices such as heart valves and prosthetic limbs, as well as products still in R&D, such as supplemental tissues and organs.
While the 3-D home, the “grannypod” (see The Era Of The Tech-Enabled Caregiver and Zettabytes, Hadoop & More), the “tiny house” movement (see Tiny House Listings) and other affordable home options are still rare, I’m intrigued with the concept of using technology to find solutions to the housing situation, and to what will be an increasingly important factor in managing care for consumers with some of the most complex support needs. If we want to limit the use of large institutions as “living quarters” for consumers (see Washington Ban On Psychiatric ER Boarding May Have Longer Legs and Federal Judge Overseeing Minnesota’s IDD Settlement Agreement Rejects Proposed Olmstead Plan), if we want to deploy “housing first” initiatives (see Housing First Checklist: A Practical Tool for Assessing Housing First in Practice and The Applicability Of Housing First Models To Homeless Persons With Serious Mental Illness), and if we want to increase the use of home and community based waiver services (CMS Finalizes Community Setting Requirements For Medicaid HCBS Programs; Does Not Exclude Assisted Living Option and Performance Domains For HCB & Assisted Living Services Submitted To CMS), addressing the housing situation is imperative for success.