Self-Reliance Central readers love small houses. These ones come from dumped odds and ends, and a big heart. And as a survival lesson they teach us about recycling, repurposing and a community coming together. They were created by a man called Gregory Kloehn who became fascinated by the resourcefulness of homeless people in Oakland. (That the richest state in the nation has homeless people is a question for another time, but Kloehn decided to do something about it when a homeless lady asked him for a tarp.)
“Several years ago, when Kloehn got an iPhone, he began taking pictures of the structures erected by the homeless of West Oakland, compiling the photos in the book “Homeless Architecture.” But Kloehn’s fascination didn’t stop there. Inspired by the ingenuity of his homeless neighbors, he put his construction and artistic skills towards making homes with the materials they were sourcing, mostly illegally dumped items found on the streets of West Oakland. Mostly famously, he created a house out of a dumpster that garnered a lot of media attention. (Source Nationswell)”