[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: FW: Homeless Solutions and Entrepreneurship

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Weaver, Sam

Fellow Council members,
 
I received the email below from a person I met at the homeless activists' gathering in Denver last week.  It is from Frank Sturgell, a former construction businessman without shelter himself, who has started a business to build tiny homes for the homeless. 
 I found it extremely interesting and full of promise, so I thought I would share it with you and staff.
 
All the best,

 

Sam Weaver
Member of Boulder City Council
weavers at bouldercolorado.gov
Phone: 303-416-6130




From: Frank Sturgell [frank at preservationdesign-buildstudio.com]
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2014 11:04 PM
To: Weaver, Sam
Subject: Homeless Solutions and Entrepreneurship










Dear Councilman Weaver,

Thank you for attending the Forum on How To Best Help Our Homeless at the Mercury Cafe last Wednesday night.  I am hoping the City Council can create an attitude of trying to integrate the homeless into the economy once again.


Here are a few ideas that I hope you can take to City Council to re-integrate these people into the economy and society.


1.)  Create a company of homeless to build tiny homes for themselves, other homeless, and occasionally for profit   The basic premise is to create a company so that the homeless can place funds from an IDA (Individual Development Account) account from the United
 Way.  The IDA can be used for first time home buyers (tiny houses on trailers do not qualify), furthering education, or a business.  Since tiny houses on trailers do not qualify for this, a business can accept the money to purchase materials for them.  The
 business would then purchase the materials for each tiny house.  

The IDA account matches 4 to 1.  If the homeless person is able to save $1000, the United Way will return $4000 for a total of $5,000 to spend on materials.  Occupy Madison is spending $4,000 on materials per tiny house.  They have worked with the City of Madison
 to get zoning and have a little village with a community building to center utilities to save costs.


I did obtain an IDA account through the Mile High Untied Way and used approximately $1,500 to purchase power tools at McGuckin's for this idea.  The other $3,500 of my IDA was used for my Preservation Design & Build Studio, llc for items like insurance
 and nondestructive building inspection tools such as a thermographic camera.



The pros for this are that it is easily the quickest and cheapest solution to giving decent shelter to stabilize lives.


The cons are that it will take City involvement with land, water, sewer, zoning,  Other issues are heat (some use stoves), electricity (photovoltaics)  Finding a place to build them.  Finding a place to place them, which is easier since they could be placed
 on a ranch/farm or in the mountains.  It is not a solution for all, but does give a homeless person a $20,000 asset that is theirs.


Tiny homes come in 3 ways:

1.)  On a trailer, where building codes do not come into play such as the minimum size of a bedroom.  No actual public safety building codes would be broken.

2.)  On stilts where it would be under the State's mobile home codes.

3.)  On a foundation where some building codes such as the aforementioned bedroom sizing.



 
Give me an area the size of 2 to 3 parking spaces and access to electricity and I can get this started.



2.)  Photovoltaic Panel Assembly company.  If we have shipped jobs to China and have a homeless problem, we can restart those jobs and remove homelessness.  Why can't homeless people assemble solar panels for local installers with their own company here?


3.)  A company called Kimco pays for SBDC NxLevel courses to write a business plan, mentors, and pays the first 6 months of rent in their buildings for retail entrepreneurs.  Why can't something similar like this be done in Boulder?


4.)  Ask the Chamber to allow homeless membership and advertising through them for a specified time (6 months to a year) and mentoring.


5,)  Create a community attitude to try an include and integrate the homeless into the economy, not exclude, not creating laws that target them. 



6.)  I have contacted Isabel McDevit from Bridge House to teach their clients tasks for design and construction management tasks such as scheduling, quality control, safety management, superintendence, bookkeeping, etc. so the homeless can be included
 into their hopefully new transitional housing building.  There is nothing more aggravating to a homeless person than to see others profit off of them.



I am homeless. Prior to this recession, I made six figures, owned a condo in Chicago's Lincoln Park that I had for 20 years and had been renting for 8 of them, and lived in Pacific Heights in San Francisco after obtaining a 4 year master of architecture
 degree from the University of Colorado at Denver.  I also have a Bachelors in Building Construction Management from Michigan State University and certifications such as LEED AP, NABCEP Photovoltaic (entry level), OSHA Competent. General Contractor Class A
 Licenses from the City of Boulder and Boulder County, and teach architectural design, 3D modeling software, construction management, and graphics at a private college,which does not pay well enough to live off of.  Just your average, stereotypical, overqualified,
 homeless professor,  Here is my 
LinkedIn profile .


If you'd like me to assist or lead some of these ideas or others, please ask.  I'm very capable.








Thank you for your time.


Sincerely,






Frank Sturgell
Preservation Design & Build Studio, llc

Colorado’s only firm dedicated to fully serving historic structures



                      
History . . .

                                                             Vision
www.preservationdesign-buildstudio.com
PO Box 765
Evergreen, CO  80437
720-409-7256