Everyone Deserves a Roof

I discovered this great organisation via Twilight Earth.

In the United States every year some 3 million people experience homelessness. That's almost the entire population of New Zealand! What a horrifying and shameful statistic for a country that in 2005 was home to around 8.9 million households with a net worth of at least $1 million.

EDAR (Everyone Deserves A Roof) is a charity that provides unique mobile shelters to those living on the streets in the United States. Each EDAR is a four-wheeled mobile unit which carries belongings and facilitates recycling during the day and which unfolds into a special, framed tent-like sleeping enclosure with a bed at night.

Photo courtesy of EDAR

The EDAR website describes how the units are being implemented in three ways:

1. EDAR works with current philanthropic, governmental and religious initiatives who currently work to house the homeless in temporary and permanent housing programs. EDAR units are being used as a “first step” into the homeless shelters for those that are typically reluctant to enter a traditional shelter system. The shelter creates a relationship with the homeless person who is using the EDAR unit and with time, the homeless person will often transition into the shelter’s program.
   
   
2. The EDAR units are being used as additional beds in shelters where there is a lack of portable cots for the homeless each night. EDAR users are mobile with the EDAR units during the day, and are allowed to enter the shelter grounds and sleep in a designated area. This provides the shelter extra sleeping units and gives the homeless person much more privacy than the traditional cot on which they might sleep.
   
   
3. The EDAR units are also given to homeless clients directly, those who are in need of a more comfortable place to sleep that protects them from the elements, for those who cannot or will not go to a shelter.

You can contribute online to help sponsor an EDAR unit. You can contribute whatever you can afford - but here is a guideline to what your donation will cover:

Sponsor wheels: $50
Sponsor a frame: $75
Sponsor a mattress: $125
Sponsor a roof: $250
Sponsor one EDAR unit: $500

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