StakBLOC Container Apartments (2001)

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StakBLOC Modular Container Apartments
A private enterprise project to create affordable mixed-income housing

Cover image source: http://s3.amazonaws.com/estock/fspid10/27/10/68/3/containers-port-2710683-o.jpg

https://vimeo.com/46517495

READ THIS FIRST

How We Can Win : by Anthony Lacavera: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33916339-how-we-can-win

PROJECT

For-Profit Apartments.

Built as Market and Low-Income Rate for Homeless People.

Targeting the extreme lack of affordable housing in Vancouver, Canada.

Re-Manufacturing Unused Shipping Containers available at $4 psf.

Operations plan suggested we'd be hiring up to 100 skilled techs.

Plus spin-off positions, using today's skill sets.

Oligopolies operate like that manager we've all had who derides or kills an innovation, so they can circle around to introduce it as theirs - months or years later. No matter who suffers in the meantime. No matter if the host dies. This strangest of parasites, this vampire, eventually kills every infected host. It needs a constant stream of new hosts to feed on. The 'host' here is incentive to innovate. Ask Anthony Lacavera. He knows.

Venture

Initiated in 2001, one year before the amazing private company tempohousing in The Netherlands. http://www.tempohousing.com/

Six years before the Bloomberg administration's 2013 claim to be starting a "first-of-its-kind disaster housing program, creating modular apartments uniquely designed for the challenges of urban living" in New York. http://observer.com/2012/11/home-sweet-shipping-container-nycs-secret-plans-for-the-perfect-disaster-apartments/

Restarted and ended in 2007/08, another 5 years before BC's Atira project. And again, later...years more before the local political machine's claim to be delivering 'the first modular affordable housing' in Canada. Not so.

Discovery: In Canada, social enterprises are often in danger of becoming political enterprises. Projects get stuck in political time, social entrepreneurs need political approval to move forward, project politicization prevents the civil service from doing its' job--nurturing sustainable systems for today and future generations--and this takes precedence over addressing the social challenge. Every politico who attacks a novel solution 'because it has not been tested' or claims 'it is not fair if it does not serve 100% of everyone' is protecting gridlock to protect someone's status quo turf. That is not winnable. The host will die.

Social Enterprise Lesson

Invest time and money elsewhere. Never introduce anything completely new to the social sector until it has been tried in other countries for 5-15 years first. Otherwise, it will be infuriatingly slow. It will be money down the drain. You'll get drained dry. Your money. Money better spent serving private sector customers.

To change the world quickly and positively: partner with private enterprisers, private non-profits, societies, and private faith communities. Folks willing to make change. Folks with soul.