needed to improve everyone’s chances of creating new and greater opportunities for themselves. With Necessity Housing’s 1-DayHouse, residents can remove their belongings, build their new home, move back in, lock their door, and start a food garden on their roof all before the sun goes down. Necessity Housings’ strategy begins with a conversation with the residents about their specific needs. Their active involvement with the process allows them to be empowered so that when the work starts they are committed to not only their own house but the community at large. Training local residents to build homes in one day is one of the breakthroughs that sets our program apart from others because it creates jobs while providing security for the resident, teaches them new skills and educates them on the needs of the community as a whole. Additional breakthroughs include: abundant natural lighting, exceptional ventilation, a rooftop garden, and only $1,000 material costs part of which are locally sourced and region specific. The rooftop garden is the breakthrough design that creates the most significant difference and greatest opportunity for the resident to live a healthier and more engaged life, because normally slum conditions do not afford the luxury of having land beyond the confines of the shanty or the security of having your food grown on your roof. In addition, a sloped roof on the other side of the residence offers the possibility of adding electric solar panels, and creates the slope required for clerestory windows for greater ventilation and lighting without additional heat gains. By insuring an ongoing dialogue with the residents and having the homes and communities all integrated with solving the issues of clean water, security, education, skills training, appropriate tools, and long term sustainability, we believe that our program and the 1-DayHouse stands out as a breakthrough that sets itself apart from other initiatives.

Describe the critical need your solution addresses.

The prize money will be used to offer skills training, purchase materials for sample homes, and install rooftop gardens. After eight years of creating alliances with organizations working in Africa, co-founding the Coalition for a Sustainable Africa, speaking at numerous housing conferences and with government housing ministers, Necessity Housing has developed the possibility of completing its goals in less than 3 months. It is our projection that with the successful completion of the model homes, and follow-up with the residents/stakeholders, will allow us to initiate self-sustaining operations including micro-financing for small businesses, and education in the communities we work in. From this foundation, it will be necessary to continue securing clean water, and appropriate waste disposal to reduce the greatest danger to the inhabitants of the informal settlements that will be replacing their slums with hope.
Necessity Housing also has created many strategic alliances with organizations, NGO’s, private citizens and government leaders in many countries. It is important to us to insure the success of the work that we do and recognize that no one organization can do everything that is required to assure success for the people that we are serving. Therefore we choose to follow the ideal that it takes a village to grow a child and community governance to integrate needs and connections to water, food, shelter, security, education, and culturally appropriate contributions. Our work is often with people who do have a voice that is heard by their politicians, and with the skills, tools, education, and training, new possibilities open for the entire community, and over the next three years we will be able to duplicate this effort many times over.

Explain your initiative in more depth and its stage of development.

Comprehensive - With the introduction of housing that is manufactured, constructed and purchased by the people who have the greatest need.
Anticipatory - By offering the building blocks of successful sustainable development within the context of abject poverty has the greatest possibility of success.
Ecologically responsible – Human settlement is the single greatest contributor to the degradation of the natural environment.
Feasible – What makes the 1-DayHouse exceptional is that it uses existing materials that meet United States standards, and made with renewable materials.
Verifiable – Academic studies, scientific testing, and documented proof of the positive effect that housing has on disenfranchised populations will be proved with this project.
Replicable – The low impact housing process can move along as fast as the interest of the government and the people to rebuild their slums into possibilities.
This project fulfills the trimtab model by not accept the “single pill solution” as an answer by ‘helping people help themselves’.

How does your strategy and approach respond creatively and comprehensively to key issues?

Necessity Housing has been dedicated to sustainable development for eight years. In those years, they have spent none of their finances on overhead, and has presented its sustainable village plan in four African Countries, Sri Lanka, Mexico and the United States. We have taught local people in Mexico, Sri Lanka and California how to build homes in three days using high compression straw panels, as well as in the use of energy saving technologies such as the rocket stove (which uses half the fuel for twice as much energy), solar panels, and grey water systems. In 2008, the same 1-DayHouse was built at the Earth Day in Topanga, CA, with a rotating group of mostly women at the University of California Los Angeles, and with five different groups of 13 year old middle school students over six hours in the parking lot of their school. This is an undeniable testimonial of the potential of the 1-DayHouse. Necessity Housing has surrounded itself with some of the most innovative and forward thinking professionals in the sustainable development community and we are ready to bring our policies and programs into the communities that will benefit most from our expertise.