Pallet, based in Washington state, boasts it has deployed its team to construct 3,800 cabins. (Photo by Morgan Lieberman)
By Jacinda Palomo | AZ Big Media
TUCSON — For years, J Kristin Olson-Garewal was getting increasingly concerned about the growing number of homeless people walking Tucson’s streets and sitting in its parks.
Her son, Raj Garewal, worked in a homeless service center in Los Angeles, dealing with an even more overwhelming homelessness problem. But where Tucson seemed to have no answers, Garewal showed his mom a video of tiny houses that could be set up in only 45 minutes and were starting to address homelessness in California cities.
After watching this video, Olson-Garewal, who is also a physician, realized that this straightforward method of assembling houses — called Palletshelters — could be a solution to a problem that she sees as inhumane and only getting worse.
“We talked to people who were working with homelessness and city officials. No one was doing anything, and nothing was being done on the scale needed to correct the enormous housing shortage, so we simply decided to do this,” Olson-Garewal said.
