((PKG)) SHIPPING CONTAINERS – HOME FOR 
HOMELESS 
((TRT:  03:28)) 
((Banner:  Small Scale Solutions)) 
((Reporter:  Angelina Bagdasaryan)) 
((Camera:  Vazgen Varzhabetyan)) 
((Adapted by:  Zdenko Novacki)) 
((Map:  Los Angeles, California))   
((Main characters:  2 male)) 
((Sub characters:  1 female; 2 male)) 
((NATS)) 
((Cody, Unhoused)) 
I was just going to be homeless.  My family was tired of me, I 
guess, I don’t know, not being what they 
wanted.  And so, me and my girlfriend just got a Greyhound 
bus to California. 
((NATS)) 
((Cody, Unhoused)) 
I tried to go to Social Services and get like the general relief 
and all that.  And I got the EBT [Electronic Benefit 
Transfer] and things like that.  But really, I don't have a plan 
right now, no.  I mean, I moved all the way across the 
country.  And I get to be here, which is so much better than if 
you go around some of these other places, dude.  Oh, man. 
((NATS)) 
((Michael Parks, President and CEO, Flyaway Homes)) 
Flyaway Homes is a startup that was started in conjunction 
with The People Concern, one of the largest homeless 
service providers in Los Angeles County, to develop a model 
for producing permanent supportive housing for L.A.’s 
homeless population, faster and cheaper, so we can begin to 
really solve this terrible problem. 
((NATS)) 
((Michael Parks, President and CEO, Flyaway Homes)) 
It's constructed out of converted shipping containers.  And 
this project consists of eight four-bedroom units, five of 
which are occupied by families, three of which are occupied 
by shared individuals.  So, four people, two each with a 
bedroom. 
((NATS)) 
((Angel, Volunteer, Flyaway Homes)) 
A lot of people are doing bad.  Like, they don’t got 
food.  They don’t got water.  So that’s what we’re here 
for.  It’s all free. Donations that we get, we manage to give it 
out to whoever’s in need, whether its food, clothes. 
((NATS)) 
((John Maceri, CEO, The People Concern)) 
This is our community room.  We have, as you can see, we 
have a television here.  This is normally a gathering 
place.  During COVID, obviously, the tenants are not 
gathering, but we have laundry on site here.  This can be 
used for a meeting room.  We have a small non-perishable 
food pantry that's available for the residents, as well as the 
resident services staff, who's on site, is based here as well. 
((NATS)) 
((Michael Parks, President and CEO, Flyaway Homes)) 
Permanent supportive housing only works for the chronically 
homeless if it's combined with supportive services to keep 
them housed healthy and safe which are provided by the 
people. 
((NATS)) 
((Cody, Unhoused)) 
Like certain things, I got, like asthma and eczema, probably 
like a low immune system because I do drugs.  
I can go get a job, be alright for a year or so.  Then I’ll just 
destroy it all, burn my life to the ground. 
It’s all good. 
((NATS)) 
((Cody, Unhoused)) 
So, I came out here with this girl that I dated for five years off 
and on.  And I wanted that to be the true love and all 
that.  And three weeks later, she left me for a guy to go do 
heroin and meth with him, so.  That happened.  That was 
like one of the worst things.   
((Cody, Unhoused)) 
I guess you could say I’m free right now.  But I dwell on 
things in my head, man.  I got a lot of anxiety and depression 
problems. And that's where, that's really why I'm here is 
because I can't make it work.  
((Elijah, Volunteer)) 
We're just charging people's phones or whatever needs to 
be charged because, you know, since the coronavirus, 
there's a lack of places open to charge phones. 
((NATS)) 
((John Maceri, CEO, The People Concern)) 
At our current rate, it costs about $550,000 a unit and takes 
about three to five years to build a project.  So, we were very 
committed to find a way to build faster and cheaper, not in 
terms of quality. 
((NATS)) 
((Michael Parks, President and CEO, Flyaway Homes)) 
We're doing that with a model that's replicable and scalable 
model where we're trying to basically productionalize all the 
different pieces.  The part of the reason we're using modular 
is that we basically are hoping to use the same basically 
modular unit design across most, if not all, of our 
projects.  We're looking for, you know, similar sized plots of 
land and we're going to basically systematize each piece of 
the process, so that from beginning to end, it becomes 
predictable. 
((NATS)) 
((John Maceri, CEO, The People Concern)) 
The way it works is that people pay 30 percent of whatever 
their adjusted gross income is.  So, if they're getting Social 
Security or general leave or if they're working, 30 percent of 
their income, it goes to rent and then the balance is 
subsidized through a federal voucher subsidy. 
((NATS)) 
((Cody, Unhoused)) 
You want two? 
I try to make it work, man, and I haven't figured out how to 
do it yet.  
((NATS))