Eradicating homelessness, one container home at a time.

Project Gharana is dedicated to mitigating the housing crisis in Rajasthan, and eventually hopes to tackle the issue, all over India. According to a 2021 report by the UN Human Settlements Programme, an estimated 1.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to adequate housing, of which over a 100 million are homeless. In India too, 1.8 million nationals are without homes, and a further 73 million dwell in houses unfit for living, according to reports from the Ruff Institute of Global Homelessness (2018), and The Habitat Foundation (2019). The primary reason for these devastating figures is the lack of affordable housing in India, which is “more an issue in India than in other countries”, as per a 2020 working paper published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Thus, in order to alleviate homelessness it is imperative to bridge this gap between available housing and the people, and Project Gharana tries to do just that by making housing more affordable and within reach for the common Indian.

Since the primary contributor to the global housing crisis is a lack of affordable housing, Project Gharana tries to get around this issue by innovating ways to cut construction costs, and building inexpensive accommodations. For this, Gharana uses shipping containers as the home’s primary structure, as they are cheap, sturdy and fit for living. Further, I’ve furnished these container houses with flooring made from recycled tetra packs, and use solar panels to power the home, thereby cutting down on energy and resource expenses. The home is equipped with composting toilets and intelligently designed water tanks in an attempt to make them compact, hygienic, and as self-sufficient as possible. It also finds a solution to the lack of heating/ cooling commonly associated with container houses by using glass wool and foam panels within the container. These measures lower construction expenditure and make it far easier for people to buy or rent these homes. But since the majority of the homeless population in India lives below the poverty line, Gharana bears the entire construction cost with money raised from fundraisers and investors, hence donates these houses to those who cannot pay for them.

The homeless in India are the demographic we seek to help with this solution. India has one of the highest rates of homelessness in the world. These numbers include individuals living on the streets, on pathways, at train stations, and in alleys. There isn't much being done to help them, and while these numbers are already high, many argue, the true number of homeless individuals in the population is not being accurately reported, and is significantly greater than shown.

To make matters worse, the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened these people's lives, making their situation immeasurably worse. Even amid this health crisis, the homeless population has continued to live in dangerous conditions lacking hygiene and basic sanitation, making them susceptible to sickness due to higher rates of viral transmissions. Furthermore, the economic catastrophe caused by the pandemic has caused a significant rise in homelessness and poverty

This population requires safe and sanitary homes- to raise children, to improve their own health, and to lead a decent quality of life. Homelessness also has a negative impact on the environment. Due to a scarcity of food, utensils, and water, these communities rely heavily on plastic and other single-use products. There is open defecation because of lack of access to washrooms, and soil and water contamination due to a lack of information to properly dispose of waste.

Our solution can address the issue of homelessness while being cost effective, with less labour, and one that benefits the environment. While conceptualising and building this project, we kept all considerations in regards to legality, economic viability, sustainability, and human welfare in mind. Our donation of a container house has provided a homeless family with an opportunity at a better life. And this solution has the potential to make a significant impact against the cause, and we hope to be able to inspire others to replicate it.

My team is made up of peers as well as school authorities who have assisted me with planning, budgeting and sourcing the right materials to create an eco-friendly, low-cost container house using innovative engineering approaches. My team and I have been able to successfully build and donate our first container house to a family in need, and living in a boarding school we have been able to leverage our close proximity to our advantage. We were able to ideate and actively work on the project frequently as a result of our daily encounters.

My School Engineer, who was an incredibly important part of my project, was able to advise me by lending his experience and providing me with essential information on material properties, space optimization and designing for lower rates, which was critical to the accomplishment of organisational goals. It would have been impossible to collect resources or pitch the initiative to other groups without this management. 

We are all deeply committed to the cause of reducing homelessness. Throughout the project, our combined, collective energy and excitement served as the driving force. We have been able to have materials sent to school in order to construct the home, and we were able to develop proposals that led to us becoming possible candidates for investments in order to take our project to greater heights. We paid careful attention to legal issues, energy problems, and maintenance issues, as the people for whom we built this house cannot afford to pay expensive maintenance bills themselves. All of the team's combined decisions are what made this project feasible.

Although the legal, technical, and economic aspects of Project Gharana are evaluated and feasible, I foresee that I might face barriers with the scalability and marketability of the project. I imagine the project to be one that makes a remarkable dent in the problem of large-scale homelessness; it must therefore be accompanied by a noticeable mindset shift in the urban landscape of Indian cities. For this, the homes need to be made in large quantities with every stakeholder on-board and enthusiastic about the idea, ready to participate in a dramatic change of their lifestyles. 

I want to partner with industry experts and experienced social entrepreneurs through MIT Solve to overcome these challenges: how do we ensure that the homes do not lose quality, sustainability, and durability when we scale production? I want to develop a deeper understanding of large-scale production processes, and the industrial and mechanical techniques required to undertake and execute them successfully. Second, I want to work hard to ensure that the homeless families that I aim to serve are comfortable with every aspect of the shift. Through MIT Solve, I believe I can learn innovative ways to market the benefits of this project to its target audience, and further learn how to better adapt the project to their needs. Ultimately, I need the guidance and support of experts to ensure that the project goes smoothly and succeeds beyond my own (already) high hopes and expectations.

I believe that no other solution to tackling the issue of homelessness, especially in India, has studied the varying harmful environmental impacts that the current living situations have and actively tries to overcome them through a sustainability-focused project model. Specifically, Project Gharana looks not only at how to improve the lives of the inhabitants of container homes, but also has a broad perspective that smoothly integrates the homes into existing urban ecosystems, considering negative environmental externalities and attempting to reduce them while providing necessary transformations to underserved communities. 

The project’s sustainability-focused model is futuristic and ready for any incoming challenges of the future. I have faith in its capability to inspire a cultural shift in entrepreneurship models to make them both — socially and environmentally focused. With the coming climate challenges for our society, I hope Project Gharana allows leaders in architecture, environmental design, and urban planning to adopt an ecologically cyclical model which borrows from waste products and reintegrates them into socially useful initiatives. I look forward to witnessing how my work evolves and can help others face various challenges in this ever-evolving world.

I have been a part of the project since July 2021 and will continue to work on various aspects of it indefinitely. Our work on the container home is still proceeding, and I am hoping that I will be able to take on another such project in the future. If the first container home is a success, AU Small Finance has informally agreed to support a plethora of more. Once the container house is finished, it will be donated to a homeless family. As a result, the project comes at a critical time for this family, providing them with a secure home to live. This is our impact goal for the next year. In the next five years, we hope to build many more such container homes through the means of funding, CSR support and fundraising. The end impact of these homes will be towards targeting the UN SDG 11, – ensuring access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services. 

Project Gharana tackles the country's homelessness problem by creating a container home for a low-income family. The first measurable indicator of this will be that a family will be able to reside in the container house, allowing them to maintain a respectable and stable level of living. In 2022, a family will have access to adequate, safe and affordable housing. The second measurable indicator of our progress will be the replicability of our sustainable idea. The container home was also built with the environment in mind, and it serves as an example of low-cost living. This methodology may be duplicated and applied to several issues at the same time, with several more such container homes in place in the upcoming years. 

Project Gharana’s solution of building container homes for people from underprivileged backgrounds would have a significant impact on the twin problems of homelessness and unsustainable housing by incorporating recycling and eco-friendly measures at each step of the creation of the tiny house, from procurement of the containers to designing provisions for solar power and effective waste collection in the house itself. By being cost-effective, it would enable the creation of comfortable houses for a segment of the population that would otherwise either not have access to housing or be compelled to live in unsustainable conditions. 

For instance, the Hilda L Solis Care First Village developed in Los Angeles cost as little as $57 million and covers 64000 square feet. It includes 232 house units in addition to courtyards, parks, and parking spots. By fitting two house units within one container, the project has been built to provide housing to the homeless in a space-efficient manner and has even accounted for the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic by building independent ventilation and heating systems for each unit. Another successful example is the MLK1101 project created by Lorcan O’ Herlihy Architects in Los Angeles, which was selected for the 2019 Dezeen Award for its focus on sustainable design and housing access. Project Gharana takes inspiration from such success stories as models for its growth and as a resource for ideas for improvement, and I’m confident that given its foundation in sound architectural and environmental thought, it would yield similar impacts for its target population.

My interest in architecture and urban planning inspired me to find a durable, cost-effective and climate-adaptive solution to homelessness in my community: cargotecture is the latest in innovative, community-minded architectural solutions to housing shortages. My solution involves repurposing shipping containers at the end of their life cycle into safe, energy-efficient homes for the underprivileged. I discussed my goals with my school engineer, and together we decided to use materials that would be easy to source and facilitate suitable temperature regulation in agreement with India’s climate. 

The blueprint consisted of welding a metal frame on top of the metal walls of the container along with glass wool insulation of walls where foam was placed to regulate the temperatures. For me, the home needed to be flexible enough to incorporate mechanisms for the collection, disposal and efficient reuse of wastewater, as well as be comfortably habitable for its inhabitants. We provided for separate white water, grey water and black water tanks for fresh, collected, and waste water to be disposed off, respectively. We also used novel materials such as recycled flooring composite made of tetra packs for the flooring, beds, and couch. For a reliable source of energy to power all appliances in the house, we installed a 1.5kW solar panel system. 

The biggest challenges to finding solutions to housing is scalability in terms of cost as well as quantity, and safety: the shipping container homes I conceptualised on AUTOCAD and Sketchup in collaboration with architects from Mumbai-based architecture firms, utilise concepts of sustainable housing and efficient waste management. Once the prototype of an outer structure for our first container home was planned, I oversaw the carpentry work in the interiors, helping with cement board panelling and making cupboards, kitchen counters, installing flooring, and painting. 

The idea of our project was timely enough that we were able to secure funding from AU Small Finance, a bank that serves small and micro businesses; with the money raised, I hope to expand our blueprint’s reach to build several container homes in Jaipur, and eventually across India. Using similar easily accessible scrap material, I built a network of concerned material vendors, welders and carpenters. The crux of my technology lies in catering to the needs of the marginalised; as most of these communities tend to have migrating labour with large families; my shipping container homes integrate features of privacy and exclusive space due to their module and mobile nature — a significant features that allows for easy post-construction retrofitting of features and added rooms. The benefits of shipping container homes are far too many to ignore, and I genuinely believe that with the unprecedented growth in global trade, we can find a technological miracle hidden in plain sight.

Project Ghrana, aims to rehabilitate and provide housing to low income communities, with the mission of equity at its heart. The core idea is holistic and multifocal empowerment that facilitates a structure, system, and ultimately, a world, wherein each individual feels welcomed and supported. As a result, with the aim of providing housing to those from low income backgrounds, we aim to centre their perspectives and their viewpoints in our functionalities, vying to create sustainable projects for housing that will actually address the issues faced by those we wish to help. Further, the team at Gharana is diverse, with a 1:4 gender ratio. We value the diversity of viewpoints this adds to our operations and are deeply empathetic to the fact that success and aid looks different to everyone, and we must shape our project to reflect this.

At the heart of Project Gharana is the understanding that homelessness is not a personal problem but a social one. The lack of stable housing - and the benefits that come with it - not only prevent individuals from leading fulfilling lives but also prevent them from contributing holistically to the further development of the community. It is for this reason that Project Gharana does not charge the people it houses – treating them as beneficiaries rather than customers.

Instead I utilise a community financing approach, relying on partners in society to power Project Gharana. After the completion of our pilot project in early 2022, I secured funding from AU Small Finance, a domestic private-sector bank in India. By teaming up with them and collaborating with the Urban Ministry of India, Project Gharana now has the opportunity to build an entire community, complete with a classroom, public restrooms and a mobile clinic.

The container home colony is set to be Project Gharana’s biggest undertaking to date. No doubt we will face many challenges in the coming weeks. However these issues are a small price to pay to eliminate the indignity of homelessness and ensure safe housing and sanitation for all in India.

 What ensures the feasibility and sustainability of the container home is ensuring the project’s financial viability. In keeping with the budget, the total project cost approximately 3.80 lakh. Private homeowners, corporate entities, or even the government can afford to build an entirely sustainable home at this cost. For the first container home project, I began by preparing the budget. My next step was to raise INR 4.5 lakhs on Ketto, and I spent this money on materials and getting them delivered to my school. I also received support from AU Small Finance, which indicated their willingness to sponsor future container homes if the prototype is successful and operational. I allocated this money according to a pre-planned budget, wrote cheques to concerned vendors, tracked their deliveries, and maintained a spreadsheet of ongoing purchases and equipment. One welder and carpenter were outsourced; all other labour costs were covered by the school. If the project proceeds as planned, this will serve as the model for the project's financial management — part donations, part collaborations. In addition, AU Small Finance is also tentatively prepared to assist me in setting up future container homes. 

The task of financing Project Gharana has been one that has required both time and effort. In order to raise the initial capital for the project, I set up a fundraiser on Ketto, a crowdfunding platform. This venture allowed me to raise NR 450,000 (around $6000), enabling the take off of the project. I used these funds to purchase the materials and charges for freight of these raw materials. This was further supplemented by commercial funding received from AU Small Finance, an Indian commercial bank. The bank has also expressed their interest in financing future container homes, as part of Project Gharana. 

The eventual goal is to facilitate a formal working relationship with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs of the Government of India. This will allow the project to become fully financially sustainable, and until then, I am confident that commercial investments into the project and crowdfunding will allow Project Gharana to stay afloat and do well.