PHOENIX — The face of Roosevelt Row has changed in an effort to bring attention to our state’s housing crisis. Arizona still needs about 270,000 units statewide, just to break even.
A once vacant lot near 2nd street and Roosevelt in Phoenix has been transformed to show how shipping containers could be one solution to bring innovative, affordable, and sustainable housing to Arizona, and fast.
The display officially went live in Phoenix during Super Bowl week. It was the perfect time to show off the new container homes with the thousands of new visitors who got a first look at the quick-to-market housing.
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The container home display is not going away just yet, either.
Steel + Spark, a local Phoenix business, developed the SPARKBOX housing units. The company used funding from the Arizona Department of Housing. The homes are completely off-grid using solar power, gray water, and even have an incinerating toilet.
The Arizona Department of Housing and Steel + Spark founder said the homes can be set anywhere housing is needed from metro areas for families and homeless, to affordable workforce housing in rural communities.
Cindy Stotler, Deputy Director at the Arizona Department of Housing said innovative solutions like this are much needed in the Grand Canyon state.
“We have a critical housing shortage that’s statewide," Stotler said. "We need all kinds of housing. We need market-rate housing, workforce housing, affordable housing. These containers can fill many of those categories.”
The container homes are the brainchild of Brian Stark, Steel + Spark founder.
“This just happened to be the right time where because of the Super Bowl, we're able to show the world what we're working on and the technology that we've started to develop where we can look at housing differently," Stark said.
There are five container homes on display in Phoenix and anyone can come to see them for about the next three months. The one bedrooms can fit families of up to three to four people and the single studios can hold up to one to two people.
Once the display is finished, the five container homes will be given to the City of Phoenix to use for transitional housing for the homeless.
Hundreds to thousands of homeless could end up using the homes over the next several years, as people in need of shelter are transitioned in and out.
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