Think you could get the City to help fund making some of these?
Engineer Designs “Igloo” Shelters To Keep Homeless Warm in the Winter (returntonow.net)
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Currently, the city and county combined spend less than a $1 a day for homelessness. First that would have to be changed. Though they did just help a non-profit buy Hotel 316 to make it a women’s shelter. That parking lot might be a good candidate for some of those. You would probably have better luck partnering with another non-profit and working together to get a grant than government dollars in this climate.
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What’s the price point on this? I have several guys that live down by the river who could use one of these desperately.
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I don’t know what it would go for here. It wouldn’t be difficult to construct, and shouldn’t cost that much. But MakeICT told me to find someone else, so I dropped it.
It is unlikely that the City of Wichita would want to fund the building of this type of temporary housing for the homeless. They already regularly break up the tent villages that develop organically around the downtown. In the past I’ve discussed this very idea of small shelters for the homeless and have been told that while it seems like a good idea it isn’t. The reason being that it encourages a further disconnection from society at large and what aid is available from social services. Effectively, it is a band-aid that further allows the individual suffering homelessness to sever their ties and disconnect from the larger body of assistance and aid, albeit small as that is in this community.
MakeICT is a community of Makers but our main thrust is towards helping other people to make things so while we can support your efforts to learn to make such a shelter it is not in our wheelhouse to make them on mass and then implement a homeless housing program. You may wish to discuss the idea of building and distributing these with some of the professionals that work regularly with the homeless. I’ve included some links from the City of Wichita https://www.wichita.gov/Housing/Pages/Homeless.aspx
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I’m asking on a personal note…
My friend Joe Groom showed me these.
In a pinch this works really well to make heat.
Candle has 3 wicks and the terracotta pot collects wasted energy and radiates it i think this would work great in a shelter
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Thanks Frank. I’d seen this in a little different set up.
This would work great if they could find an enclosed space. Maybe it would keep them from lighting camp fires.
I had initially looked at something that would be somewhat portable but basically function like an oversized sleeping bag with some good insulation. Apparently the city is not really accepting of anything that would promote them sleeping outside. Not sure what the reasoning is behind this. My initial thought was a material like a .25” thick yoga mat that had reflective bubble wrap inside to retain body heat. But I haven’t come up with anything.
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I’m sure its because they associate tent citys as lowering thier property value i really think if they were worried about that they should have a designated area outdoors with free fresh water and bathroom facilities. Idk never been homeless but I have had friends who have
Frank, Malissa just sent me this. Great idea. Don’t know how to go about funding it for Wichita, but it would at least help.
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What a great idea!
Not sure how we would go about funding these, but it would definitely be a better solution than what’s happening now.
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I would rather be a spoke in the wheel than invent a new wheel. The city does have a homeless committee. The city recently help a non-profit purchase Hotel316 as a women’s homeless shelter and it does have a sizable parkings lot. We just need to get a hold of the correct ear. https://www.shelter20.com/
This is cool love it
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A YouTube video of the terra cotta candle heater warns to be extremely careful. Apparently it really does generate extremely high levels of heat under the pot. Enough that it can ignite the wax. The air can apparently be so hot it ignites stuff around it, and the wax itself can leak and start igniting stuff.
He suspended his from chain and attached the terra cotta plate with all thread and some nuts. The wax leaked and found is way through the hole and starting lighting stuff on fire. 
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I ran mine all day long the bottom never got hot enough that I could not touch for a few seconds the top was hot! There was a decent size hole in top I imagine if he was suspending it by a chain he plugged the hole, the hole plays an important part to release some gas im sure
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It’s a great idea Malissa. And I’d bet we could probably find some grant financing.
But the city isn’t going to help any more than they’ve done. Look what they did to Naftzgser Park If an individual tried to set something up on private property, the neighborhood would have a hissy. No one wants a “tent city”.
Oh, and it might appear that we doing something that smacked of “Socialism”. Can’t have that in DoDah. Sorry if I’m rapidly becoming jaded.
