A company that started as a storage shed building company has expanded to build portable temporary housing for the homeless.
Storage sheds of all shapes, colors and sizes line a short stretch of Highway 50 near Fallon. It almost looks like a neighborhood of tiny homes. Some even have covered front porches with wide windows. Steel Structures
When Irvin Plank started Out West Buildings in 2015, he says his goal was to make affordable storage units for Northern Nevada.
As business has expanded, so has his creativity.
Alongside sheds, greenhouses, and stand-alone offices, his job site has something unique: temporary tiny-housing for the homeless, made out of shipping containers.
“Here in the last 6-8 months, we’ve been noticing a lot of demand for the homeless, got us to thinking, and looking – trying to figure out a way to put, repurpose these containers into a way that would solve that problem,” Irvin told 2 News Nevada on Thursday.
A refurbished 40-foot container can fit four tiny units, six feet by eight feet each, just enough room for a bed and some decorations.
Plank says the units come with creature comforts, like insulation and electricity. But they’re also extremely utilitarian.
He can ship them across long distances on a flatbed truck. He also likes to think that the people who live inside them enjoy the security.
“Think about this from the homeless person’s perspective, which is the same as me and you. All of us are created just like this. When we leave, we want a safe place. We want a safe place to put our stuff, and there’s not much a whole lot safer and indestructible than a shipping container,” he said.
The first time Out West Builders contracted to create temporary housing for the homeless was in 2019, when Northern Nevada HOPES approached them with an idea for a transitional housing project.
Plank’s team built the 30 tiny units that now make up Hope Springs.
He thinks that shipping container housing is the right way to innovate temporary housing going forward, especially because it’s cost-effective.
A 20-foot container with just one room costs roughly $16-19,000, but a 40-footer with four rooms is $26,000.
“It’s a good way to spend your money, and not have to spend lots of it to get the job done,” Plank said.
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