Hard To Shed Visions Of Two Americas

The city of Fresno, population 500,000, now has three major homeless camps, or “tent cities,” near downtown and smaller encampments or “settlements” along two highways. A few dozen of these homeless have moved to a “village” founded by the non-profit Poverello House in 2003 called “Village of Hope,” a collection of storage sheds, 8 feet by 10 feet. It exists in a former junkyard behind a chain-link fence. Each unit offers two cots, sleeping bags and a solar-powered light.

From: Good Questions: Modern Outdoor Tool and Storage Sheds? (ApartmentTherapy.com)

Patrick has a question about affordable outdoor storage:

I have been trying to finding an attractive, affordable storage container for my relatively large deck/patio. Ideally it would be about 3-3.5 feet deep and about 5-6′ wide and 5 feet tall. All I can find are very “suburban” plastic or wood things that look like either a miniature barn or plastic playground equipment. I haven’t been able to find anything that is slightly more contemporary looking and would actually be an aesthetic asset to the deck.

Patrick, we’ve noticed the very same thing each time we visit the local hardware store or lumber yard. Storage and tool sheds seem to be mostly relegated to Fisher Price themed plastic housing or barnyard chic in appearances…something we’d hide away far from view.
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Some ideas: you could always purchase a standard toolshed and fancy it up like this couple did in Polynesian theme. Or perhaps splurge and order a MetroShed, a small sized prefab shed that is delivered flat packed, takes a few hours to construct and is definitely a more modern (and larger) storage space you could also expand into as somewhere to enjoy as additional living space.

image 1 from: Fresno Homeless Moved into Tool Sheds (1984/Indymedia)

NYT slideshow of Fresno tent cities, including “Village of Hope” today.

(Update 10:15 am PST- revised for clarity/content)

(image 1: Mike Rhodes/IndyMedia. image 2: unattributed/ ApartmentTherapy.com.)