Natural disasters create a desperate rush to find housing for people who lost their homes. After Maui’s wildfires, that effort got an unusual boost — from a massive military C-17 jet that delivered pop-up homes.
Now the modular units are transforming a grassy 10-acre field into 85 homes, with housing for around 250 people, according to the Family Life Center, a social service group working to create the Ohana Hope Village.
The first temporary housing modules from Continest arrived less than two weeks after fires hit Lahaina and other areas, said David Sellers, the principal architect of Hawaii Off-Grid Architecture and Engineering, a leader in the project.
In the August 21st article on ModularHomes, I wrote about these homes being prepped for delivery. Now, here we are, less than a month later and the first 10 will start becoming livable housing for many of those left homeless by the wildfires.
One module can be used on its own or joined to create twice the living space. The first phase of the plan calls for 60 modules — eight single units, and 26 double units, to cater to families. The master plan includes a playground and communal gathering spaces.
The first batch of pop-up buildings arrived from halfway around the world, where they had originally been earmarked to house people displaced by the war in Ukraine. Hungary tapped the international and NATO-based Heavy Airlift Wing to send the housing modules to Hawaii aboard a C-17 cargo jet.
More modules are on the way. If they come by sea, they would arrive in early October. But if they come by air, they could arrive in Maui by the end of September.
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