Transcript:

This past spring, in Watsonville, California, more than two dozen people experiencing homelessness, who had been living along the Pajaro River, moved into new transitional housing.

The development, called Hope Village, was built using an affordable modular building system called LifeArk. Founder Charles Wee designed the system to be resilient to earthquakes and extreme weather, which is intensifying as the climate warms.

Each LifeArk unit is made from plastic panels that are seismically strong, fire-resistant, and highly insulating.

They’re manufactured at a factory, then shipped and assembled on location.

Wee: “And you can put those together just like you would put together a Lego.”

Wee says LifeArk units can stay cool in the summer with less need for air conditioning. And in the winter…

Wee: “If it’s really cold outside, it’ll keep the temperature of the inside much, much warmer. So it works both ways. … It’s very similar to, like, a Yeti cooler.”

And because Hope Village sits close to a river, living spaces are elevated three feet above the ground to help keep floodwater out.

So this building technology is helping provide climate-resilient shelter to some of Watsonville’s most vulnerable residents.

Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media