Box Homes

Gamblers always tell you about their winnings, but seldom confess their losses. It makes the casino owners happy. When you do lose in business (or life) it's better to frame your losses as a 'learning experience' experts tell us. Or sometimes it's fashionable to say 'I was right, but a little too soon'.

In 2015-17, I spent far too much money, energy and thought on the idea of building this and other shipping container homes, growing boxes, FEMA emergency shelters, Kayak liveries and Pop-Up retail boxes. Our production facilities started in Pontiac and moved to Flint after the water crisis and we tried to make good jobs for under skilled workers there. Sure we learned a lot of lessons, we lost a lot of money, we even had some fun on this adventure, but what a waste of life's energy this project was. It was undoubtedly a loss.

Shipping containers are amazingly strong, they are ubiquitous around the world as portable building blocks, they can be stacked and arranged and adorned to be cool. They can work. The US Military calls them CHUs - containerized Housing Units. Someday the methods we were experimenting with will be perfected and scaled. Maybe then it will hurt less when I think about this venture?