“I believe a person needs the dignity of something they can call their own, even if it’s only this,” Gary Pickering, a retired auto-body-shop owner in Pleasant Grove, told TV news station KSL Tuesday.
Pickering, 73, was technically homeless for three years following a divorce in the late 1980s, when he lived in his shop.
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“I lost my home after I signed everything over to my wife and seven children,” he told Yahoo! Shine. “But I had a roof over my head.” Because his shop was in an industrial area, he got to know many of the homeless men who lived in broken-down cars or in other corners of the area, eventually housing four in his van during a particularly harsh winter. He learned what it was like to not have a place to live, through the men he met, who explained that they didn't go to shelters because of reasons ranging from “They steal my shoes” to “They won't let me bring my dog.”
The lessons stuck with Pickering, who in 2009, long after he’d gotten back on his feet, saw a homeless man while driving through the nearby town of Provo. He went home and constructed a 2-foot-wide, 6-foot-long “cocoon,” mainly out of plywood. "But when I went to the find the man to give it to him, I couldn't find him again," he recalled.
Pickering became passionate about coming up with the perfect temporary shelter. And after years of trial and error, he believes he’s finally perfected the “survival pod”: a 4-foot-wide, 8-foot-long micro house constructed from sheets of pressed wood, a wooden frame and a roof made of soft corrugated plastic called Coroplast.There’s room enough inside for a sleeping bag, a kerosene lamp (there are vents in the structure), several small items, and even a specially designed portable toilet. Plus, the pods can be hooked up to electricity, like a trailer, if parked on already wired property with the permission of a homeowner.
Pickering has constructed five of the pods, personally funding them at a cost of about $500 apiece," he said.
