Portable Shelters, Related Shelter Systems, and Methods of Their Deployment

Abstract

Portable shelters, shelter systems, and methods of deployment of such shelters are described. The shelters or housing units may be deployed in emergency housing situations and may be grouped into systems of shelters. One particular embodiment comprises a rigid top frame structure, a rigid bottom frame structure, and one or more collapsible support arms connecting the top frame structure to the bottom frame structure. The frame structures and the collapsible support arm(s) are sized and configured to form a shelter frame when the collapsible support arm(s) are in a fully extended position, and the top frame structure is brought into proximity with the bottom frame structure when the collapsible support arm(s) are in a collapsed position. Methods of rapid deployment of the shelters and systems of shelters are also described.

Description

REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No. 12 / 098,921, which claims the benefit and priority of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 912,079, filed Apr. 16, 2007, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.TECHNICAL FIELD[0002]This invention relates to the field of portable shelters, shelter systems, and methods of portable shelter deployment. Specifically, this invention relates to temporary housing shelters which may be deployed in emergency housing situations.BACKGROUND[0003]Until now, humanitarian aid organizations, disaster relief agencies, and most governments were missing a critical tool for emergency recover efforts—readily deployable housing for displaced individuals and families. After most natural and man-made disasters, housing needs can be broken into three main periods: short-term housing, medium-term housing, and long-term housing. A few types of specific disasters can be forecast, such as hurr...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The system effectively addresses the housing gap by providing flexible, rapid, and scalable emergency housing solutions that can be deployed in under 24 hours, reducing the financial impact of disasters and ensuring displaced populations are housed close to their homes, regardless of the disaster type or location.

Problems solved by technology

Until now, humanitarian aid organizations, disaster relief agencies, and most governments were missing a critical tool for emergency recover efforts—readily deployable housing for displaced individuals and families.

Currently, there are no emergency housing systems that can address all four periods and yet be flexible enough to transition from one housing period to the next as needs change, creating a housing gap that exacerbates recovery efforts and increases victims' misery.

In Louisiana, many houses also were destroyed in the southeastern parishes, and many New Orleans residents, who were unable to evacuate before the storm, were stranded at the Louisiana Superdome or New Orleans Convention Center in detestable conditions.

However, each of these systems has major drawbacks.

Specifically, regarding the housing vouchers, they proved to be inadequate at sheltering large populations for several obvious reasons.

By redistributing a large number of people in such an abrupt and rapid manner, regional infrastructure is overwhelmed and cannot maintain day-to-day operations.

Housing vouchers present numerous problems with fraud, abuse, and the cost of living in the varying locations to which families are displaced.

While these ships do allow a number of people to stay in a compact, self-sufficient area for an extended time period, the cruise ships are limited to deep-water ports for deployment, can only handle a small amount of the population from a major disaster, and must be leased or rented from private or foreign fleets.

One governmental agency was widely criticized for the slow and inadequate response in providing temporary housing to residents in need in Mississippi and Louisiana and for the high cost of the travel-type trailers provided to residents.

Also, the trailers are not designed for long-term storage and are too bulky to efficiently store in large numbers.

Moreover, the trailers were of the type that one truck could only pull one trailer, which resulted in the trailers being individually delivered to individuals and families in Mississippi and Louisiana using individual pickup trucks, which resulted in slow deployment of these trailers to those residents in need of temporary housing.

Therefore, it is clear that past solutions have many flaws without even taking into consideration the sheer costs associated with each.

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