Shelter has always been, and will always be, one of our critical human needs for survival. So I would be remiss if in a podcast seeking to uncover the core of how we were meant to live as human beings, I focused on cabins, tiny homes, and other stylish back-to-basics dwellings for upscale urbanites while ignoring an untenable truth I witness every day: That there are untold thousands of people living in our cities who, in fact, have no shelter at all. In Los Angeles alone, where the homeless population increased a staggering 23 percent in the past year and more than 50,000 people sleep on the streets every night, we are in the midst of a homelessness (really, houselessness) epidemic unprecedented in the course of human history. How have we, as a modern society, allowed homelessness to persist on this unimaginable scale? And how can we, as a modern society, begin to rectify it? 

This is the focus of my episode with LA-based writer, designer and architect Sofia Borges, director of the prestigious Martin Architecture and Design Workshop (MADWORKSHOP) and a faculty member at the USC School of Architecture, where she recently spearheaded the school’s first-ever advanced topics design studio on the homeless crisis in LA. The resulting project, Homes for Hope (a light-filled, rapidly deployable 92-square-foot modular microhouse for the homeless that could easily work as a backyard studio for the minimalist design enthusiast) won a 2017 Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award. Sofia has also authored and edited more than two dozen books on architecture and design, and as you will hear, is a true urban visionary. Here, she speaks passionately about the manifold possibilities for Homes for Hope, the scourge of NIMBYism, and the call for us all to be part of a sea change to combat unsustainable human suffering everywhere.