The EMPWR coat is a water-resistant jacket, which transforms into a sleeping bag. It can also be worn as an over-the-shoulder bag when not in use. It’s constructed of durable, water-resistant Cordura fabric from Carhartt, upcycled automotive insulation from General Motors, and other materials provided by generous donors in the greater Detroit, Michigan area, where brutal winter weather makes homelessness especially treacherous.

You don’t so much “own” the coat as “sponsor” it. The company website invites you to donate $100 USD – which covers the cost of labor, materials, and overhead expenses – which “sponsors” a coat giveaway by The Empowerment Plan team.  You can also opt to have the jacket sent to you for distribution in your own community.

Founder and CEO Veronika Scott, pictured above and below, started the project when a class at The College for Creative Studies in Detroit challenged her to create a product to fill a real need in her community. Scott decided to tackle homelessness and began spending time at a nearby homeless shelter where the design for the EMPWR coat developed. When an angry homeless woman confronted Scott, stating she didn’t need a coat but a job, the project to give comfort to people sleeping in the rough took a turn towards social development, and so launched The Empowerment Plan.

The nonprofit works to permanently elevate families from the generational cycle of homelessness. It hires single parents from local shelters and provides them with training and full-time employment as seamstresses, enabling them to earn a stable income, find secure housing, and regain their independence.

The project does much more than make coats to give out to the local homeless community. Since 2012, The Empowerment Plan has provided employment to 34 homeless individuals—all of whom have now secured permanent housing for themselves and their families —and distributed over 15,000 coats to those in need across the US, Canada, and a few countries internationally.

Supported by donations from private individuals, large corporations and foundations, the project also partners with local organizations to provide its workers with on-the-clock, supplemental programming including high school equivalency courses, financial literacy classes, and professional development seminars.

Scott believes her model can be replicated in communities beyond Detroit, saying, “We are creating a workforce from a population many overlook. Homelessness should not be a life sentence.” The project is scalable. Last year, Chicago’s hip-hop and R&B radio station “Chance” announced its “Warmest Winter” campaign that aimed to raise $100,000 on Crowdrise to give 1,000 EMPWR coats for homeless people. 

“Pathological consumption has become so normalized that we scarcely notice it,” wrote George Monbiot in a 2012 column in the Guardian about the economic and environmental obscenity of Christmastime consumption.

Living in Jordan, a developing country where one-third of its population has refugee status, it’s simple to see that the global culture of pathological consumption – which exploits cheap labor, consumes natural resources, and ultimately provides an accelerating waste stream to our landfills and oceans – needs radical readjustment.

Filmmaker Annie Leonard stated in her 2007 documentary The Story of Stuff that only 1% of the materials flowing through the consumer economy stay in use six months after sale. Monbiot wrote that even those goods we might wish to hold on to are soon condemned to destruction through either planned obsolescence (easy breakage) or perceived obsolescence (going out of style).

So this Christmas and Hanukkah, consider the options. Do someone a favor. Give the gift of your skills. Cook a meal or hand-make something useful. Support businesses that protect the environment. Or buy a functional EMPWR coat to keep a stranger warm. Learn more on their website, link here.

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Artist Gregory Kloehn veered off course from a career creating large-scale sculptures, focusing his talents on making tiny buildings from garbage. He erects one-room houses to hotel the homeless, dumpster diving for raw materials which he reassembles into inventive (and minuscule) mobile homes.

This is where upcycling is perfect to help those who don’t have money to shop or buy a home of their own.

The little structures are built on a base about the size of a mattress, usually made from old wood shipping pallets and topped with a pitched roof to divert rain (Kloehn works in the famously moist Bay area of Oakland, California – but these shelters can be used everywhere).

He also buys and adds wheels, so new owners can easily relocate when needed.

He first set out to build tiny homes with materials sourced from illegal dump sites, with an intention to sell them.

Story goes that one day, a homeless man came by his studio asking for a tarp to use as shelter. He couldn’t afford to buy his own.

Kloehn – who was working on a small wood frame (equipped with a rudimentary kitchen, water tank and small trap for human waste) – realized it could act as an actual “house” for this man, a customized and securable space in which to live.

Kloehn is not homeless, although he lives in a similar structure while vacationing in New York; this guy knows small-house living. Each new design is inspired in part by the changing inventory of materials at hand.

Unlike his sculptural works, these creations are being used.  His houses change lives.

California has the largest homeless population in America. Kloehn can’t solve the problem, his inexpensive solution can help.

He’s also attracting media attention and donations and a small army of volunteers. Reach out to him via his Facebook page if you would like additional info (link here). If you are a dumpster diver, who likes to salvage perfectly great items that other people shop for, online or in stores, start up a project like this for homeless near you.

His housing recipe can be replicated most everywhere on the planet.  Here in Jordan, I’ve seen small NGOs sweat blood to raise funds for metal cabins (similarly sized to Kloehn’s houses), then bend in pretzel twists to get them cleared through Customs for delivery – an arduous process that chews up time and more cash.

Jordan is a mecca for illegal dumping.  Perhaps an Amman architectural school could replicate this project as a for-credit design studio class? For minimal investment, corporate sponsors could step up to host a city-wide design competition. Involve international schools with established community service programs. Team up with Habitat for Humanity.

Participants could clear dumpsites AND create useful shelter for refugees or local roadside tent communities; it’s so easy to think outside the box in this zip code so rich in improper waste disposal and human need.

Kloehn doesn’t plan to stop building. He’s thinking about teaching others how to make them – starting classes.

“A lot of people who hear about what I’m doing want to get involved,” he told Viral Nova. “Maybe we meet someplace and put a couple homes together.”

It’s brilliant. If more people could learn how to create these tiny homes for others, the impact is enormous.  Incite creativity, clean up trash heaps, and change lives.

All images from Gregory Kloehn 

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