Rain or shine— BillionBricks is on a quest to provide shelter to homeless people in India

Nearly 1.8 million people are homeless in India, exposed to the elements on a daily basis, be it extreme cold and heat, or the seemingly never-ending monsoons. 

The government defines a homeless person as someone who lives in the open or on the roadside, on pavements, in hume-pipes, under flyovers and staircases, or at places of worship, mandaps, and railway platforms.

In all, 1.77 million Indians don’t have a roof over their head, and brave the elements every day, be it the brutal summer and winters of Delhi, or the monsoons of Mumbai.

With a mission to provide everyone a well-built shelter, Prasoon Kumar started the not-for-profit design studio BillionBricks in Singapore in 2013.

I founded BillionBricks with an aim to end homelessness. We believe that when buildings are done for the poor, they are done very poorly. We looked at this singular problem and tried to find a solution which would at mass scale create a tent to counter the problem, which can be replicated by others as well.

A shelter for all seasons

Following years of researching and understanding issues faced by the poor, Prasoon designed a tent at a cost of $100. His team at BillionBricks tested a prototype with 15 families in Delhi, and also took the tent, named WeatherHYDE, to the Himalayas. The tent can accommodate a family of two adults and three children.

The first tent I gave was to a lady named Khushi in Jama Masjid. When I went to meet her a month later, she told me that it was her first home in 23 years. That shocked me because I had never intended to design these tents as a home. This was the first time Khushi and her family slept together. Earlier, they living in gender-segregated communal shelters.

The weather resistant tent can provide protection from extreme temperatures ranging from five to 45 degrees, and can be set up by an individual in 15 just minutes without any tools. The triple-layer reversible cover shields during winter, while the reflective material on the inside traps body heat. In the summer, the tent cover can be reversed to reflect solar heat, helping the inside stay cool.

Empowerment through shelters

The team devised a marketing strategy where it not only sold the tents to the homeless, but also created a commission system. For instance, if an individual sells three tents, they get one free.

The first sale was in Mumbai, and a tent was sold to a sanitation worker for approximately Rs 2,000. Ensuring his daughters went to an English medium School, the worker bought the tent to give his daughters a place to study in peace.

BillionBricks’ first project was in Mumbai, while its largest was in Cambodia where it built 48 homes. In the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake, the team also helped in the rehabilitation in Indonesia.

In Konchur, a small village in Karnataka, BillionBricks built 150 toilets and has undertaken sustainable development work. In September this year, the team finished a school project in Malaysia. WeatherHYDE tents are currently shipped to eight countries. It has also started getting requests for tents from people going camping.

With offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Los Angles, and Sweden, BillionBricks is also working to create opportunities for economic and social upliftment. The organiation had impacted and rehabilitated over 1,800 people until 2016.

Catering to a need

Prasoon completed his studies in architecture and urban planning and starting working in Los Angles in the US. The slow pace of work, however, led him to move to Asia in 2006 when the construction business in the region was growing.

In my six to seven years working in Hong Kong, Jakarta, Manila, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, I realised that I would only cater to a small number of rich people through the condominiums, hotels and airports that I built. I also realised that the quality of life was gradually declining.

One thing that drove his vision to cater to the poor was the that neither the politicians and bureaucrats, nor architects and designers sought to transform the lives of the poor through their work.

We always look at the poor as people who need our help and that we are somehow superior because we have acquired wealth and are giving back to them. Why not look at it as responsibility we have as a society. Thus, I wanted to start a non-profit which looks at things differently.

The work

BillionBricks started as an innovation design studio that works with communities, NGOs and governments to provide scalable high-quality shelter and infrastructure solutions. It works with communities to understand their needs and develop solutions that provide access to shelter, education, healthcare and jobs for its population.

We always look at the homeless as customers and not as beneficiaries, therefore, we want them to demand quality from us and want them to take pride in the solutions they get from us.

Predominantly funded by philanthropic contributions and funding from foundations, BillionBricks generates revenue from its consulting work and the solutions it provides. The company is gradually foraying into the retail market and WhetherHyde is sold through e-commerce websites. The company works with a range of partners such as Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, Nepal Olympic Committee, DBS Foundation, Mantri SEVA Foundation, Insignia, Lenovo, Barclays, Deloitte among several others.

Tackling urban homelessness

To reach a sustainable design-based solution, BillionBricks takes on a problem that affects at least a million people. As a starting point, one of the problems that the team identified was the extreme cold that effects the homeless in winter.

And this problem is faced by the poor all over the world, even in developed countries. In India, specifically north India, summer deaths are a bigger issue, but winter deaths are substantial as well. We realised that climate deaths in general need to be resolved and nobody has found a solution to this issue, Prasoon adds.

Despite working globally, Prasoon says that India’s problem of homeless is unique. Urban homelessness is a pressing problem that requires immediate attention. There is a shortage of 18.78 million houses in India, and while there has been an increase in the total number of houses in the past decade, from 50.06 million to 78.48 million, the problem of homelessness continues to be on a rise.

BillionBricks now plans to introduce a new product, ‘PowerHYDE’, in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to end homelessness by the year 2022. This tent is solar-powered, and produces around four times the energy it needs. The excessive energy, in turn, can be used as an additional revenue for the owner.

In 2016, BillionBricks raised over $100,000 through crowdfunding in two months which enabled it to provide 500 tents to needy families. Prasoon hopes to raise further funds through the WeatherHYDE e-commerce platform.