Portable Storage Inspires High Tech Portable Homes

A Virginia pastor has invented a new kind of portable, high tech home that families can use to create extra room next to their homes for elderly relatives who need care. Rev. Kenneth Dupin, knowing that families often would prefer to care for their aging relatives personally but that they might not have space for them in their homes, has come up with the idea of the MedCottage.

In many ways, the MedCottage is similar to a portable storage container that can be trucked to a home and placed in the yard temporarily. Both are portable and benefit from state-of-the-art construction technology. But while portable storage units are customized to make them ideal for storing certain kinds of belongings, the MedCottage is customized to make it habitable by human beings. MedCottages are sized to fit one person, and include a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. Its special features include lighting at knee height to illuminate the floor, because tripping over objects on the floor is a common cause of falls among the elderly. In case of a fall, video monitors in the MedCottage monitor the cottage at ankle level, in an attempt to respect the cottage resident’s privacy while still letting a caregiver know if the resident has sustained a fall. The MedCottage is also equipped with technology that monitors a resident’s vital signs and can filter the air for contaminants.

“It has all the capabilities of what we would think of as a state of the art hospital room and even some in addition to that,” Dupin explained in a WSLS Channel 10 article last week.

Dupin says his idea was the result of visiting a woman named Katie who had recently moved into a nursing home. “When I got there,” Dupin told a Washington Post reporter, “she was absolutely devastated, and she asked me if I could take her home. That stuck in my head -- the patheticness of it.” Katie’s experience troubled Dupin so much that he felt he had to think of a way to allow families to keep their aging relatives with them, so that elderly people are not forced to move into nursing homes and be cared for by strangers. 

Supervisor Jeff McKay of Fairfax County, Virginia, made fun of the idea in last Thursday’s Washington Post, calling it a “granny pod,” and asking “What’s next? The college dropout pod?” But some commentators, such as the Post’s David Alpert, are pointing out that portable homes could be helpful for all kinds of family situations. Calling the portable cottages a “sensible solution” to housing shortages, Alpert notes that most resistance to the idea comes from people who are worried about zoning regulations -- in other words, neighbors who think that the mini-cottages will be unsightly.

“Many suburban towns have built up complex laws to prevent anyone but rich, large families from living there,” Alpert argues. “But that doesn’t really serve the needs of the residents of those towns any longer, let alone the region. It’s time for a little more flexibility.”

Aware of the potential for zoning problems, Dupin went to the Virginia General Assembly and persuaded it to pass a law that supersedes local zoning regulations. The new law allows families to install a temporary home for an elderly relative in need of medical care, no matter what the zoning regulations say, as long as the family has a doctor’s order. Dupin’s new company, N2Care, has already received $100,000 in grants and will produce two prototype cottages this June. It will probably cost families about $2,000 per month to use a MedCottage, which can get its water and electricity through a connection to a single family house.

Sources used:

Alpert, David. “The ‘college dropout pod’? Why not?” The Washington Post blog. May 7, 2010.

Henshaw, Jarett. “Medical cottage for seniors nearing completion in Salem.” WSLS10. May 6, 2010.

Kunkle, Frederick. “Va. launching portable housing for aging relatives.” The Washington Post. May 6, 2010.

MedCottage.com.

“Wonder cottage or granny pod?” Tiny House blog. May 9, 2010.