The profound nature of the problem which homeless people face is exemplified by the fact that they sleep in makeshift cardboard shelters at night, and in the morning their shelters are swept away by cleanup crews with dumpsters and water hoses.

Electroland and its designers focused on the homeless problem and came up with a design for an urban nomad shelter. A colorful, inflatable structure designed to provide warmth and comfort for what some call refugees and disaster victims, the urban nomad shelter is  portable and highly visible.  Featured in an exhibition, "Designing Safety in an Anxious Age", the shelter costs around $24.

Interestingly, the shelter appeared at that exhibition as part of a display of 300 objects that "address the spectrum of human fears and worries," from emergency shelters for the victims of wars and natural disasters to objects designed to fend off feelings of loneliness or fear of the dark.

The urban nomad inflatable shelter was also conceived with the intention of distributing  thousands of them to homeless people irrespective of why or where they are homeless.

It is also a guarantee that the wielders of the hoses on early morning city sidewalks will think twice before aiming their hose at a brightly colored shelter with a human being visibly asleep there.

In Berlin a couple of years ago a design symposium called "Build or Die -Constructing Survival" featured more than a hundred instant housing projects. Since then more new ideas about how to create instant housing have emerged in Europe and around the world.
It would seem that the perception of homelessness inspiring these ideas is due to a more positive image of the homeless.  The homeless are,  as the exhibitors realized, just as likely to experience the " spectrum of human fears and worries" as a victim of a natural disaster.

There is only one humanity. Whether we call human beings  nomads, evacuees, immigrants, flood victims, or a dozen other names, should not matter.   Everyone qualifies for instant housing when they need it, no matter what caused their need.