A new gift facilitated by the Ukrainian Red Cross has installed 10 new “foldable” modular home designs from Hapi Homes, LLC. to the beleaguered historic port city of Odesa.

The gift is meant to house local families that have been displaced as a result of the ongoing conflict. The two-bedroom units come fully furnished and are set to be delivered later in the month in an effort to alleviate the burden on local workers – all doctors, nurses, teachers, and engineers, respectively.

The company says: “The prefabricated homes are prebuilt and folded by Hapi Homes and assembled on-site. Each home is “plug-and-play,” and will be assembled in less than 8 hours. The homes will be located on a 2.4-acre site that the city hopes will ultimately house more than 70 homes."

Each design offers a total of 420 square feet of space for the workers’ families and includes a kitchenette, private bathroom, dining, and living room, with double-layered tempered glass windows, and wood fiberboard flooring. 

Their assembly is made possible by a patented post-assembly folding technology developed by the company, an overview of which can be found here. Hapi Homes says the folding process condenses each design before it’s placed into a shipping container for transportation. In a press release, the company says they currently maintain the capacity to deliver “thousands” of the rapidly deployable homes on a monthly basis and say they are continuing to work with the city of Odesa for further support.

Ukraine currently has an estimated population of over 8 million internally displaced people. The fast availability of the homes is therefore seen as an asset that can help the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations towards reactive housing efforts while offering those affected the privacy and personal dignity not seen in the dormitory-style encampments ordinarily considered to be the only other option to meet demands adequately and within a short period of time.  

"The main goal of the activities of the Odesa Regional Branch of the Ukrainian Red Cross Society is to prevent and alleviate human suffering during armed conflicts, disasters, and accidents, to provide assistance to health care authorities, and to assist local authorities in their activities in the humanitarian sphere," Yevhen Zharikov, Head of the Odesa Regional Branch of the Red Cross Society of Ukraine offered. "Support from the Hapi Homes team makes an immense difference to the lives of families who will be offered this accommodation."