This is our idea:  For the trickiest cases – or for when the numbers of homeless crash over your organization like a tsunami, it may not be possible to accommodate everyone in supportive housing and even shelter beds.  Think of Cubbie Homes as being either the next step up from living on the streets or the last chance you have to keep from turning people away when you are over capacity.   However you think about it, keep in mind that our human family has known about basic shelter for centuries and in our Illinois Supply Company family we personally believe that not a single person in the world should be sleeping out in the elements – not even because they’ve made bad decisions, become hooked on drugs, are fighting mental demons or whatever.

I would like you to contemplate housing from a philosophical perspective – abstracted from the notion of rent, real-estate taxes, zoning, ordinances – even indoor plumbing.   Has our civilization advanced so far and so fast that we have forgotten what a basic dwelling even looks like?  Are we so hell bent at raising the average standard of living that we have forgotten to raise the minimum standard of living?  A Cubbie Home has a lot in common with the cabin Abe Lincoln was raised in – and he seemed to do alright!

Personally, I feel poorer when I see people living on the streets.  It doesn’t make me feel the least bit better because I am prosperous in comparison.  I don’t need the homeless as an example or warning of what not to do.  When it comes to the toughest homeless cases that almost defy fixing,  It would not take anything away from me if existing tax dollars were re-allocated toward providing minimum viable housing on tiny slices of federal, state or city-owned land that is in abundance.   Quite the contrary, it would be good if some of our tax money went to one-time expenditures rather than ever-increasing ongoing expenses.   We have to stop shuffling these souls around, telling them where they can’t be.  We need to tell them where they can be.