By MBAKS Content Strategist James Slone

Everett-based Pallet is helping lift people out of homelessness one shelter at a time.

Cabins at Chandler Village in Los Angeles

Homelessness is a national problem. While a lot of the media focus has been on California, all major cities in the U.S. have large homeless populations, especially where affordable housing is scarce. Depending on who’s counting, King County alone has between 13,000 and 40,000 unhoused people.

For many individuals, past run-ins with the justice system and struggles with addiction or mental health make it difficult to utilize traditional shelters. But a temporary shelter that is clean, safe, and private can help them attain stability, access care, and move towards a permanent home.

That’s where Pallet comes in.

A public benefit corporation based in Everett, Pallet’s mission is to create “private and safe spaces for anyone transitioning from homelessness to more permanent housing.” How? By fabricating private sleeping cabins with lockable doors that can be easily assembled anywhere.

Composed of fiberglassreinforced plastic, foam insulating cores for shelves and panels, and aluminum framing, Pallet cabins are less expensive than traditional shelters and can be deployed quickly and cheaply to create rapid-response villages anywhere in the country.

For Amy King, CEO and founder of Pallet, the company’s business model is not the end point but the beginning. “Our ultimate goal,” she tells me, is “a world where no one goes unsheltered.” But she’s quick to add that others will “have to step in and innovate to make that happen.”

“People Are the Bottom Line”

Pallet grew out of Square Peg Construction, a company Amy founded with her husband Brady in 2014 to employ formerly incarcerated and homeless people in homebuilding. While helping employees reenter the workforce, they realized that many struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This made staying in congregate shelters, where residents reside together in a shared space, virtually impossible.

Years before, the Kings had explored the possibility of deploying private shelters for families displaced by natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps, they thought, the disaster idea could be adapted.

“The real lightbulb moment for us was when we brought the original idea to our staff,” says Amy. “They unanimously agreed that a community-based model with private space was the missing piece” of the housing puzzle. That led to the shelter design that, in Amy’s words, “encourages people to come inside who would otherwise reject services.”

Community Focus

Pallet’s model is already bearing fruit. Since 2019, they’ve constructed thousands of sleeping cabins and are looking to build thousands more.

“We’ve built nearly 100 communities in 50 cities across the U.S.,” says Amy, “with 76 currently operating in 45 cities, seven in Washington alone. That’s one in five states!”

Building individual units is just one part of creating villages. To be effective, they have to offer more than just shelter. 24/7 onsite social services and public amenities—such as laundry and shower facilities—are essential to improving the quality of life for residents transitioning to permanent housing.

To deliver this, Pallet works closely with nonprofits and municipalities across the country.

“Our primary customers are public entities: cities, counties, states, and soon, federal agencies,” Amy tells me. “But we do sell shelters directly to nonprofits and faith-based groups to build the cabins themselves.”

Working closely with community-based partners is essential to success. “We’ve met hundreds of service providers across the country that are doing amazing work in their communities to serve those in need. And we always defer to them, since they know what’s best for their communities.”

Construction for Change volunteers assemble 20 Pallet shelters in Everett

Anywhere, Anytime

Pallet’s villages can be built in a wide range of locations and easily moved or dismantled. Because the villages are only active for a few months to a few years, they can be placed on vacant land before it’s permanently developed— making the cost of renting the land negligible.

Vertical integration makes Pallet products scalable and cost-effective, further bringing down the price of deployment. Each panel is fabricated in Pallet’s shop in Everett before being shipped to the site. According to Amy, they can fit 20 to 25 standard shelters, accessories included, in one 53-foot trailer.

Pallet cabins are built to last for up to ten years, pretty impressive for structures that can be built by two or three people in under an hour. Community rooms are a little more complicated, taking one to two days for assembly, and hygiene facilities must be connected to onsite services by licensed plumbers and electricians.

Depending on the needs of the customer, the deployment team can assemble the village in a matter of days, especially when partnering with local organizations like Conservation Corps or Team Rubicon.

Quality Assured

Before Pallet ships a cabin, customers are contractually required to meet five “dignity standards”: access to services, hygiene centers, food, transportation, and security for resident safety.

I asked Amy about organizations that can’t meet the requirements. “We have an in-house Advisory Services and Government Affairs team who will assist them,” she explains. “We also have a village success manager who travels around the country auditing our sites and serving as a partner to help them succeed in getting their residents’ needs addressed.”

“We’ve had the privilege of meeting hundreds of amazing service providers and are quickly learning how to assess their success. We’re constantly working with them to identify and share best practices and serve as a catalyst for collaboration and idea sharing.”

Private bathroom and showers at the Pallet village at Skagit First Step Center in Burlington

Prioritizing People

Pallet has had a great run thus far and continues to grow. But Amy says there is still much to be done. “Pallet is not yet profitable due to very high growth in the last few years and investment in our ability to scale to serve as many communities as possible.”

“A public benefit corporation, Pallet’s profits are designated first and foremost to our mission,” says Amy, “which, beyond housing people, is providing living wage jobs to people that need them most in the communities in which we operate.”

Pallet currently has 105 full-time employees. Many of them (about 80%) have histories of homelessness, addiction, and/ or justice system involvement. To stabilize and help them break the cycle of poverty, Pallet offers health insurance, 401(k) plans, mental health support, on-the-job and life skills training, and other support.

This doesn’t just benefit their employees; it helps the construction industry as a whole, which continues to face a shortage of skilled workers.

“As demand for our product continues to grow, we plan to create more production facilities in cities across the country that have the highest rates of homelessness and recidivism to train the next generation of [the] manufacturing and construction workforce.”

Big Problems Require Many Solutions

Scalability is key to taking on a problem of such magnitude. The scale Pallet’s aiming for is epic. “In five to ten years,” says Amy, “Pallet will have a global presence and will offer products to meet the needs of international communities displaced by conflict, disaster, and poverty.”

This is no small order, and Amy encourages other companies to take up the challenge. In a recent interview with LA Currents, she declared, “We welcome competition in the space and want people to come up with more innovative ideas. We need more housing; everyone agrees with that.”

She tells me, “We recognize that the global housing crisis is too massive for Pallet alone to solve and hope to inspire and collaborate with other housing innovators to create housing technology that can overcome the many challenges of the regulatory and built environment.”

Pallet may not be able to take on homelessness alone, but if other innovators follow their path, one day everyone will have access to a home of their own—or at least take the first major step on their way.

Pallet has been building villages across the nation. Here’s a look at just a few of them.

Halting development to slow growth? It’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for ‘em.  

If a building clad in a color you didn’t think fit your city’s personality suddenly popped up overnight, would you take action? 

That’s what the City of Issaquah did in 2016 when a multi-hued apartment complex started gaining attention for all the wrong reasons. The building in question, the Atlas Apartments, featured colors (including a brazen blue) that many residents deemed unacceptable to their city’s persona. The outcry resulted in an emergency ordinance at the Sept. 6, 2017 council meeting that paused development in the area, the reasoning being that new construction was not meeting the standards of the 2012 Central Issaquah Plan. 

On the moratorium, which was extended an additional six months after the original verdict last September, Issaquah Economic Development and Development Services Director Keith Niven stated that the decision was made not to deter future growth but to ensure the right kind of growth for the city. 

Critics claimed the Atlas complex served as an example of what the city didn’t want or need, citing its lack of mixed-use ground floor space and unsightly “Orlando architecture.” City leaders instead wanted to see denser projects fit for growth and which add vibrancy to the central Issaquah area. Twenty-one months after the original moratorium, city staff had revamped code to solidify areas such as parking requirements for new development and introduced a design and architectural manual to streamline future project aesthetics—including acceptable colors. 

Development changes also included a plan to help diversify the city’s available housing, including reducing hurdles for accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and experimenting with a tax exemption for multifamily housing. 

The moratorium officially ended May 21, and so its effects are yet to be determined. But the underlying question is this: Are moratoriums like the one instituted in Issaquah ultimately beneficial or an unnecessary hindrance to providing much-needed housing? MBAKS Senior Policy Analyst Allison Butcher states the latter, calling halts to facilitate growth a “drastic measure” that won’t do anything but put our region even more behind the effort to give residents the shelter they demand. 

“We are obviously continuing to grow at a fast pace and instituting a building moratorium isn’t going to stop that,” says Butcher. “The growth is coming whether there’s a moratorium in place or not.” 

That sentiment hasn’t stopped other cities from following suit, however, as cities such as Federal Way, Duvall, North Bend, and Newcastle have all recently adopted moratoriums for a variety of reasons, from reworking zoning standards to policy updates and more. 

But the question remains, are these sudden stoppages ultimately preventing the very thing we need in this unprecedented time of growth and home prices? 

Butcher further explains the potential backfire our cities could see while instituting construction stoppages, saying, “While a moratorium is legal, it does not mean it is good policy. At a time when demand for housing is far outpacing housing supply, which drives up both home prices and rents and makes housing less attainable, building moratoria certainly are not good for housing. They also are not good for our economy or the families and workers looking for a home closer to job centers. Furthermore, they potentially could run counter to our region’s transportation investments that contemplate the need for more transit-oriented development in certain areas.” 

Butcher goes on to address housing affordability and how it relates to moratoriums, stating that “perhaps the biggest problem with building moratoria is that they are counterproductive to solving our housing affordability crisis. Simply put, moratoria are a bad deal for anyone looking for housing—they only make it harder for current and future residents to find a home they can afford.”

Butcher also says that stoppages also lose significant revenue from new construction, as participating cities become devoid of local income, taxes, and other benefits to new housing. Her solution? “Instead of enacting policies designed to slow or halt housing, local governments should work within their communities to expand housing supply and choices for families. Housing goes hand in hand with a strong economy and vibrant community.” 

Those looking for affordable housing options might not care about a wild blue tint outside their window. Cities must look out for their residents but must also be willing to let growth flourish because, as Butcher points out, the people are coming, and it shouldn’t be our self-imposed lack of available housing that leaves them feeling blue. 

Michell Filleau-Maas, our community stewardship manager, needs your help to make our 25th anniversary of Rampathon successful.

Volunteer