Daniel W Chen

Last year, I worked with the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter as part of their Outreach Team. In this capacity, I interacted with the homeless every week throughout the winter. I learned that many people refuse to sleep if they are not in a shelter due to privacy or saftey concerns. This can cause significant health consequences, especially in the winters. Therefore, creating a means to provide beds to all of these homeless people is a worthy pursuit.

Japanses capsule hotels are one-person compartments that people can rent out. They are safe and relatively quiet. We redesigned the capsules to be larger to fit the typical American male. Because the capsules are small, the number of people per square feet increases dramatically. This increased efficiency represents extra profits for the company.

This model can be applied to a homeless shelter as well. The rooms are safrer and quieter, giving residents a sense of safet.

For Synergy, a one-week, social entreprenuer incubater, I developed a 1-to-1 paying system that would open part of the shelter to allow tourists to stay. The income from the tourists would pay for the stay of a homeless resident. Basing pricing on New York City, I estimated that a per night stay of 30 dollars would be able to cover all the costs associated for a customer. That's 10% of the cost of an average hotel!

The pitch won first prize at the Synergy Pitch Competition.