Pop-Up Housing

PFNC, an El Paso company, is refurbishing leftover shipping containers into housing units for people living in dangerous or substandard conditions. The company says that each unit will include First World amenities for less than $10,000 (they should be available mid-2009.) They're first going to folks in Juárez, Mexico, where chronic housing shortages have led to huge slums.
"History reminds us that at every moment of  economic upheavel and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas." As President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Feb. 24, he took a moment to look back, pointing to the innovations that have arisen from times of difficulty: the railroad tracks, laid across the country in the midst of the civil war; the public high school system that emerged from the Industrial Revolution; the GI Bill that sent a generation to college. Obama's theme was clear: Times of economic difficulty  can inspire extraordinary innovation. And now, even as the markets continue their roller-coaster ride, he described a time "to put in place tough, new common-sense rules of the road so that our financial market rewards drive and innovation and punishes shortcuts and abuse."