In Sacramento’s Oak Park neighborhood, history and hardship intersect. Once a thriving cultural hub in the early 1900s, Oak Park’s fortunes shifted in the 1960s when freeway expansion carved through its streets, fragmenting the community and fueling decades of decline. Property values fell, crime rose, and by the 1980s and ’90s, poverty had become entrenched.
But where others saw only challenges, neighbors Kevin Greenberg and Aimee Phelps saw opportunity—and a chance to help.
Together, they launched a grassroots project to provide Oak Park’s homeless with something often taken for granted: a private, safe place to sleep. Inspired by the look of vintage trailers, they designed and built small, mobile sleeping pods—colorful, artistic shelters that are practical, portable, and personal.
With about $18,000 raised through GoFundMe and support from local businesses, Greenberg and Phelps constructed their first prototypes back in 2016. Each pod is hand-built with a steel frame, plywood floor, and insulation. Inside is a foam mattress, pillow, blanket, broom, and trash can—everything needed for a clean and dignified night’s rest. Vibrant, custom paint jobs make each pod stand out as a piece of art as much as a shelter.
The pods were also designed with mobility in mind. Sacramento’s 72-hour parking ordinance requires vehicles to be moved every three days, so each unit can be pushed, pulled, or walked to a new location. Originally designed to be bicycle-towed, many now use wheels repurposed from donated wheelchairs—an evolution born out of both creativity and necessity.
Building one pod costs about $250 in materials and 10 hours of labor. Greenberg and Phelps estimate they’ve built and delivered around 10 units, each one placed directly into the hands of someone living on the streets of Oak Park. Their first recipient was a woman named Gwen.
“Giving that first pod away was amazing,” Phelps recalls. “That’s my favorite part: to see the joy and love, and being able to raise somebody up—to lift them off the ground, literally.”
But for Phelps and Greenberg, the mission goes beyond simply building shelters. “We don’t just give them something and walk away,” Phelps explains. “We befriend them. We see their humanness.”
The two envision a larger movement they call Pod Nation—a community-powered effort to replicate this model wherever the need exists. “If we can bring everybody together, that would be the best part,” Phelps says. “What you’re doing is marrying a need, art, and community service together.”
In Oak Park, where decline once defined the landscape, brightly painted pods now stand as small but powerful symbols of hope, creativity, and compassion.
Originally published in the VCT magazine, 2017.
