At first glance, the small circular bins might remind you of the grain bins popular years back when farms where small and so were corn yields. But this structure isn’t for grain; it’s for humans.

The structure is called Safe T Home. These steel grain bins are 18 feet in diameter; they have a double ceiling; they have two screened windows which lock from the inside; and  they are structurally so strong even winds up to 120 mph are not a challenge.

A company named Sukup Manufacturing  of Sheffield, Iowa, engineered hundreds of these structures in wake of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. These homes provide shelter for the homeless in poverty stricken areas in Haiti, Africa, India and elsewhere.

Sukup and the people of Haiti worked together to build The Village of Hope where the Safe T homes shelters more than 200 people. 

Paul van Gorkom, executive director of GoServ Global, formerly called Global Compassion Network, shared some history on these homes for people effort, which began in May 2011.

“Our organization was birthed out of the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010. One of our founders was an Iowa farmer who is also a pilot. He was asked to fly medical supplies from Florida to the medical teams that were assisting the people of Haiti. He did that for 40 straight days,” he said. “After that he spent some time in Haiti personally viewing the devastation and the hurt.

“He came across some key people there who wanted to be part of a lifeline to help rebuild this country. And from that our organization was born.”

Haiti now has about 140 of these new homes in place; 10 more were recently built for another missionary organization in Kenya. The Ivory Coast is next up for delivery of these modular structures, said van Gorkom.

GoServ Global is independently funded through donations, mainly from Iowa, but staff is working to expand to other areas. The agricultural community is a major provider.

“We would not survive without the help of farmers who resonate with our building and who resonate with the importance and their role in feeding the world. Farmers adapt quickly. They see the immediate value and economic logic of these steel bin homes rather than wood and concrete,” he said.

“They understand container shipments works for these just as it does for farm equipment,” van Gorkom added.

GoServ Global also receives financial support from a variety of church groups.

“We’re all about delivering hope,” he said. “It’s just people who have a heart for what we are doing that are helping us with their donations.”

A seed dealer in Odebolt, Iowa, provides a warehouse at no cost for the temporary storage of SafeT Homes after delivery from Sukup.

“We’ll bring in a shipping container to his dock; load it with the various steel components, and then this container gets trucked to a port for shipping to Haiti, or wherever else it might be going.”

“The original intent was to provide temporary housing, but they loved those structures so much that they wanted to stay there rather than move into whatever new construction might eventually provide. So we dug some wells, provided bathroom facilities, shower facilities; we even built a water tower for this new village. We provided many things that native Haitian people were not used to, said van Gorkom.

The mission of GoServ Global is to be the hands and feet of Christ by addressing the physical needs of people’s homes as well as sharing the life-changing message of Jesus. The vision is to be able to respond to disasters that occur around the globe.

Hagen writes for The Land.