EDAR — Everyone Deserves a Roof — was featured on NPR’s Marketplace this morning in a segment titled “For Homeless, a House With a Roof.” You can listen to the NPR piece here and read more about it on NPR’s Blog of the Nation.

Here is an excerpt from the radio interview from NPR’s Rob Schmitz:

Rob Schmitz: The idea for EDAR came to Hollywood producer Peter Samuelson on a bike ride last year. He noticed there were more homeless people than usual, and one of them gave him a tour of her make-shift home.

Peter Samuelson: There, behind the bushes was a large cardboard box. And it had been raining and it was wet. And it was smelly. And it was disgusting. And this was her home.

Samuelson sponsored a competition to invent an alternative, and the winner came up with the EDAR.

Selmia Magee zips open the canvas flap of her EDAR unit and peeks outside. Last night, she slept on the floor of the chapel at an overcrowded homeless shelter on LA’s Skid Row. The 7 foot-long tent is suspended inches off the cold ground by wheels. Its floor is a thin, firm mattress. Its ceiling, a beige water-proof canvas, is four feet tall.

Selmia Magee: And it has like these little windows that you can open up, right? And then you can just feel the mattresses, it’s really nice.