Homeless Army veteran Dean Harrell’s family was killed in an auto accident in 1998. Since then he found himself homeless, moving from hotel to hotel and most recently living in a shelter in Santa Ana. In March he moved in to his own studio apartment created from three shipping containers in a new complex named Potter’s Lane.
The 16-unit micro housing project in Midway City. Constructed and managed by the nonprofit American Family Housing, whose headquarters are right next door, Potter’s Lane has attracted wide attention as an innovative approach to a stubborn problem: quick and affordable housing.
It’s the first such permanent housing complex for the homeless in California created from modified shipping containers and possibly the only one nationwide.