New Housing Non-Profit Forming with Focus on Environmental Sensitivities

[Guest guest]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

New Housing Non-Profit Forming with Focus on Environmental Sensitivities

Snowflake, Arizona USA – June 7, 2010 – Re|shelter is a new non-profit

organization forming to address the urgent need for housing alternatives for

people with environmental intolerances, who experience mild to

life-threatening physical reactions to extremely low levels of chemicals, mold,

electrical fields, and other environmental factors and have great difficulty

living in their conventionally built homes.

Currently applying for 501©3 status, the charitable organization is

committed to addressing the global housing crisis and high rates of

homelessness and suicide within vulnerable populations affected by disabling

environmental sensitivities. Their activities will include fundraising, awarding

housing aid grants, facilitating the design and construction of healthy homes

and communities, and using the arts to promote awareness.

Co-founders Genser and Laffin formed the charity because " the

need is so great, and no one else is doing it, " says Genser. Genser and

Laffin are hoping to direct funding from government and the private sector to

help prevent homelessness and further suffering for those unable to secure

safe housing due to their own limited resources. Both Genser and Laffin

were disabled by severe chemical, electrical and other environmental

sensitivities within the last six years and have a firsthand understanding of

the

housing struggle for this population. The two met online four years ago in a

group for artists with chemical sensitivities.

Genser and Laffin will comprise the Board of Directors. The Advisory Board

has 16 notable members with experience working in related fields, or with

the illness itself, including J. Rea, M.D., a pioneer in

environmental medicine and safer housing construction, Pamela -Gibson,

Ph.D., an

author and researcher of the life impacts of environmental sensitivities,

Magda Havas, Ph.D., an expert on the biological effects of electromagnetic

radiation, Carl Grimes, President of the Indoor Air Quality Association,

Bennie , the former director of the Office of Disability at HUD,

Molloy, a long-time disability rights activist, and a Baker-Laporte, an

architect experienced in building for those with environmental

sensitivities.

Some of the group's planned projects include awarding home renovation

grants to eligible individuals, construction of a clean air community as well

as an emergency shelter, and an architecture school outreach program that

educates students while collaborating on re|shelter's projects.

Genser studied Design and Environmental Analysis/Interior Design at

Cornell University and coordinated construction projects prior to getting ill.

She had just become certified in permaculture and ecovillage design, and was

enrolled in an intensive 4-month sustainable architecture semester at ECOSA

Institute when she became severely disabled by environmental illness and

had to drop out of the program. She has unique insight into re|shelter's

target population: the last five years she has moved seven times in search of

safe housing that did not severely affect her health.

Laffin also knows the struggle of finding safe housing; she searches each

summer for a place to escape the aerial crop spraying in her home county in

northern Illinois. Driven by compassion and personal insight into the

particular problem of housing for those with environmental illness, the two are

very excited to be taking this important step, as there is no other

organization in existence today that is solely focused on housing solutions for

those with environmental intolerances.