Chapter 11

Putting the Public Back in Public Housing—France

Francois Marty is turning the construction, public housing and employment worlds on their head with his integrated approach to supplying the high-quality, ecologically designed housing for the poor using local materials, mixing ancestral and modern construction techniques, and training and employing people previously excluded from the workforce.

FROM A MAN WHO ASPIRED TO BE A TRUCK DRIVER BECAUSE HE thought if he was always on the road his life would seem like one big vacation, comes a multidimensional ecologic, economic, and social program of such vision that it is difficult to know where to start telling the story. Francois Marty has created an ecosystem that is hard to describe. Everything he told me about his past, however far afield it sounded from what he has now created, seemed magically to be just what was needed to lead him directly to what he should be doing—which is exactly what he is doing today. His life story gives credence to the saying “Everything happens for a reason.” Each twist and turn of his life has pushed him one step further in the evolution of his ideas. I....