There are thousands of people living on the streets of every major American city without a place to live.

Those who are homeless may never have the chance to improve their circumstances if we do not help and support them.

When Elvis Summers confronted Irene “Smokie” McGee, who had been sleeping on a patch of dirt outside of his house,

she was shocked to learn that this was true. Seeing how many people were building tiny houses, Summers made the decision that he wanted to use his own construction skills for good.

Summers initially made contact with McGee when she knocked on his door at his Los Angeles apartment.

She was looking for recyclables to exchange for money. The fact that the woman had neither a box nor a tarp to sleep on made him feel compelled to act quickly to help her.

The father decided to build McGee a small, readily transportable dwelling. He went straight to the hardware store and made purchases there,

spending a total of $500. The modest house McGee had spent several days working on was completed in 2015 and featured a lockable door to protect her belongings.

Summers shared videos he took of himself working on the house construction with others. After some time,

he put this video on YouTube with the intention of inspiring people to help the homeless in their own communities. Furthermore, he achieved success.

Summers has managed to leverage the fame of the video—which has garnered over 7.2 million views—to initiate the Tiny House Huge Purpose fundraising campaign.

To learn more about Summers and McGee and the ways in which he is helping even more people in his community, keep reading.

Summers did not fully realize how vulnerable McGee’s situation was when he first saw her. He told the publication The Independent,

‘I knew she was homeless, but I didn’t know until about three weeks ago that she didn’t even have a tarp or a cardboard box to sleep in.’

Even though Summers was having financial issues of his own, he knew he had to do something to help McGee. He revealed that:

‘A sixty-year-old woman was sleeping in the dirt next to a house where everyone goes about their happy,

warm lives, enjoying their hot showers, toilets, food in their fridge, clean water to drink, electricity, TV, etc., and I can barely keep my own lights on.’

At that point, Summers continued, “I decided to buy the supplies to build her a tiny house so that she could at least have a warm and safe place to sleep instead of sleeping in the dirt.

I went straight to the hardware store.’ It had greater significance than a few payments, which I’m sure I can make late and catch up on.

A nearby church has offered to use their parking lot as a place where the Tiny Homes might be kept overnight during the event after hearing about what Summers did for McGee.

As to Summers, ‘the church members are eager to provide food, clothing, and showers to help everyone in the tiny homes we put there to climb back up.’

Summers has changed his goal in response to the attention the video has gotten. He continued, saying,

‘I’ve enlarged my aim to help a few more people into helping as many as I possibly can because my video went viral and I’ve had such a huge global response.’