Pasadena's Human Services Commission hears a pitch for 3D-printed transitional housing Wednesday, Sept. 9, at 6 p.m. at the Jackie Robinson Community Center, 1020 N. Fair Oaks Ave.

Gene Eidelman, co-founder of Azure Printed Homes, is presenting the Gardena-based company's recycled-polymer housing units. The pitch comes one month after the same commission voted unanimously to send a motel master-leasing report to the City Council and the Housing, Homelessness and the Planning Committee.

Azure prints its units from recycled polymer at a factory in Gardena. Eidelman's presentation materials cite two California projects, according to Pasadena Now. In San Luis Obispo, a three-quarter-acre site is set to serve 54 unhoused people with interim and permanent housing. The company says 62 units were manufactured in Los Angeles in 10 weeks. It puts the timeline from design to opening at 10 months.

In Camarillo, six tiny homes were reportedly manufactured in six weeks for a 6,000-square-foot lot.

The company, founded in 2022, says it has delivered more than 100 structures across California and the U.S. It was named to TIME magazine's Best Inventions list in 2025. Azure claims its technology produces homes 70% faster and 30% cheaper than traditional construction, according to company press releases. Those figures have not been independently verified.

The Sept. 9 presentation lands on a commission already deep into homelessness policy. On Aug. 12, commissioners voted unanimously to send their master-leasing report to the council. The strategy calls for the city to rent every room in an existing motel for a year and provide them to unhoused residents and families as a bridge to permanent housing.

The commission's report estimates annual operating costs of $3.5 million to $4 million for a 50-bed master-leasing site, with one-time startup costs upward of $2 million less than a traditional emergency shelter. Commissioners wrote that master leasing is not a replacement for emergency shelter and that both could run simultaneously.

The report pegs Pasadena's homelessness rate at 423 per 100,000 residents based on the 2025 point-in-time count. It identifies 38 federally subsidized properties in the city holding 2,289 rent-restricted units, enough to serve about 30% of the 7,541 households living below the poverty line. A statement from Los Angeles County on the 2026 count noted that Pasadena saw a decrease in unsheltered homelessness, even as countywide unsheltered numbers rose 3.3%.

The commission also plans to select a vice chair, welcome new District 7 Commissioner Loris Memic and nominate an agency representative to fill a vacancy.

Residents who want to speak at the Sept. 9 meeting can hand a card to the recording secretary. Written comments must reach [email protected] at least 30 minutes before the 6 p.m. start.