Food and shelter.

When any list of human necessities is compiled, those two are always at or near the top.

It is a great time of year to realize how fortunate we are with regard to shelter.

While we still have a long way to go with nearly 800,000 homeless in the United States, this country has taken huge strides in developing new technologies and techniques for construction while improving code requirements to further assure health and safety of the occupants.

Today, this country has an inventory of approximately 140 million homes that are a far cry from the not-so-distant past.

Compare housing today to that of our forefathers only 200 years ago. Many people occupied the upper loft of a barn built to shelter and protect precious animals.

In the recent past, many houses were stacked s

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