How One Homeless Man's "Dumb" A-Frame Design Outperformed Every Shelter Through 5 Buffalo Winters

Cormac Jelley spent nine years as a roofer in western New York before losing his housing in 2019. What followed was five winters living in a self-built A-frame shelter near Buffalo's outer harbor — a structure he designed using the same principles he'd learned on job sites: steep pitch to shed snow load, triangular framing to resist wind, and a layered floor assembly to block ground conduction. The shelter survived Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022, the same storm that killed 47 people across Erie and Niagara counties. This is how he built it, and why it worked. #BuffaloWinter #SurvivalShelter #AFrameBuild #WinterStormElliott #DIYShelter #HomelessSurvival #ColdWeatherSurvival #ShelterEngineering #BuffaloNY #OffGridLiving