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Homeless to live in shipping containers

NN | 21.10.2013 16:15 | Free Spaces | Health | South Coast

Homeless to live in shipping containers for up to five years in bid to tackle housing shortage

Apparantly, we are out of empty buildings in the UK??

Especially interesting because Brighton has a very active squatting scene.... Who wants to trade a new shiny office building for a shipping container?

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Homeless people will be able to move into shipping containers in a former scrap metal yard in a bid to tackle a city's housing shortage.

The converted containers will provide temporary homes for a period of five years for 36 men and women with a history of homelessness.

Six containers are due to arrive in the New England Quarter of Brighton, East Sussex, today with a further 30 arriving by the end of the week.

Ross Gilbert, from developers QED, said the first residents are expected to move into the containers in about five weeks' time, turning the "exciting and innovative housing concept into reality".

He said: "Our temporary use of land earmarked for future regeneration demonstrates just what can be done in the interim to help solve the acute housing shortage."

The units were designed and constructed in Holland in 2010 by TempoHousing, Brighton Housing Trust chief executive Andy Winter said,

In a blog post on the BHT website, Mr Winter wrote that shipping containers had rarely been used as temporary living accommodation in the UK.

However, were a number of examples in continental Europe, with the most notable project in Keetwonen, Amsterdam, a development by TempoHousing of 1,000 containers which was completed in 2006 and is still in use.

When the land being used for the Brighton project is eventually redeveloped, the accommodation units could be transferred to other locations, the charity said.

Mr Winter said: "This is an exciting moment in this project to provide 36 new homes for men and women in housing need.

"We have identified 21 of the first 36 residents and they are being prepared to move into their new homes.

"The residents will have completed one of BHT's programme for change and will free up space in other services that will be able to take in men and women who are currently on the streets.

"There is an acute shortage of affordable accommodation in Brighton and Hove and, in a landlords' market, particularly for those with a history of homelessness.

"The number of street homeless people in the city has increased from 37 in November 2011 to 43 in November 2012.

"However, there is a wide consensus that the actual figure is more likely to be between 70 and 100."

 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/homeless-live-shipping-containers-up-2475815

NN

Comments

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East End Council Tower Homeless leads the way in making you homeless

21.10.2013 19:33

Lets call this the Dobson File

The Dobson File contains info on how Tower Hamlets Council turned a housing estate
from half acceptable to prime crime estate, driving many out of their homes as drug dealers etc took over the communal spaces.
No sign of the Council bothering about what went on.
No sign of police, who knew the crims, doing much about it.
The crims knew the cops and the cops knew the crims and they let each other move
in their allotted spaces.
Only the residents didn.t.
Soon there weren’t many residents to speak.
The crims terrorised targeted residents.
The bloc became a no-man’s land.
Crims alone ruled.
That is Tower Hamlets Council for you.
Tower Hopeless more like.
Tower of Homelessness as they made the estate.

towerhomeless