By Aaron Cordy
THE housing crisis continues to get worse as rents, rates and the cost of living become more expensive every day. According to the 2021 census report, 122,494 people in Australia are experiencing homelessness on any given night. In a report released by UNSW in the last three years that number has increased by 22 per cent.
Local, Michele Zaninello has lived rough and has an idea to tackle homelessness that’s a little outside the box, or more to the point inside the box. Michele believes that converted shipping containers could be a cost-effective solution to the housing crisis.
“Everybody is passing the problem on to everybody else in this country, no one’s doing anything about it. The housing commission instead of waiting 10 years to put one person into a unit, they could be building three containers that’ll cost them less than $10,000, and they can build them a lot quicker than a unit made of brick and concrete,” said Michele.
The idea has far more merit when you see the cost for basic models of containers. A small 6-metre shipping container can cost as little as $1,400, and a 12-metre container only costs around $4,800. The price then varies depending on luxury upgrades.
For sceptics who question if this could be a practical solution to the homeless and housing crisis, there has already been an effective real-life case study done in Los Angeles.
In 2021 a location earmarked for a prison was repurposed into a safe housing complex that caters to the needs of homeless individuals, specifically their housing, mental health, and behavioural needs. The units were built in six months. There are 232 housing units and a common building that includes a commercial kitchen, dining area, laundry facilities, and administrative spaces. The cost was $48M, $9M less than initially projected.
The Los Angeles shipping container apartments are very basic and may need to be modified to accommodate families and sole occupiers, but the proof is there that this can be done cost-effectively.
“Australia’s got the land, there’s plenty of space here. Rather than people sleeping along the rivers and in the parks, you can easily take containers and turn them into a million units. It doesn’t take much,” said Michele.
