Shipping Containers And Low Income Housing

Vancouver has taken a step in a new direction when it comes to providing low income housing on a budget. The newest low income housing development is created entirely out of reused shipping containers.

Vancouver city councilor Dr. Kerry Jang states that “these studio apartments range from 280 to 290 square feet, if we were to build similar housing for disadvantaged people with units from scratch, it’s about CAD 225,000 per unit. the container buildings are about CAD 85,000.” Despite this, the project has been met with extreme criticism from some groups.

The unit is a twelve unit complex that was created by Atira, a women’s resource society and was designed to provide an affordable housing option for women over 50 in the low-income neighborhood. The income restriction for this community is CAD 34,000 per year.

The Atira organization focuses a good deal of their efforts on working with women who come from violent backgrounds. As such, six of the units in the twelve unit building are dedicated to providing social housing for women who have roots within the community and agree to become mentors within the Atira mentorship program to young women who live next door to the new complex. Rent for these social housing units will be CAD 375 a month. The other six units in the building will be rented at 30% of the female inhabitant’s income.

Atira plans to build another 40 units in the near future.

Find out more about this program here.