In the middle of an escalating housing crisis, can a metal box make a home? It’s a question facing the families who are being housed in converted shipping containers and metal-framed “modular homes” across the country.

On a leafy suburban street in Caversham, Reading, you could almost miss the slip road which leads down to an estate of 28 modular homes. Like the shipping container homes seen elsewhere in the country, they are boxes constructed from flat sheet steel and stacked up on each other. These units have been clad in timber.

From afar, this development looks like offices or a construction site. Steel stairways lead up to the second floor where you almost expect a foreman to appear in high vis and a hard hat.

Each unit contains a homeless family who has been temporarily placed here by Reading Borough Council. The site was given the go ahead in 2016 to provide emergency accommodation. But when i visited in February before the coronavirus crisis, we met young families who have been here for more than two years.

All over the country social housing shortages have converged with the instability of private renting, creating a perfect storm. There were 87,410 households in temporary accommodation at the end of September 2019 – an 82 per cent increase since December 2010.

Enter converted shipping containers and prefabricated steel modular homes, increasingly seen as a quick fix to a growing crisis. In Ealing, west London, i has previously spoken to two young women in their twenties who were housed in converted shipping containers with young children for years at a time.

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by i can now reveal container and modular ‘pods’ are being used by a growing number of local authorities and housing organisations across England and Wales.

Brighton: One scheme run by Brighton Housing Trust

Broxbourne: 32 modular units in Cheshunt

Caerphilly: Two homeless pods at St Helen’s Roman Catholic Church. Not run by council

Cardiff: 24 containers form eight x two bedroom homes in Ely, 20 containers to form 13 homes in Butetown

Epping Forest: Four containers, three being used as accommodation

Ealing: 109 units on three sites

Redbridge: One modular housing scheme of 30 units (24 two beds and six one beds)

Waltham Forest: 30 units, operated by the YMCA

Southampton: 22 units run in partnership with Southampton City Council

Wrexham: Three modular homes for single occupation

There appears to be more container homes running across the country than the FOIs revealed. In Bristol, for instance, a local charity called Help Bristol’s Homeless (HBH) operates temporary housing made from shipping containers. Bristol City Council told i they do not “house anyone in shipping containers, nor refer individuals to HBH”. In Chelmsford, the council has reportedly recently spent a reported £2.34 million on 18 modular homes.

In Reading, there were 226 homeless households who qualified for local authority support at the end of last year between October and December alone. A Reading Council spokesperson told i the “custom built modular accommodation” in Caversham is “one of a number of ways the Council is helping to tackle the national shortage of social housing”.

Sarah*, 21, was housed in a one bedroom unit temporarily with her four-year-old son in March 2018. She says she was told a permanent housing solution would be sorted out within six months. More than two years later, they are still here.

Residents have spoken out about conditions in modular homes. In Ealing, residents described cramped homes which were freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer. In Reading, Sarah says her flat is riddled with mould and appears to be “rotting from the outside in”. In response to her complaints, she says the Council told her not to use the tumble dryer or dry washing inside. With no garden and a young child, that makes daily life rather difficult.

There is mould on the front door frame of Sarah’s home. “In the summer we get bugs and wasps coming through the huge gap at the bottom [of the door] and in the winter there’s a freezing draught,” she explains.

‘I’ve been living in ‘shipping container’ style housing for two years – the mould is making my son ill’

Living in her unit during lockdown has been particularly tough, she adds. There is a small communal play area on the estate but she has no private garden where she can let her child play safely.

These developments are usually put on brownfield sites, which makes use of disused space, but means their location can be far from amenities. The Caversham complex is roughly an hour’s walk from the centre of Reading. Sarah’s mental health has been hit hard, she explains, because her family are in Tilehurst, a two hour walk away. Sarah can’t drive so she relies on public transport. At the start of lockdown this wasn’t an option, so even getting to the supermarket was an ordeal. “There are only little supermarkets near here,” she says. “They are expensive and hard to do a proper shop in. Tesco is the closest and even that costs £12 in a taxi to bring the bags back.”

Other families on the estate are also struggling. Rebecca*, 32, has four children aged 12, eight, six and two in her two-bedroom container, making it technically overcrowded. She was privately renting but became homeless when her landlord sold her former home. This was also meant to be temporary but she and her family have now lived here for 14 months.

“It’s a roof over our heads,” Rebecca says. “I’m not ungrateful but it’s really challenging with four kids in such a cramped environment. We are all under each other’s feet.”

Across the way, Leone*, her husband, who has epilepsy, and their two children have been living in their two bedroom second-floor container for almost a year. She says being here is less than ideal.

“Sometimes my husband has seizures which means we need to call an ambulance,” she explains. “But we’ve had ambulances out previously who have said they can’t get him down the stairs safely – when it’s cold in the winter the metal becomes icy.”

In Cardiff, a brand new development of shipping container homes was finished just as the coronavirus crisis hit. In partnership with Cadwyn Housing Association, Cardiff Council intended to house homeless families in it. There are 591 households living in temporary accommodation in Cardiff, 372 of which are families with children. However, as part of the Council’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, they were re-purposed to be used by people experiencing homelessness who needed to self-isolate.

Cllr Lynda Thorne, Cardiff Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities, told i the containers have been “very successful in allowing homeless people to more effectively self-isolate than they could within a hostel setting,” but confirmed that after the current crisis has abated, the intention is for the scheme to revert to family use.

In Redbridge, east London, a complex of 30 modular homes was erected in February this year next to a busy road. Homeless families have been housed here temporarily. Tiny windows line the building, with one resident telling i his windows do not open. With the exception of a small play area around the back which was closed because of Covid-19, there is no outdoor space for residents to use. Signs warn against anti-social behaviour and drug use.

Redbridge council plans to deliver a further 60 modular housing units in August. A spokesperson said: “While we build 600 brand new council houses, our modular housing helps keep Redbridge families in the area, close to their support networks.”

Like the term affordable, the meaning of ‘temporary’ has been stretched to its limit by Britain’s housing crisis. Last year, the Children’s Commissioner for England released their Bleak Houses report which estimated that more than 210,000 children are currently hidden homeless and living in temporary accommodation, sometimes for years at a time.

Local authorities blame our social housing shortage and a £159 million funding gap for this problem. So, it’s easy to understand the appeal of converted shipping containers to cash-strapped councils facing a housing crisis. They are reasonably cheap to knock up – a studio comes in at as low as £25,000 and a one bed at around £35,000 – and quicker to erect than building a new home from scratch.

But can cost savings offset questionable quality? In 2017 a study conducted by the East London Housing Partnership acknowledged that while shipping containers and modular homes were more cost-effective than hostels, bed and breakfasts and hotels, they did not meet Greater London Authority space standards.

Developers of prefab, pop-up homes describe them as “innovative” and “flexible”. Container homes are also tried and tested: in Berlin they have been used as student accommodation and trialled for housing refugees.

But the very things that make shipping containers so appealing to local authorities in search of urgent solutions – the fact that they are modular and can easily be moved on and recycled – are the same things that make them feel so impermanent. There is an irony in housing people who are already facing severe turbulence in their personal lives for months or even years in housing which is, by definition, meant to be transient.

The Royal Institute for British Architects (RIBA) condemns their use. Ben Derbyshire, Past President of the organisation and housing expert, told i that while we need “innovative and low cost solutions” which deliver homes quickly, “we must recognise that shipping containers cannot readily be adapted to provide the spatial or environmental requirements for living.”

“Re-use of containers can result in sub-standard, cramped, unhealthy spaces which overheat in the summer and freeze in the winter,” he added.

The psychological impact of not living in a suitable home is profound. Children who have lived in temporary accommodation for more than one year are three times more likely to have mental health problems as their peers, according to Shelter.

On paper, converted shipping containers might make sense as a temporary solution for true emergencies such as a global pandemic. In practice, without social housing or affordable private rented accommodation to move people onto, they are being used to provide housing to families and children for years at a time.

The modular home market is expanding. Last May, Japanese housebuilder Sekisui, which specialises in modular construction, entered the UK market in a deal with Urban Splash and Homes England and, two months later, IKEA’s modular home arm struck a deal with Worthing Council to produce social housing. Last year, a scheme from the Vale of Aylesbury Housing Trust looking to “recycle” shipping containers as “eco-friendly affordable social housing” was greenlit. In Reading, meanwhile, it looks as though more “pod” homes are to be placed on the site of a former car park.

These pods and shipping container homes are, as their defenders point out, better than the streets or homeless hostels, but is that really how low we’ve set the bar for housing young families?

A Government spokesperson said: “Councils must ensure any temporary accommodation is fit and proper and meets the needs of families placed there.

“Reducing the number of households in temporary accommodation is a priority – that’s why we changed the law so councils now have a duty to stop people from becoming homeless and provided £606 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping; a £238 million increase in funding from the previous year.”

A Reading Council spokesperson said: “These are not shipping containers. They are custom built modular accommodation built in 2017 to very specific standards.

“Back in 2016 in Reading there were almost 150 families in emergency bed and breakfast accommodation. Thanks to a range of initiatives – including this accommodation [in Caversham] and a council housing building programme – there are now none.

“In common with most towns and cities in the south east, social housing is in very short supply and there is a lengthy wait for people to be rehoused through the housing register. We also offer assistance to homeless households to obtain accommodation in the private rented sector.”

*names have been changed to protect identities

Vicky Spratt is i ‘s Housing Correspondent 

This article has been amended to reflect FOIs found shipping containers and modular ‘pod’ homes

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