While most of us are used to seeing containers as methods of freight transportation, usually on the back of lorries or on ships, there’s a growing movement of alternative uses for shipping containers. For the ultimate in travel, mobile shipping container hotels allow you to fall asleep in one location and wake in another. Entire structures built out of shipping containers are being put together, offering accommodation in something a little bit different.
Waltham Forest Council and Forest YMCA are looking at getting in on the action, but with a twist. Charity, Forest YMCA, is looking at ways to help relieve the pressure on the council’s housing waiting list of 24,000 by introducing shipping container accommodation known as mYPads. Available to support young people leaving the YMCA for work, but who are unable to meet the financial demands that moving in to a new rental would require. Forest YMCA and Waltham Forest Council are looking at a number of sites across the borough that would be suitable for the ten mYPads, allowing the authority to assist in providing a stepping stone to help move from supported accommodation completely. Timothy Pain, Forest YMCA CEO, said: “We have developed mYPad in an attempt to find an intelligent affordable solution to the problem of ‘revolving door’ homelessness which many of our residents face.”