‘I was housed in a shipping container for two years – they aren’t fit for purpose’ ‘It would make me feel crazy because it was a box. Four walls, not much space,’ one woman tells Vicky Spratt

“It’s better than being on the streets” is a refrain heard up and down the country as desperate housing workers try to make their peace with whatever form of accommodation they are able to offer those who need it. We face a housing crisis across the United Kingdom.

Since 2011, rents have risen faster than wages in many parts of the country, the average house price is now eight times the average income of ordinary working families, we face a severe social housing shortage, and all of this is pushing more people into homelessness. The number of families who are homeless but in work has gone up by 73 per cent since 2013, largely because of instability and evictions within the private rented sector which people who would once have lived in social housing now rely on.

As a recent report from the Women’s Budget Group shows, women are hardest hit – right now, there is not a single place in the country deemed affordable for women, particularly if they’re single.

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Enter converted shipping container homes. Tucked behind a busy main road in West London between Hanwell and Ealing, you’ll find Marston Court at the end of Bordars Walk. At first, it looks like offices. Maybe a construction site. But, come closer, and you’ll see that the steel boxes with their black metal walkways are actually homes. Clothes hang out to dry and, in some windows, there are net curtains.

Farzana, 25, grew up in foster care. Living with family was never an option for her. She was moved here when she was 23 and pregnant with her son back in 2017. She had been just made homeless when she was asked to leave the BnB she was staying in.

It was only ever supposed to be temporary accommodation but, in the end, she and her son were here for almost two years. When her waters broke, she was living in a second-floor unit and had to climb up and down two flights of stairs.

“These containers aren’t fit for purpose,” she told me when I visited her there in 2018. “In the summer, it’s like a sauna. The moment you come in, you’re sweating. But, in the winter it’s ice cold. They are loud, it doesn’t feel private and there is no space for my son to walk around.”

She said her anxiety “had gone through the roof” because the radiators and oven were so low down, she worried constantly about her son bashing into them. “The walls are so thin too. At night I can hear anti-social behaviour and I can’t sleep with the windows open.”

This week, a new report titled Bleak Houses from the Children’s Commissioner for England has estimated that more than 210,000 children are currently homeless, with local authorities blaming a £159 million funding gap.

There are no figures for exactly how many shipping container homes exist in the UK. However, the report says other areas where this happens include Brighton, Cardiff and Bristol.

It’s easy to understand the appeal to cash-strapped local authorities. They are reasonably cheap to knock up – a studio comes in at about £25,000 and a one bed at around £35,000. In Lewisham, a similar complex now houses 24 formerly homeless families. In Berlin, they have been used as student accommodation and trialled for housing refugees.

When she was made homeless, Farzana was moved to Bordars Walk as a temporary emergency solution. She did not expect to give birth while living there, let alone live there with her son in the first years of his life.

Farzana was finally moved out of her container in March this year, following a report by i. Today she is still in temporary accommodation, but at least now it’s in a proper house.

“When I first moved into the container I thought ‘at least I had a roof over my head’,” she reflects. “I couldn’t have stayed there any longer. My son wouldn’t have been able to grow. It has affected me so much. When I was living there it would make me feel crazy because it was a box. Four walls, not much space.”

We know that living in small spaces does affect people’s mental health. Farzana experienced mental health problems as the result of previous trauma before she was moved to Bordars Walk but feels that living there compounded everything.

“I think there should be a time limit on how long they can house people in containers for,” Farzana says. “I wasn’t given a limit on how long I would live there. It was like torture. A container is no place to call home. I lived there for a year and 11 months and it felt like forever. I felt unsafe and anxious. I know my new place is temporary too but it’s a proper home with a garden. I don’t mind how long I’m here because it’s suitable for my son. I’m just happy to be out of there.”

Analysis in the Children’s Commissioner’s report confirms temporary accommodation is so often anything but. One in 20 – that’s about 6,000 children – had been there for at least a year.

Shipping containers may provide a sticking plaster in true emergencies but, in the great race to find housing solutions to our growing crisis, we must not allow standards to slip any further. We need to think innovatively about how we create more homes and communities, not just shelter to keep people “off the streets”.