Creating a village of living pods is being considered as a short-term housing solution for the increasing number of rough sleepers in regional South Australia, an advocacy group says, ABC News reports.
The pods look like shipping containers but have been converted into living spaces with kitchens and bathrooms and are being used to house people who lost their homes in the floods earlier this year.
Shelter SA executive director Alice Clark said finding suitable locations and funding were the biggest barriers to setting up a pod village.
"We've recently been talking about more temporary solutions that utilise some of the modular design dwellings that we see being used as work camps, quarantine facilities," she said.
"A quite small but self-contained living pod, with bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette, grouped together in a small village — that could be, at some point, removed if the need for them disappeared.
"But again, we come back to this problem — where would you put such a village … and again, who will fund a solution like this?"
Trish Spark from homelessness agency ac.care said setting up shelters in regional areas would be "extremely helpful".
"Even if the government was to look at shelters outside of Adelaide, that might help, especially when we have single people who have nowhere to go," she said.
But Dr Clark said there were lots of components to consider.
"If somebody suddenly said, 'Here's this big warehouse for you, you can have it and you can use it for free and you can help use it to help shelter people' — yes, you would be out of the rain and the wind, but it's not set up as accommodation," she said.
"What would the costs be of refurbishing a building like that, to provide dignified and safe accommodation for people who need it?
"And again, who would pay those costs?"
FULL STORY
Could living pods help to ease SA's growing homelessness problem? (ABC News)
PHOTO
These pods have been installed at the Wollongbar sports fields, outside of Lismore, to provide accommodation to flood-affected families. (ABC North Coast: Emma Rennie)
