VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - Women who need shelter or who are leaving the sex trade could be put up in container housing that's proposed for Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Vancouver City Councillor Dr. Kerry Jang says it's important container units, which don't sound so welcoming, are comfortable enough to call home, and that's how they're being designed.
"Because unless you can call somewhere home and you feel safe, warm, and good there, you can't get better."
Six container modules will be added to a shelter just off Powell Street. The units come at a cost of $85,000. Jang says that's much cheaper than providing traditional housing unit.
A report will soon head to City Council for approval.
NDP wants affordable housing
The New Democrats are renewing calls for a $2 billion National Housing Strategy, citing cuts the Tories were about to make in their last budget.
Vancouver East MP Libby Davies says it's all a question of priorities. "Look at the G8, G20… it was over $1 billion. Look at the fighter planes, that's $30 billion estimated to be... so it's all a question, 'Where are those priorities?'"
The Liberals are also promising to put Ottawa back in the affordable housing business, but Davies points out it was the Liberals who pulled the government out of that business in the mid 1990s.