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Could shipping containers be used for shelter?

With all the thousands of unused shipping containers just sitting there, why could they not be converted for shelter for the homeless. Each town could use them for the homeless . They may not be as fancy as a house but it would sure keep people from freezing to death. Also they could get food stamps and be fed. Or is this just too simple of a problem to be addressed? Simple meaning simplistic.

Public Comments

1. Bathroom? Windows? In the typical gov't mentality anything they wanted to offer for free to help the homeless would need to meet building codes therefore the idiots in gov't would probably end up spending $100,000 per shipping container to make them meet code and give them to the homeless. Get gov't out of people's lives, fight against the Socialist Agenda just elected to office and we'll have far fewer homeless. BTW: There are far less homeless under the Republican President George W. Bush and far less people living under the poverty level than during the Democrat Clinton administration. Bet the news never shows that fact.
2. In most states there are shelters that will house the homeless at least on a temporary basis. I know because I was homeless for a while. The most ingenious of the homeless just make use of boarded up houses. In Baltimore, MD. they are called "Abandominiums", and I have heard of cases where someone who has taken over abandoned property even rigged up lights, heat and cable and rented space out to other homeless. I heard of one that went on for 5 years before the guy got caught.
3. This happens all the time. There is a guy living in a refrigerator box a couple blocks from my office. It is not a very good solution though. Would you like to live in a box? If so, I know a guy who needs a roommate. Unfortunately, the problems of poverty and homelessness cannot be solved with your garbage.
4. shipping containers can and are used for housing in Australia anyway. People using them generally do so as an economical means of putting a dwelling on their own land. They are not hard to convert and have a long lifespan! Obviously it can't cost too much when people are doing to save money.
5. Just google "shipping container houses" and see what cool things come up. I've been wanting a container house in the woods forever. They can be simple or museum quality.
6. Local governments would never go for it. There are housing and building laws that forbid it. Even if you build something cheap like a $10,000 pole barn, you have to bring it up to code in order to live in it.
7. I have been homeless sleeping in my car or in a park. I have had friends who lived in a park or in an alley. I think a shipping container would have been favorable. Someone who has never been there will probably struggle to understand this. Most local governments will never accept this because they don't want to encourage the homeless to be around. They want them to be as uncomfortable as possible so they will go away. Many people struggle with mental illness, bad credit or joblessness, and drug/alcohol addiction which are not recognized as legitimate disabilities by welfare authorities. The fact remains these people are alive and do matter. Rent is ridiculously high in many places and I have a tough time paying everything even though I work full time. Employers never want to hire people who they know are homeless so just telling them to get a job is pointless in many cases on top of the other emotional/physical problems that made them go broke in the first place. Using them as a shelter would help people but not a lot of moneyed interests in authority have the compassion to authorize that. After all, we do live in a broken world.
8. I think that it couldn't be heated well enough to count as a shelter that gov't should approve. At least not for this part of the country. but given the economy, don't be surprised if this is a viable solution that becomes acceptable, if less than ideal.
9. I don't see why not. Several years ago Toronto Canada used Sears' garden sheds for that purpose. Of course zoning laws, etc. would bring the cold hand of governmental bureaucracy down to chill the project. Look at the restrictive ordinances in some of the Gulf Coast States that prohibited the use of FEMA trailers after Hurricane Katrina.