Soaring rents force Londoners to live in shipping containers

A London charity has imported steel containers from China and converted them into bargain basement homes, as part of a novel solution to try and solve homelessness amid soaring rents in the British capital.

A hostel in east London has come up with the ingenious idea of converting a shipping container from China into a tiny low cost home for hard up and desperate Londoners.

Although it’s only a steel box, they are calling it mYpad, as notwithstanding how small it is, it’s a compact home with a tiny kitchen, bathroom and living quarters complete with a flat screen TV and a single bed.

Lying on your bed, you could almost imagine you were in a bunk on a ship, perhaps the one on which the containers were transported.

But as rents in London continue to soar, putting most flats and houses out of reach of many people on low incomes or benefits, these may be part of the solution.

A mYpad costs just £75 a week. While in some parts of the UK this is cheap but not a giveaway, in London it’s unheard of. In the British capital the average rent, even in a distant borough where oligarchs wouldn’t venture, alive or dead, is around £300 a week. Read more >>