Rebuilt Shipping Containers Stacked On A Barge: A Temporary Home For Homeless People?

To the left, a line of mastless old warships with cabins built on the upper. deck
Prison hulks in Portsmouth Harbour painting by Ambroise Louis Garneray is licensed due to age as public domain

The United Kingdom is currently preoccupied with asylum-seekers. Thousands of them arrive yearly, crossing the channel from Europe to instantly swell the UK’s homeless population, already of crisis proportions.

The latest bright idea for handling the influx of these illegal immigrants is to put them on a cruise ship to nowhere. Read more in The Guardian:  Revealed: government looking at four more sites for asylum vessels

This is hardly a new concept. The row of warships without masts at the left of the painting above are ‘prison hulks,’ accommodating captured soldiers from the wars between Britain and France in the early 19th century. Read a short description of the prison hulks in the painting here.

Conditions in these hulks were shockingly bad, which makes one wonder why a civilized country could even consider such an option in this day and age. The answer: floating accommodations have become VERY civilized.

In Some UK population centres with deep-water harbours, there may be opportunities to use aging cruise ships as temporary accommodations, close to administrative, health, and other resources.

There are other possibilities, which include inexpensive, purpose-built floating accommodation that are built on shallow draft barge hulls. These are not seagoing luxury vessels with their unnecessary engines.

Such waterborne creatures exist. In May, 2023, the Bibby Stockholm, was towed into a UK harbour, on its way to be refurbished from its previous use. Read more in sky news: Bibby Stockholm: Barge set to house asylum seekers arrives in UK waters

The Bibby Stockholm has none of the sleek luxury of a cruise ship. But it has nothing in common with the ‘prison hulk’ horrors of two centuries ago. You can see photographs of the Bibby Stockholm in DorsetLive: Pictures show the inside of Bibby Stockholm asylum seeker barge as it arrives in UK

Pretty darn civilized, if you ask us.

So here’s the pointed question of this post: could a barge-based solution solve urban crises of temporary homlessness, whether asylum seekers or simply poverty-stricken citizens priced out of accommodation?

Boat-based communication along rivers, canals and seacoasts was essential in the past. Many large cities are still served by underused or disused harbours. The harbours are close to downtown areas and essential human services. Barges would demand no  expensive urban land or its tax revenues.

Could such floating structures be more economical and flexible than purpose-built land based shelters?