Builder, a construction industry magazine, predicted in March 2018 in an article — The Real Data On Entry-Level Home Buying Affordability — that if the conventional housing industry doesn’t address the need for truly affordable housing, ‘somebody else surely will.’
And indeed ‘somebody else’ is doing just that: the modular construction industry. The City of Vancouver and other British Columbia communities are now engaged in an ambitious program to directly address homelessness by using modular housing. The programs are backed financially by millions of dollars for affordable housing set aside by British Columbia provincial government.
Seattle, a close-by American city with similar housing affordability as well as homelessness problems, is also considering a modular solution. But as yet movement in that direction has been slow. In spite of some rather unique features of the modular housing now in use in British Columbia, not everyone in Seattle is convinced that the modular housing route is the best long-term solution.
Nonetheless, the Seattle Times has produced an excellent article on the Vancouver and British Columbia experiment, detailing both the strengths and weaknesses of a modular approach: Vancouver, B.C., bet on modular housing to ease homelessness. Could it work in Seattle?
