A new affordable housing project in Barrie has been created using shipping containers.

The six apartments are stacked side by side, three high, and are about 320 square feet each, and each unit has a kitchen and bathroom as well as living and sleeping areas.

About 85 per cent of the units were completed off-site at a Barrie factory owned by Northern Shield Development Corporation and then arrived at the property in June.

The apartments are attached to Lucy’s Place, a converted motel on Essa Road that opened three years ago and has 18 units to assist those experiencing chronic homelessness. Laundry facilities will be shared in the main building at Lucy’s Place, where all residents have access to common spaces, including a community kitchen and living room. Lucy’s Place is a partnership between Redwood Park Communities and the David Busby Centre.

Jennifer van Gennip is the Director of Communications at Redwood Park Communities, and she says the new units are available to individuals and couples.

“We don’t pick who lives there,” she explains. “Simcoe County has a new coordinated access system that all the agencies helping people who are experiencing homelessness feed into.”

Names go on a list that is prioritized, and the housing offers go out to those people at the top of the prioritized list.

“I am told there are 421 people who are on that list who are experiencing chronic homelessness,” says Gennip.

Using the federal government’s definition of chronic homelessness, this means a person who has been homeless six months or more over the past year and/or has been homeless more than once for 1.5 years in the last three years.

Gennip says the units are heavily subsidized.

“Because these are people coming out of chronic homelessness, so they are deeply affordable, and they can pay it out of the shelter portion of their Ontario Works or Ontario Disability Support Program.”

The goal is to have residents moved in by October.

Banner image provided by Redwood Park Communities

Tags: Barrie, chronic homelessness, David Busby Centre, endless scroll, Nothern Shield Development Corporation, Redwood Park Communities, shipping containers