Could dwelling pods assist to relieve SA’s increasing homelessness dilemma?

Generating a village of dwelling pods is becoming deemed as a limited-expression housing alternative for the rising variety of tough sleepers in regional South Australia, an advocacy group suggests.

A single this sort of village is in procedure at the New South Wales town of Wollongbar, near Lismore.

The pods seem like delivery containers but have been converted into dwelling spaces with kitchens and bogs and are being utilised to house individuals who shed their homes in the floods before this 12 months.

Shelter SA executive director Alice Clark stated getting acceptable locations and funding had been the most significant limitations to location up a pod village.

“We’ve not long ago been chatting about a lot more temporary alternatives that utilise some of the modular design and style dwellings that we see getting employed as get the job done camps, quarantine facilities,” she mentioned.

“A very compact but self-contained living pod, with bed room, bathroom and kitchenette, grouped jointly in a compact village — that could be, at some place, taken off if the need to have for them disappeared.

Shelters outside Adelaide?

Trish Spark from homelessness company ac.care said placing up shelters in regional parts would be “really beneficial”.

“Even if the authorities was to glimpse at shelters outside of Adelaide, that could possibly assistance, in particular when we have single people who have nowhere to go,” she said.

But Dr Clark claimed there ended up lots of elements to look at.

“If anyone out of the blue stated, ‘Here’s this massive warehouse for you, you can have it and you can use it for free of charge and you can assistance use it to enable shelter people’ — indeed, you would be out of the rain and the wind, but it is really not established up as lodging,” she mentioned.

“What would the fees be of refurbishing a creating like that, to deliver dignified and harmless lodging for individuals who need to have it?

“And once more, who would pay out these expenditures?”

Dr Clark mentioned some homelessness services and charities received government funding but continue to desired to fundraise to meet the maximize in demand from customers.

“The fundraising goes to furnishing meals for people who can not afford to pay for to feed their family members and giving all kinds of other help for individuals,” she said.

‘Safety and viability’

Impartial Member for Mount Gambier Troy Bell claimed the challenges all-around homelessness had been “intricate”, but conversations about solutions have been underway.

“One particular of people [initiatives] was hunting at vacant outlets or vacant premises and what it would consider to transform individuals into limited-term lodging,” he explained.

“There are some concerns all-around safety, especially putting additional than just one family members in each and every setting up.”

Mr Bell claimed locals experienced advised using big vacant properties in Mount Gambier.

“Folks have spoken to me about probably bigger premises that would hold numbers of people,” he mentioned.

“We have received to make certain the security and the viability and supervision – if that is the model they go with – is looked at.”