Shipping containers to be Vancouver housing

$85k per 320 square foot unit doesn't sound cheap to me. That would mean $170k for a 640 sq ft one bedroom normal apartment. You can buy units like that outside of Vancouver, I think, and those include the cost of the land. I thought real estate was over priced in Vancouver, but if it costs that much just to contruct a unit, no wonder prices are so high.

But then the house Greenpeace was founded in just went on the market at 1.6 million. Good neighbor hood, but the house is nothing fancy. Just a good house for a middle class family. How do they afford that?

yup, 85k for a steel box is pretty steep.

Agreed. This works out to about $265 per square foot which is what you'd expect to pay for a high end home out in South Surrey.

What is the approximate square foot price to build a project?
(The following prices would include design, engineering, building permits and construction costs)
Quality finished Custom home:
$175.00 to 225.00 per square foot
Very high end Custom Homes (exculsive features such as pools, elevators etc)
$225.00 to $400.00 per square foot
Residential renovation/addition:
$200.00 - $300.00 per square foot
Low rise Condominium (wood framed):
$200.00 and over per square foot
Low rise Condominium (concrete):
$300.00 and over per square foot
Warehouses (tilt-up):
$200.00 per square foot plus tenant improvements
Warehouses (wood framed):
$175.00 per square foot plus tenant improvements
Retail (tenant improvments):
$75.00 and over per square foot

http://www.blueoceanconstruction.com/faq.html

Is it just me or does this seem a little excessive for a homeless shelter?

All I can think is that the 85k includes the cost of land, in which case it's a bargain. But you never know with these social agencies, they can waste money like it's going out of style.

Interesting that a house costs less per square foot than a wood framed apartment building.

Must be, because if the City owned the lot and are paying someone that much for converting shipping containers somebodies getting rich and it sure ain't me.

Judging by comments on the site, it doesn't include land costs. One guy figures the total cost per unit to be $300K, which he calls a good price. 300k for a 320 sq ft unit - and for homeless people - give me a break.

If it doesn't include the land then it's not hard to see that the taxpayers of Vancouver and likely BC are getting raped yet again under the auspices of another government program.

There is a guy in Oak Bay who built a 2200 sq ft house out of sea cans, took him a long time to build and it looks amazing but there are many more out there.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ-a1xTi ... detailpage

No the 85K covers the cost of shipping. Once they're full they can load them up and ship the poor somewhere else.

We pour a million bucks a day into the DTES (not a misprint) Think it's working?

Sure, we can do an exchange program with all the countries that "send" us their poor.(We just won't tell the other countries that's what we're doing)
We could ship some 490 of 'em to Sri Lanka even

We pour a million bucks a day into the DTES (not a misprint) Think it's working?

Nope and at that expense just for the appearance of doing something is ludicrous.

There has to be a better way than throwing taxpayers money at charities and non profit organziations and then hoping that they use it cost effectively.

I'm pretty sure the public would be up in arms if they ever found out how much of our tax dollars went to pay for the administrations of these supposed organizations. I can remember years ago finding out that alot of these charity organizations used most of the monies they recieved for "administration" and not for the needy.

Same with homeless shelters. I just read about one they want to close that costs $2000/day per bed. Can you believe it? They said for $908 a month they can rent somebody a suite and include support services. WFT is going on when a shelter bed (probably a mat on the floor) costs 2k a day?

I'm all for helping the homeless and poor. But there's gotta be somebody in charge who knows the value of a dollar and how to get the most out of it. This happened during the Liberal watch, these aren't supposed to be free spending Dippers.