Plan B Forum

OAKLAND, Calif. — This summer, the median rent for a one-bedroom in San Francisco’s cityscape of peaked Victorians soared higher than Manhattan’s, sent skyward by a housing shortage fueled in part by the arrival of droves of newcomers here to mine tech gold.

And so, as the story of such cities goes, the priced-out move outward — in New York City, to Brooklyn and, increasingly, to Queens. For San Franciscans, the rent refuge is here in Oakland, where the rates are increasing as well — so much so that young professionals are living in repurposed shipping containers, while the homeless are lugging around coffinlike sleeping boxes on wheels.

These two improvised housing arrangements have emerged in an industrial pocket of Oakland where the median rent has gone up by 20 percent over the past year. One, in a warehouse, is called Containertopia, a community of young people who have set up a village of 160-square-foot shipping containers like ones used in the Port of Oakland. Each resident pays $600 a month to live in a container, which can be modified with things like insulation, glass doors, electrical outlets, solar panels and a self-contained shower and toilet.

Containertopia was started last year by Luke Iseman, 32, and Heather Stewart, 30, who were then a couple. For Mr. Iseman, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and works in technology — most recently developing automated systems for watering plants — container living has been a social experiment in stripping down to the basics, one that he hopes to teach others to replicate.

“If we can do it in one of the highest-cost places in the world,” he said, “people can do this anywhere.”

Just outside the warehouse doors is another community, residing, too, in containers of a sort. Here, the homeless live in dwellings made by a local artist named Gregory Kloehn, set on wheels and made for the streets. Each is about eight feet long and tall enough for a person to sit up in.

“It doesn’t fit our mind-set of what a home is,” said Mr. Kloehn, 44, who began creating and giving away the portable homes, which are made of recycled material, in 2011. Oakland has about 3,000 homeless people, according to the East Oakland Community Project, a nonprofit organization that helps house people who live on the street; San Francisco has about 6,700.

Little Boxes (let's take the wayback machine 50 years ago.....)

Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1962 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1990. Malvina and her husband were on their way from where they lived in Berkeley, through San Francisco and down the peninsula to La Honda where she was to sing at a meeting of the Friends’ Committee on Legislation (not the PTA, as Pete Seeger says in the documentary about Malvina, “Love It Like a Fool”). As she drove through Daly City, she said “Bud, take the wheel. I feel a song coming on.”


Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,1
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

Keetwonen is the name of the biggest container city in the world (we know of no other village of shipping containers of this size: do you?). Living in a converted shipping container was a new concept in the Netherlands when launched by Tempohousing, but the city of Amsterdam took the courageous step to contract Tempohousing to go and realize it. It turned out to be a big success among students in Amsterdam and it is now the second most popular student dormitory offered by the student housing corporation "De Key" (http://www.dekey.nl) in Amsterdam (and they have many). The initial fears of some people that the container homeswould be too small, too noisy, too cold or too hot, all turned out to be unfounded: : they turned out to be spacious, quiet and well insulated and certainly offer value for money, compared to other student homes in the city.

They also come complete with amenities often missing in other student dormitories: your own bathroom and kitchen, balcony, separate sleeping and study room, large windows that provide daylight and a view and even an automatic ventilation system with variable speeds. The heating is from a central natural gas boiler system. The hot water is supplied by one 50 liter tank per home and a high speed internet connection is included, as well as a central audio phone system for visitors at the main door downstairs. The whole project was designed with an eye on how students like to live: a place for yourself, not having to share the shower and the toilet with strangers, but at the same time lots of possibilities to participate in the social life of the dormitory, including the many parties that come with being a student. The blocks have a closed off internal area for safe bicycle parking.

Big RR wrote:FWIW, I don't think these containers are a bad idea for temporary housing (or even vacation homes), but certainly we can make permanent homes more aesthetically pleasing. Kind of like trailer parks, there are nice ones (my parents retired to one), but many are pretty much eyesores.

Put the container underground and it's a great bomb shelter.

Big RR wrote:Oldr--it has been a lot of years since I took my civil defense course, but as I recall, to protect against fallout you wanted two things in a bomb shelter, a lot of mass (hence the concrete walls and ceiling) and preferably a lead lining. I'm not certain if corrugated metal containers would suffice, although they are probably better than nothing. Ten again, if you need to use them, who wants to sit in a metal or concrete underground box while everyone is pounding on the door, let alone considering what you will likely be exiting to eventually?

One place I worked did have an explosives bunker made out of corrugated metal and buried on here sides in a mound of dirt, so it might well be good against ordinary blasts.

Jim--watch it; talk like that will not be tolerated by "them"