The Belgian medico-social organisation Street Nurses has launched a crowdfunding campaign for the 'Sweet Home Module' project which envisages high-quality mobile housing modules being placed on temporarily unused sites, in order to make affordable housing available to an extremely vulnerable section of the public more quickly.
The module is a kind of tiny house: a high-quality wooden prefab house of 26 square meters. These tiny houses can be moved and given a place on sites that temporarily have no use.
"Our housing modules meet the housing standards of the Brussels Region," Olivier Vadi of Street Nurses said. "They are therefore a solution in themselves. But they also have the great advantage that they cost very little for the residents since there are no common burdens like in an apartment."
Related News
- Brussels region overturns ban on child begging
- Brussels scraps 300 shelter places for region's record-high homeless population
- Women and children increasingly at risk of becoming homeless in Belgium
In the Brussels municipality of Forest, a site with six such housing modules has already been inaugurated. One of the residents is Robert, who has lived on the streets for 20 years.
"I wish that the other people who still live on the street could also get a housing module," he said. "That way they could pick up their lives again."
Inside of one of the modules. Credit: Infirmiers de Rue
That is also what Street Nurses want now that the project’s test phase is over.
"Now it is important that it can be rolled out further in other municipalities and by other interested parties," Vadi said. "The next modules are planned for Neder-over-Heembeek. In the future, we would also like to roll out the project in Liège."
Those who want to support the project can do so through the crowdfunding campaign.
