A temporary home for Brighton's homeless

In Ari Karismauki's classic film Man Without a Past the principal character, a Helsinki welder, loses his memory after an assault in the street and drifts into a community of homeless people living in shipping containers. It's a film about kindness and humanity among people who are ignored and demonised by the society around them.

In a strange case of life imitating art, Brighton's latest project to deal with the growing problem of homelessness in the city involves a block of units made from shipping containers. Over the last couple of days the containers have been arriving at the site in New England Street, a disused scrapyard. It's just around the corner from where I work and I've been watching the work. It's certainly attracted the crowds.

I wholly applaud the efforts made by the Brighton Housing Trust, but it seems sad that in one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, we appear to have lost the ability to house our citizens at reasonable cost, and that we are obliged to improvise this kind of temporary relief.