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Shelter wants to build apartments for chronically homeless

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Des Moines homeless shelter is planning to use repurposed shipping containers to construct permanent apartments for chronically homeless people.

The 24-unit project would be erected in the same drainage ditch where homeless people have set up camps.

Central Iowa Shelter and Services' director Melissa O'Neil told The Des Moines Register the shelter's applied for $2.7 million from the National Housing Trust Fund.

The Institute for Community Alliances says the number of people living on Des Moines streets more than doubled to 107 in 2017 from 52 in 2016.

In November dozens of the metro's chronically homeless moved onto retention basin ditch, which sits within 100 feet of the homeless shelter.

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