NEW YORK: The five hundred and twenty-second entry for the seniors housing Global Awards 2016 has been received.
The building at the corner of Helmcken and Richards streets in Vancouver looks like an average new condo: sharp modern design, acid-green panels lighting up the putty-grey exterior, roof garden perched high above.
In fact, Jubilee House is social housing. And not just another serviceable social-housing building, but one that has pushed the frontier when it comes to creative design for poor tenants.
It has diatomaceous powder (crushed rocks whose tiny fragments lacerate and kill crawling bugs) embedded behind all the walls, to combat the bedbug infestations that frequently plague low-cost housing.
If a bedbug colony does manage to invade, the building has a special “baking” room that can be heated to the temperatures needed to kill bugs so that tenants can sanitize their furniture and clothing in-house.
A special pump in the ceiling draws old air out and replaces it with fresh if someone is smoking in a room with the windows closed, which helps prevent smells and stains for the tenants who smoke.
