Viceroy Homes and Japanese partner to provide and build emergency housing units over next three months

Viceroy Homes Ltd., an international manufacturer of pre-engineered homes, announced that it is working closely with its exclusive building partner in Japan to immediately begin providing a portion of the 30,000 temporary home units requested by the Japanese government to house victims displaced by the recent devastating earthquake and tsunami in that country.

“Japan has been a very important market for Viceroy Homes for more than 15 years,” says Viceroy president Daniel Fox. “We’ve established very close relationships there over the years and are doing everything possible to help our Japanese customers, colleagues and friends who have endured an unbelievably difficult situation.”

For this initiative, Viceroy Homes is working with its exclusive Japanese building partner, Selco Homes, to respond to the Japanese government’s request to the nation’s building industry to build 30,000 temporary housing units for the 350,000 people now living in evacuation centres in the hardest hit Northern regions of the country.

Selco Homes’ head office is located in the northern city of Sendai, at the center of the most heavily damaged prefectures. The Japanese government, which is providing full funding for the building program, has invited Selco to submit a proposal for both temporary and permanent housing solutions in this region. Selco is a key member of the Association of Japanese Builders, which has an immediate mandate to provide approximately 10,000 temporary housing units over the next three months.

Viceroy Homes is working with Selco to design and manufacture a portion of the required temporary housing units, which will be manufactured in Canada with Canadian building materials before being shipped by sea to Japan, where they will be constructed by Selco.

Beyond responding to this initial emergency request from the Japanese government, Viceroy Homes will continue working with its Japanese partner (Selco) to provide permanent housing solutions as Japan looks to re-build upwards of 100,000 single family units over the next three to five years in the devastated Northern region

“We are also prepared to offer our services and technical expertise to the Canadian government should our government decide to include Canadian housing solutions as part of its own disaster relief program for Japan,” said Fox.