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ambergris

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Rose Mandungu dreamed of renting a houseboat on an Amsterdam canal when she started university. The only place she could find was a converted shipping container.

''I'm looking for a better place,'' said the criminology student, who last year moved into one of 380 steel boxes stacked around a shipyard crawling with rats and cockroaches.

Mandungu, 20, probably won't be able to leave Amsterdam's first container village anytime soon. Close to 150 home seekers chase every 100 houses offered for rent, according to the Dutch Housing Ministry.

Struggling to cope with demand for housing, Amsterdam is moving students and welfare recipients into shipping containers and turning cruise ships into dormitories. The city's latest ploy -- converting empty offices into apartments -- may fail as developers balk at expensive remodeling amid rent controls that will limit their returns.

''We have our hands full trying to address the housing problem,'' said Pieter van Geel, state secretary for housing, planning and the environment. ``There is a big shortage of housing, and at the same time a resistance to rent liberalization.''

The Dutch don't want to hear about more delays, as waiting lists lengthen and people flood into the city's three container towns. Around 2,500 people now live in the containers, which are about 258 square feet, are stacked three-high and go for about 340 ($445) a month.

The housing shortage springs partly from the city's physical limits. Amsterdam, home to about 750,000 people, was mostly built more than 700 years ago when settlers dammed the Amstel river and filled in land, creating the canals that still ring the city center. Today, Amsterdam is about 25 percent water.

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