How can tiny shelters help fight homelessness in Hamilton? Council says it still needs more time to find out

Hamilton councillors are hitting pause on the plan to build tiny homes for unhoused residents in order to better understand how those homes will be run and how the community they are hoping to serve will be impacted.

Councillors raised the questions of how the structures will operate and where they will be located — the latter has dominated the discussion so far, they said — at council on Jan. 25. 

A new approach, proposed by Coun. Nrinder Nann, asks city staff to do further research and work with the Hamilton Alliance for Tiny Shelters (HATS), a group that says it has presented to councillors nine times already and feels no closer to its goal of providing temporary housing to houseless residents.

HATS wants to build a cluster of tiny cabins that it says would act as a stepping stone toward housing for people living on the streets. They would be located on a site with washroom facilities and potentially a kitchen, with support workers present to help residents find employment, mental health help and permanent housing, the group says.

Several locations already considered

So far, the group has faced challenges finding a site with willing owners and neighbours. It initially looked at the downtown location of the now-closed Sir John A. Macdonald high school, which was deemed inappropriate due to the timing of the building's demolition.

Earlier this month, the group abandoned plans for a site at 647 Barton St. E., just west of Sherman Avenue North, after area residents voiced concerns about the location, HATS board member Tom Cooper told CBC Hamilton.

"A lot of community members there feel they've been saturated with a lot of different social services coming into their neighbourhood," he said on Thursday. "We listened to the community."

A report the group presented to Emergency and Community Service Committee earlier in January suggests sites at Cathedral Park in Ward 1, the Barton-Tiffany lands near the CN Rail yard in Ward 2, and Lloyd Street in Ward 3 as potential options. 

"We couldn't get council to even consider any of the sites because they said we hadn't done community consultation yet. Yet we can't do community consultation everywhere – we needed to narrow down a site," Cooper said.

Report expected in four months

On Jan. 25, Nann pitched the new approach that directs staff to work with HATS to "align the intake, operational, community consultation and site selection process of their initiative to the Housing and Homelessness Strategy framework."

In other words, the motion directs city staff to work with HATS to detail a plan and "address previously stated operational concerns flagged by Housing Services and other councillors," Nann told CBC Hamilton after Wednesday's meeting.

The result will be a report back to council in about four months, according to Angela Burden, the city's general manager of healthy and safe communities. It will include recommendations on how to implement the project and site-selection criteria.

"There has been an over-emphasis on site location and not enough emphasis on outcomes for the residents that HATS aims to serve," said Nann in an email.

"The goal is to help HATS get over the hurdle and clarify in certain terms and be informed by the best practices and accountability frameworks of the homeless serving sector."

She said the report will lay out the following types of details:

• The intake process;
• The operational plan, including the service provider;
• The community consultation framework; and 
• The site selection process.

Council unanimously supported the motion.

"We've spun [HATS] in circles," said Ward 2 Coun. Cameron Kroestch before the vote. "What should have happened was, an organization comes forward, they make a proposal, staff responds with their professional advice, and based on that we make a decision."

He noted the timing of the election late last year, and many new faces on council, has contributed to the delay. Kroetsch and Coun. Maureen Wilson (Ward 1) – who described what has transpired so far as a "most regrettable process" – were among the councillors who indicated that it will be easier to make decisions on the project when provided with all the information in Nann's motion.

"Coun. Nann's motion actually gets us to a more holistic place," said Kroetsch.

About 1,550 people living unhoused

Cooper, who is also the director of Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, said that, to him, the motion seems like yet another delay. By the time the report comes, a full winter will have passed since the HATS first made its pitch to the public, and the proposal will be a year old with little apparent movement, he said.

"It's a bit frustrating for us," he said Thursday, saying the organization has provided detailed plans to city staff and council on numerous occasions. "It seems like a way to delay a project that we see as absolutely essential."

Cooper believes city staff are supportive of the project; saying the opposition seems largely political.

Last year, the Hamilton Encampment Support Network (HESN) said they were concerned the project could take efforts away from advocating against encampment evictions and for permanent housing. They also questioned how people experiencing homelessness were involved in the project planning process.

Cooper said many of the city's estimated 1,550 people living unhoused are supportive of the project.

"One thing we did very early in this process is go out and talk to people experiencing homelessness," he said. "Almost to a person they said, 'Yeah. I'd really value that sort of opportunity.'" 

'If council wants to move forward with it, then say you're committed'

At the recent council meeting, Nann acknowledged the frustration among HATS supporters and volunteers.

"I want to recognize that the past dealings have made it very difficult for the volunteers and caused a lot of high emotion and feeling across our community," she said. 

Several councillors, including John-Paul Danko (Ward 8) and Brad Clark (Ward 9) cautioned their colleagues against drawing out the process further if the project isn't something they would ultimately support.

"We consistently have been chasing a site and the problem is, it doesn't matter which site we go to, there is reluctance, fear, reticence… and apprehensions," said Clark. "They don't want it in their neighborhood.

"If council wants to move forward with it, then say you're committed and start moving forward with it," he added. "If we put that same effort into finding housing – supportive housing – for a larger number, think about how further we would be along."