Across Canada, there is a gap in available options for people sleeping rough, between shelters/encampments and affordable/supportive housing. In Toronto, there are three reasons for this:

1. more people are becoming unhoused every day
2. the overburdened shelter system can’t support all of them right now
3. permanent housing is slow to build – years away – so most people can’t exit homelessness right now either

Tents to Cabins to Home aims to help unsheltered people in Toronto by building a pilot Cabin Community. This takes empty land that is soon to be turned into permanent housing, like a parking lot, and uses them for beautiful temporary shelters while we wait for that permanent housing construction to begin. It will take 6-8 months to deploy the community, the community can be relocated to a different site within a day once construction is ready to begin.

The Cabin Community model includes 50 lockable, heated cabins, plus a central community space with washrooms, showers, laundry, and a kitchen/dining space. It will help unsheltered people move into safe, warm, dignified shelter faster, maximize use of vacant land, and prepare formerly-unhoused residents to succeed at living in affordable housing once it is built in Toronto. When we interviewed people living in parks about our model, 85% said they would live in a community like this.

Support this pilot cabin community by donating!