Toronto is struggling to find space for tiny homes
City hall audited nearly 70 potential public sites for the micro shelters. None were deemed suitable
After performing an about-face on micro shelters for people experiencing homelessness and reviewing nearly 70 locations as potential sites, the city has said it has found no suitable land on which to build the structures.
Toronto initially looked into 44 city-owned sites but came up empty handed. “No available parcel of land satisfied the necessary criteria for a viable micro-shelter program without conflicting with other planned municipal uses,” stated the April 21 report on the city hall’s shelter strategy.
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The city then assessed 23 TTC parking lots to see if they could accommodate tiny homes and also found them unsuitable: 11 were not, in fact, city-owned, and other areas, such as utility corridors, do not permit such shelters. Of the remaining 12 city-owned lots, six were already committed to other uses (including affordable housing) while four were too small. The last two were already in high use and presented “infrastructure constraints that would significantly limit development potential,” the report states.
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Micro shelters are currently part of Toronto’s 10-year homelessness strategy, with a two-year pilot project asking non-profits to submit proposals that must identify land for usage. The window for applications ended in February, and there were only three submissions, which the city is reviewing now.
