Devcore proposes tiny homes community on site of Gatineau tent city

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The Gatineau development company that spearheaded the establishment of a tent city beside the Robert Guertin Arena has proposed that a new community of tiny homes be constructed on the same site.

Devcore Group announced Tuesday that the Guertin campground, which includes 48 heated tents, would close as scheduled on May 15.

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Volunteers and Devcore employees will then begin to dismantle the camp, including its fences, toilets, security station and warming hut.

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“Devcore has made the difficult decision not to continue (the camp),” the company said in a news release.

It said the heat of the parking lot and construction at the Guertin Arena — it is scheduled for demolition — made the site inappropriate for a summer encampment.

Those people now living on the site will be allowed to keep their tents, Devcore said, along with all of the equipment that came with them, including lamps, beds, sleeping bag and storage bins.

The tents will be modified with mosquito nets to make them more suitable for the summer months, said Sylvie Carbonneau, Devcore’s senior director of communications.

Devcore also announced that it had submitted a proposal to the City of Gatineau to build a community of tiny homes on the Guertin site.

Devcore and a group of private investors plan to pour up to $4 million into the scheme if Gatineau agrees to provide city services, including water and sewer, to the community.

Carbonneau said the community would comprise 54 shipping containers, each divided into two or three living units. All of them will be equipped with heating, air-conditioning, a bed, fridge, cupboard, sink and toilet.

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“It’s really a small unit with everything someone needs to live in,” Carbonneau said.

According to the proposal made to the city, tenants in the tiny homes will be charged $300 a month in rent.

The community will be able to house about 100 people and will include a community kitchen, garden and dog park, Carbonneau said.

The City of Gatineau is studying the proposal.

“Everybody is mobilized and everybody wants to find a solution to this problem,” Carbonneau said.

Late last year, the city of Peterborough, Ont., built 50 tiny, modular homes on the edge of downtown to help its homeless population survive the winter. Each 107-square-foot, single-room home cost about $21,000 and came equipped with a heating and cooling unit, double bed, mini-fridge and dresser. The Province of Ontario contributed more than $2 million to the project, which costs $1.9 million a year to operate.

Residents of Peterborough’s tiny homes community pay modest rents commensurate with their incomes.

Many housing advocates consider tiny homes a necessary measure to address Canada’s unprecedented homelessness crisis and an affordable source of emergency, transitional housing.

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Gatineau’s Camp Guertin was established in December after Devcore’s leaders decided to act following two deaths at a nearby, makeshift encampment in a city park. Camp dwellers were burning hand sanitizer in metal buckets to stay warm and using candles for light.

Devcore president Jean-Pierre Poulin drew on business contacts and quickly raised $350,000 to launch Camp Guertin with city approval.

Fishing tents were mounted on wooden pallets, and each was supplied with a light, camp bed, electric blanket and heater. A security station was built, along with a bathroom, a tent where campers could socialize and a warming hut. Social services were also extended to the community by local authorities.

“We are extremely pleased the outcomes of this winter emergency measure,” said Poulin, founder and president of Devcore Group, and a minority owner of the Ottawa Senators. “We close this chapter with pride, giving us the momentum to focus on phase two of the project.”

Nancy Martineau, director of humanitarian projects at Devcore, said no one in Camp Guertin died from exposure or lost limbs to frostbite, while two people were rescued from drug overdoses. “For us, this a tremendous success,” she said.

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